Black Sky
by Umei no Mai
Summary: When you're a Black, you're a Black and nobody gets to hold all the cards except you. Not a Dark Lord with a grudge, not a Headmaster with a prophecy and certainly not the world's most influential Mafia Family... Dorea is as much a Black as a Potter and she is not about to let anybody walk over her! A Fem!Harry story. Slow Build.
1. Chapter 1

Beta'd by the amazing InsaneScriptist

I am not JK Rowling and do not own the Harry Potter franchise, though my take on the story is all my own.

* * *

**Where it started**

James Potter had discovered he couldn't have children halfway through his last year of Hogwarts.

It had been an accidental discovery: Slughorn had been talking about how potions accidents could have long-term health effects if not properly screened and treated on time, a tactic no doubt designed to cover his back should those students attempting to impress him accidentally mess themselves up while attempting the more challenging brews in their free time and not tell Pomphrey, but James had found himself wondering about all those prank potions the Marauders had brewed over the years and how some of them had gone wrong. The explosions had been entertaining afterwards but getting to know Lily had educated him about how Muggles hospitalised people who had been near fires and explosions due to them breathing in smoke and volatiles which damaged the lungs.

James hadn't been able to stop worrying about possibly damaging his friends, so he, Sirius and Remus had got Lily to help them learn the Diagnosis Charm, using a quill as the medium so that injuries and so-on would be written down rather than visible to the caster. It took a bit of modifying but Remus wasn't top of Arithmancy for nothing. They'd cast it on Remus first, since his furry problem would counter most other medical issues and would be the test of whether they'd got the charm right.

It did work, right down to the inoculations Remus had been given as a child, so James cast the spell on Peter while Remus did it on Sirius. Then Sirius cast it on James. Those copies were private, since Remus' copy had proved that yes, he _had_ taken potion damage but his furry problem had fixed it before it set in. The other three Marauders didn't have lycanthropy so they were all bound to have taken some damage, which made James angry that Slughorn hadn't said something to this effect in first year. Even third year would have been soon enough. There had been no few accidents in class after all, a few with potentially dangerous ingredients the Potions Master hadn't made them all see Pomfrey about.

Peter didn't share what was on his paper, going very red then burning it, and none of the others really wanted to ask as they had their own diagnoses to focus on. Sirius discovered that an accident in third year had messed up his inhibitions and made him reckless, which sounded cool but was really bad considering there was a war on and he might get people killed and himself with them. It also destroyed Sirius' dream of becoming an auror, which depressed him for several weeks. James learned that the funny fizzy potion he had been tweaking for a prolonged bubbling phase that had abruptly boiled dry on him in fifth year while Sirius and Peter were in detention had over the past two years made him completely infertile. He had researched the plant that had induced the fizzy effect afterwards and learned that it was a common ingredient in Fertility Potions, so he hadn't been too bothered about it then. Going back to the Restricted Section after his diagnosis however revealed that when said ingredient was brewed with Gurdyroots the resulting potion was commonly fed to Magical Creatures to prevent them from breeding. James had breathed in a lot of fumes, so its effect on him was not at all surprising. Why wasn't this kind of thing mentioned in class!

James confessed this to Sirius privately after Sirius told him about his inability to become an auror or even a hit wizard. Sirius had been shocked, instantly shoving his own depression aside and spending the next five hours persuading his best friend not to break off his fledgling relationship with Lily Evans. James resisted his friend's arguments until Sirius swore an oath as James' adopted brother to assist him in having children in any way possible that didn't involve breaking eventual marriage vows, at which point the Potter heir folded like a cheap table and spent a further half-hour sobbing in relief at being able to not feel guilty about continuing his relationship with his girlfriend.

* * *

They never told Remus or Peter about either problem –it didn't feel right– but by the time they graduated James had found a potion that in normal people instilled mild paranoia but just made Sirius a bit more careful. It wasn't even addictive or poisonous over long periods of time, but did make latent paranoia more likely in the long run. Sirius just pointed out that for him that might be a good thing and James sighed, resigning himself to monthly brewing sessions in the basement with his brother for the rest of their lives.

Sirius on the other hand managed to sneak back into his childhood home in Grimmauld Place and steal a book on bloodline theft from the library. Since getting Lily to conceive without Sirius actually touching her would _technically_ be done by means similar to bloodline theft, James was okay with it. If uncomfortable, as bloodline theft was _wrong_ and doing it to his brother was doubly wrong, no matter how willing said brother was and that it had been Sirius' idea in the first place. The book also had details on blood-adoption that would pass goblin and magical scrutiny because House Black had of course tested and documented such things extensively in their murky past, so James would be able to make Lily's children his true heirs rather than just adopting them into his family.

Sirius hadn't wanted to tell Lily about James' problem, especially after finding out that for the potion to work the man involved had to be capable of fathering children –he'd hoped that with a potion James would be able to sire the kid because while ideal that kind of magical solution didn't seem to exist yet and neithr man had the genius to invent it– but James had insisted. Had told her right after proposing, in fact, so she could back out if she wanted. Lily had been horrified, but then her love, compassion and thirst for knowledge had kicked in and she'd hugged her fiancé and demanded to be in on the research. It had taken them a year to get everything just right in between fighting with the Order of the Phoenix, what with sorting out wills, custody, inheritance and so on as well as making sure the potion would work, but on the first of November a year after they graduated Lily drank the potion and a week later informed James and Sirius that they were going to be fathers. James did the blood adoption immediately: the ritual was a simple one often used in the middle ages to 'legitimise' children conceived through rape or love potions. A proper paternity test would reveal Sirius Black to be the baby's father, but the child would look a bit like James and register to the goblins as a Potter as well as a Black. If the goblins got curious then James just had to point out that his mother was a Black. As James was the only Potter left, that would make the baby his heir.

Picking out a name took forever though, even after Lily announced that the baby was a girl. Sirius was determined that the baby would be a Potter first, so tried to get James to pick the name. James insisted that Sirius should choose as actual father and Lily eventually got sick and tired of the stupidity and declared that the baby would be Dorea Rose Black-Potter. Sirius then risked life and limb pointing out that 'Rose' was rather plain as a name and had a book thrown at him. James quickly stepped in by suggesting 'Rosamund', which he eventually admitted was what his mother would have called him if he'd been born a girl. Sirius howled with laughter, Lily calmed down enough to giggle and James pouted at his wife and brother but secretly felt it was worth it. Even though Sirius charmed his hair pink for a week afterwards and called him 'Rosebud'.

* * *

When the baby was born, a lovely little girl with a shock of curly black hair and clear blue eyes that soon turned brilliant green like her mother's, James put her full name on the birth certificate for the family Vault but only put 'Rose Potter' in the Daily Prophet announcement. His daughter might be named after his mother but she had been a Black and Sirius' great aunt so 'Dorea' would be his daughter's 'Black' name. They were at war after all and keeping his precious baby girl safe was what mattered. If she would be safer as a Black –which she probably would– then a Black she would be.

Keeping Lily and his little Rose safe was unfortunately getting more and more difficult by the day: even with Sirius' help the war was getting ever more heated and even though Potter Manor where he'd grown up had excellent wards it was large and its location practically public knowledge. If the Death Eaters decided to besiege it they would take casualties but eventually break through. So rather than stay there James rotated his family through the half-dozen smaller cottages, holiday homes and town house the Potters owned on an irregular schedule while Lily threw herself into studying Charms and Runes in a quest to find a more permanent solution.

Lily's initial solution was runic and her Mastery project: using Rose's cot as a focus she built a protective ward to guard their daughter from harm. All three of them regularly donated blood to the runes to strengthen them and so long as Rose was in the cot when attacked nobody else would be able to remove her or harm her. Unfortunately the ward was unlikely to hold up against the Killing Curse or Fiendfyre, but that was a pretty small loophole really. Lily was still researching charms when Dumbledore suggested the Fidelius Charm, which he had found in his library.

James and Sirius both found it hilarious that, rather than let Dumbledore cast the charm, Lily insisted on learning it herself. She didn't manage to master it until after Rose's first birthday, by which point things were getting slightly desperate as four of the Potter residences and Sirius' flat had all been invaded and trashed by Death Eaters.

Dumbledore offered his own house to James and Lily then, stating that since he lived in Hogwarts and had for over fifty years now it would be a perfect place to go to ground. Lily agreed so James went along with it, intending to keep their hiding in Godric's Hollow as a short interval during which he could fix up the ruined properties and Lily could cast Fidelius on the still intact ones. It would also give him time to root out the spy in the Order, as for the Death Eaters to have found some of the destroyed properties a spy had to have told them: the only living people to have visited them were all in the Order. James didn't believe for a moment that Remus was the spy, but was happy to let others think it as it would encourage complacency and give him and Sirius a chance to catch the real traitor.

It was mid-October when the house in Godric's Hollow was finally ready to move into, so James, Lily and Rose settled in. But Sirius was worried about news of their using the charm having got out and suggested Peter be secret keeper while he acted as a decoy. Lily didn't like it but James could understand where his brother was coming from, so persuaded his wife to agree. It took a further week for them to track down Peter, but their old friend agreed at once and Lily cast the charm on October 26th.

Five days later James learned who the _real_ traitor was and cursed Peter Pettigrew with his dying breath as Voldemort stepped over the threshold. His last thought was a plea for Lily's runework to hold up and for Sirius to look after their daughter.


	2. Chapter 2

Beta'd by the brilliant Insane Scriptist.

I am not JK Rowling and do not own the Harry Potter franchise, much as I would like to be that rich.

* * *

**Of secrets revealed**

Sirius had been looking for Peter when he felt his adopted brother die; that his old school friend wasn't in the pre-arranged hiding-place then abruptly made an awful kind of sense and the disgraced Black dashed out to his motorbike and took to the air. He could have apparated to Godric's Hollow but that would have meant leaving the bike and its numerous enhancements behind, which would be dumb considering the number of wards Lily had helped him add to it since Dorry-Rose was born. If James was dead then Sirius was already too late and all he could do was hope that Lily's Blood Ward on the crib would hold up.

He was still a good way away when a flash on the horizon filled him with dread; the sluggish roar that followed it a minute later had him leaning forward and pushing the Speed Charms to their limits until the cottage came into view.

It was trashed: half the ceiling had been blown off along with a good chunk off wall. Sirius almost fell off the bike in his hurry to get inside the building when he realised that the hole corresponded with the nursery. Charging through the destroyed front door Sirius spared a moment to take in his brother's body slumped in the hall, slain by the killing curse, before hurrying upstairs. The nursery door was half off its hinges and mostly missing, there was splintered wood all over the floor and Lily's body was slumped in front of the cot. _My fault_, Sirius mourned, cursing himself for ever having trusted Pettigrew.

The miraculously semi-intact cot looked like parts of it had spontaneously combusted and had rune-shaped burns gouged deeply into its remaining fabric. Sirius took in the location of the cot compared to the explosive damage done to the building and realised that it was firmly at the epicentre. Had the runes worked?

There was a soft whimper as the blankets shifted. "Mama?"

Sirius almost apparated to the cot, leaning over the edge to scoop up his precious, miraculously alive baby girl and clutch her close as he tried not to cry in relief. "Dorry-Rose, Papa's here," he crooned, wrapping the cot blanket around her more snugly to protect her from the bitter autumn air. The cot was completely burned out but had done what it had been supposed to, which was protect Dorry-Rose. The puffy focus rune now burned into her forehead suggested that the Blood Ward had done something unexpected –which Lily had warned them might happen as Blood Wards were too strong to be stable when anchored in wood– but as this had been a strictly protective ward Siruis wasn't too worried about it. He could investigate it later, once his baby girl was safe. The cot collapsed completely into ash and splinters as soon as Dorry-Rose was out of it, confirming Sirius' suspicions that the Ward had been the only thing holding it together.

"Papa, Mama?" Dorry-Rose mumbled, snuggling closer as Sirius tucked her inside his coat.

"Mama's gone baby girl," Sirius said, voice hitching. "Dada's gone too, so be good for your Papa please?"

"Papa go?"

"No! No, Papa is staying with his Dorry," Sirius said firmly, "but Papa needs to find your blankets and Mama's travel bag." Lily had an emergency grab bag with all the required baby things that she kept by the Floo and she was unlikely to have unpacked it just yet. All the previous shuffling around Potter properties at odd times had taught them all that a baby bag was a good thing to keep at hand because even with magic settling in took time and you never knew when you might be attacked and have to leave in a hurry. Being without nappies had only happened once but it had been one time too many! Quickly casting a monitoring ward around the ruined property he set off to find what few important things were actually in the house: Lily's latest research notebooks, James' keys, both their wands, the photo albums and all of Dorry-Rose's toys and clothing. It took less than ten minutes to pack it all up in the motorbike saddlebags and change his daughter into clothes more suited to late night air travel. Yes, he desperately wanted to hunt down Peter and blast him into a hundred screaming pieces but that was partly his recklessness talking. The potion instilling caution in his was however letting his good sense make itself heard too and that was the advice he was following. His daughter came first.

"Sirius?" Sirius straightened up from tying down the saddlebags and turned quickly, pointing his wand at the looming shadow just outside the reach of his temporary ward then relaxed slightly. It was Hagrid.

"Hagrid? What are you doing here?" he asked, casually unravelling the ward and sitting down on the bike saddle.

"Dumbledore sent me," the massive man said, taking in the destroyed cottage, "'e said somethin' was wrong. Lily and James-"

"Dead; Voldemort got them," Sirius said grimly, glad that Dorry-Rose was asleep in her carrier under his coat and invisible to the casual observer due to expansion charms on the coat lining. Sirius was fond of the gamekeeper, but the man couldn't keep a secret to save his life –or anyone else's– and his daughter had to stay a secret. Her young and fragile life depended on it. Peter's betrayal had seriously shaken his trust in the Order so no matter how nice the half-giant was, he didn't get to know.

"Both of em? No!" The half-giant looked shattered. "An' little Rose?"

Sirius twitched. "Rose?"

Hagrid looked puzzled. "Dumbledore tol' me to take 'er. Said 'e's got somewhere safe set up for 'er. Where is she?"

Sirius made a snap decision. Peter had just betrayed them and Dumbledore already had a contingency plan for his daughter? _Just_ his daughter? Nothing about James or Lily, whose bodies were still cooling behind him? That was fishy. Too fishy. James had told him about the prophecy and they'd agreed it was hogwash, but it sounded like Dumbledore _believed_ it. So Sirius had to protect his daughter from the meddling old man as well as possibly from Voldemort, because if his Dark upbringing had taught him anything it was that nothing good _ever _came of pandering to prophecies.

"There is no Rose Potter," Sirius said harshly, kicking the motorbike into life and taking off before Hagrid could stop him. His own flat was a wreck, his planned hidey-hole was out of the question as he'd told Peter about it in case the rat needed somewhere to go, so all that was left was his relatives. Hopefully his grandfather Arcturus hadn't actually disowned him when his damned mother blasted him off the tapestry in the town house…

* * *

As it happened Sirius had not been disowned, since he was able to land his motorbike on the cobbled courtyard at the back of Black Manor by the stable block without incident. Wheeling the bike into an empty stall he unhooked the saddlebags, slung them over his shoulder and trudged across the yard to the kitchen doors. The house-elves would be up at least, even at this hour of the night. He raised a hand to knock but the door was opened before he could actually touch the wood. Blinking, Sirius looked down into the huge-eyed, bat-eared and wrinkled face of Tansy, who was wearing a neat tea towel with the Black crest on it and giving him The Look that James' mother had always worn when he missed something obvious.

"Ah, hello Tansy?" He said sheepishly. He hadn't seen the elf since he was thirteen but she ran his grandfather's kitchens with efficiency and style.

"Tansy has been expecting master Sirius for several years now," the house-elf said sternly, "but Tansy supposes that late is better than not at all."

"Sorry Tansy; I didn't know if I was welcome or not," Sirius apologised.

Tansy sniffed. "Master Sirius is last heir of Master Black! Of course master Sirius is welcome!"

Sirius felt Dory-Rose stir in her carrier under his coat and realised she probably needed changing. "Tansy?"

"Yes Master Sirius?"

"Can I come in? My daughter probably needs changing."

Sirius was not entirely sure _what_ happened after he said that, but a few minutes later he was sitting at the kitchen table eating omelette while Tansy cooed over 'little mistress Dorry' and another much younger female elf –Mimsy– carted off Sirius' bags while promising to 'sort out rooms for the young master and the little mistress!' Sirius just let it happen: his grandfather's elves had always been kind to him, unlike his mother's disgusting little sycophant Kreacher.

"Tansy?"

"Yes master Sirius?"

"Is Grandfather here?"

"Master Black is asleep upstairs, but Tansy can wake him if it is urgent," the house-elf said thoughtfully.

"It isn't urgent Tansy, not really, but do you think Dorry and I can stay here for a while? Dorry's mother was murdered earlier tonight and this was the safest place I could think of."

Tansy's eyes widened. "Master Sirius' lady-love is dead? Tansy is sorry!"

Sirius tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it, even at the idea of James' wife Lily being his, Sirius', lady-love. She'd been more like his sister. "It wasn't your fault Tansy. I know whose fault it is though and as soon as I've talked to Grandfather and made sure everything is set up for Dorry I'm going to hunt him down and make him _pay_." He took a deep, steadying breath. "James Potter is dead too."

"Tansy is sad to hear that master Sirius' friend is dead," the house-elf said tactfully. "Was master Sirius' friend missy Dorea's son?" Tansy was old enough to have been around before James' parents had married, Sirius realised, and Dorea Black had been Grandfather Arcturus' cousin.

"Yes, he was," Sirius managed. "That's why we named my daughter after her. Dorea Rosamund Black." Because the 'Potter' bit was a secret he'd not be sharing until he was _sure_ he could trust his grandfather.

Then Mimsy came back into the kitchen to tell them that the rooms were ready, his grandfather's primary house-elf Lurcher in tow. The male elf then hustled Sirius and Dorry off upstairs, where the room he'd always stayed in as a child had been cleaned and aired and a crib placed by the dresser. Sirius cautiously examined the crib, determined it was safe so long as the child inside really _was_ a Black then lowered his sleeping daughter into it. Nothing happened, so he carefully activated the crib's security and monitoring runes then stripped off, quickly washed in the connected bathroom and fell into bed. Hopefully Dorry would sleep in a little after the night she'd had.

* * *

Dorry did not, unfortunately, sleep in. Instead she followed her usual routine of waking at 6:15 precisely to demand food. Sirius staggered out of bed for just long enough to get his daughter out of the cradle and hand her over to Mimsy, then fell back into bed and slept until nine, when Lurcher woke him.

"Master Black is calling you to breakfast, master Sirius," the aging elf said firmly, flipping back Sirius' bedcovers with a snap of the fingers and yanking the curtains wide to let in the pale morning sun. Sirius groaned, but dutifully staggered through the shower and into the formal clothes Lurcher had laid out. Grandfather Arcturus was a crotchety old man but he was no pureblood supremacist fanatic and while strict, he could be kind. After dressing Sirius headed for the door, then turned around and dug through the saddlebag leaning against the dressing table for a vial of Caution Concoction. He knew that if he hadn't been drinking it regularly he'd have been hunting Peter even now, baby in tow no matter how bad that would have been for her. He noticed that he didn't have many left; he and James had intended to brew more tomorrow.

That memory was abruptly too much for Sirius and he collapsed to the carpet, sobbing bitterly. _My brother and his wife are dead and it's all my fault. If only I hadn't tried to be clever! I should have been secret keeper; it wasn't going to be for long. Now my daughter is motherless and I have to raise her alone. My best friend is dead, Peter betrayed us and Remus is who-knows where._

"Master Sirius?" Lurcher was back, looking apologetic but resolute. The house-elf offered him a hanky, which Sirius accepted to blow his nose with as he tried to compose himself. He needed to be able to explain things concisely and coherently to his grandfather, the Lord Black, for little Dorry's sake. The Caution Concoction made him better at thinking things through, so he quickly downed the potion and set the empty vial aside.

Taking a moment to splash his face with cold water, Sirius then followed Lurcher downstairs to the Breakfast Room, where Arcturus Black was sitting in a leather armchair sipping a cup of tea and reading the Daily Prophet. At the small table facing him was a place set for Sirius with toast, porridge, bacon and scrambled egg, all under stasis charms to keep them fresh and hot. Dorry was sat on the floor a little to one side, dressed in an old-fashioned romper suit and pinafore and playing with a battered toy hippogriff that seemed familiar. She looked up as soon as Sirius entered the room and waved the stuffed animal at him.

"Papa! Hifi!" She looked so utterly delighted that Sirius wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. He did manage to smile though.

"That's a very fine hippogriff you have there, baby girl. Who gave it to you?"

The one-year-old beamed. "Gapa." She then squealed, waving the toy around for a few moments before hugging it. Sirius smiled helplessly at his daughter's antics and sat down to eat breakfast. He wasn't hungry, but he wasn't about to offend Tansy by refusing to eat her cooking.

He'd managed to eat half the scrambled egg, two rashers of bacon and one slice of toast and marmalade when Dorry-Rose's giggling and his grandfather's sharp intake of breath made him look up. The hippogriff toy was floating in the air, bouncing in time with Dorry-Rose's delighted wriggling. Sirius glanced at his grandfather and smothered a snort of amusement at the old man's expression of gobsmacked pride. Little Dorry-Rose took after her mother in being extremely bright and had been showing accidental magic for six months now. Well, it probably wasn't _really_ accidental as she had definitely turned James' hair green on purpose and this levitation seemed pretty deliberate.

Grandfather then noticed Sirius' laughter and glared at him, but it was a fond, tolerant glare. Grandfather Arcturus had always been accepting, as had his son Orion, Sirius' father, but unfortunately when Sirius had been growing up that quiet tolerance had been completely subsumed by Sirius' mother Walburga's loud, intolerant fanaticism. If his father had been even slightly supportive Sirius wouldn't have run away from home aged sixteen.

"She's been doing this since she was seven months old now," Sirius said, deciding against dragging up the past; "making things float, summoning things, turning toys and people's hair different colours and conjuring little lights."

The elderly Lord Black smiled. "A very talented young lady then."

Sirius did not say that Dorry took after her mother; the words caught in his throat as he was painfully reminded that Lily Potter was dead.

"Anyway, I was hoping you could explain _this_," Grandfather said, straightening the newspaper and turning it around so Sirius could see the front page.

Sirius nearly dropped his teacup as he took in the headline.

**You-Know-Who defeated! **

**Rose Potter survives Killing Curse!**

"Well," he managed to say after a pause to mentally curse the Daily Prophet and its distinctly loose reporting style, "I have no idea about the first one but the second is definitely untrue."

Arcturus Black raised an eyebrow at his grandson. "According to the Prophet dozens of Imperius victims have been turning themselves into the Ministry to testify, captured Death Eaters are sporting faded Dark Marks and Dumbledore himself has asserted that the Dark Lord is no more. The Unspeakables who examined the scene at Potter Cottage agree that the Dark Lord was killed by his own Killing Curse that was somehow reflected back at him after he had killed both Potters. According to Dumbledore, as Rose Potter was the only other person in the house and the event took place in the nursery, the Dark Lord appears to have died after the curse he fired on her was somehow reflected back at him. Later on in the article they refer to Rose Potter as 'The Girl Who Lived'; ridiculous." He sniffed.

Sirius tried to take it in. On the one hand, Voldemort's death was a tremendous relief. On the other, so many people were dead like James and Lily, and most of the Death Eaters were still at large, his crazy cousin Bellatrix included.

"Is this _really_ your daughter, Sirius?" his grandfather inquired, glancing pointedly down at the curly-haired, green-eyed toddler now crawling across the floor towards a small pile of other toys.

"Yes," Sirius said firmly. "Her name is Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter and she is my firstborn and heir, as well as the heir to the Potter family by adoption." Taking a deep breath, Sirius plunged on, "James couldn't have children –there was a potions accident at school– so I promised to help him find an alternative. I brewed the potion for Lily to drink and once she was pregnant James performed the Line Adoption ritual. We did all the paperwork and filed everything correctly; Lily helped. It's legal, it's ironclad and Dorry's my daughter to raise as I see fit. If James and Lily had lived she would have been Rose Potter but with them both dead she's Dorea Black. As James' adopted brother the Potter estates fall under my stewardship until little Dorry either reaches her majority or marries, whichever comes first. Then she'll be Lady Potter until her second son reaches his majority. I've written it down specifically that only I have the authority to arrange a marriage for my daughter and that I will not do so before she is fourteen years of age." He took another breath. "I want her to be _safe_, Grandfather, and James and Lily were betrayed by someone we all believed to be a friend. Can you take care of her for me?"

"You want to leave her here?" Arcturus looked deeply disapproving.

"No! Well, yes, but not for more than a few days!" Sirius pleaded. "I _have_ to hunt down Pettigrew and make him pay for betraying James and Lily to Voldemort! It was all my fault! I suggested he be trusted with the Secret and he sold them out! Please?"

"Very well," the aging Lord Black said with a sigh, "but I will be introducing her to those of the family whom I feel can be trusted. I'm not young, my boy, and I don't have the energy to chase after a toddler all day. Lurcher, Tansy and Mimsy don't either; I will have to acquire a new elf or three."

"Who then?" Sirius demanded nervously.

"Lucretia, Cassiopea and Callidora certainly; young Dorea needs female influences in her life. Probably Pollux; possibly Cedrella as well if she deigns to respond to an owl. I may even invite Andromeda; I hear her daughter is a Metamorphagus and I wish to meet her husband."

Sirius had always been fond of his cousin Andromeda, who had been disowned by his uncle Cygnus Black after running away right after graduating to marry her muggleborn Hufflepuff boyfriend, Ted Tonks. If Dorea being introduced to his frankly intimidating Black great-aunts was the price he had to pay for Andromeda to get welcomed back into the family he would go along with it. "I can agree with that, though I would prefer her not to meet Cygnus at all." He paused, letting the caveat be acknowledged since Cygnus was inordinately proud of his daughter Bellatrix and early as fanatical about blood-purity as his sister Walburga, Sirius's mother. "I don't mind her meeting Narcissa, so long as she isn't left with her, providing nobody finds out who Dorry's mother was. I refuse to cause a scandal and drag my best friends' names into the mud."

"That is perfectly acceptable; I will simply state that her mother was not a pure blood and died during the War," Arcturus said calmly. "Do return as swiftly as you can."

"I will; my daughter needs me," Sirius said resolutely. He then got up and hugged Dorry, who blinked up at him curiously.

"Papa?"

"I'll be back soon, baby girl," he promised with a smile. "Papa always comes back, remember?"

* * *

Finding Pettigrew that very evening and getting framed for his murder and that of twelve innocent bystanders by the cowardly rat was all a bit too much for Sirius. When he finally recovered from his breakdown it was too late: he was locked in Azkaban with no hope of escape or trial. Dumbledore had attested to his being the Potters' Secret Keeper and Sirius' own suppressed guilt and grief combined with his erratic emotional state had reduced the time between Pettigrew's spell and waking up in the cell to a blurred fever-dream. Two things kept him sane: his innocence of the crimes he was accused of and his promise to his daughter.

Sirius didn't remember Dumbledore asking him about Rose Potter, or that his repeated answer of "there is no Rose Potter" had led to Dumbledore changing his approach and asking about the child of Lily and James Potter. Sirius reply to that had been "My brother and his wife have no children," after which Dumbledore had departed in confusion. These blatantly untrue yet utterly sincere statements led the Headmaster to double-check all his own memories and do considerable research into what on earth Sirius could have meant when not chasing after rumours of Voldemort and musing over the prophecy, all of which distracted the aging man from learning of the existence of Sirius' daughter until her arrival at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry nearly ten years later.


	3. Chapter 3

Beta'd by the creative InsaneScriptist.

I do not own the Harry Potter franchise or anyone in it except Dorea, though my interpretation of the extended Black family is my own.

* * *

**Of relatives and surviving them**

Four-year-old Dorry Black carefully smoothed the skirt of her robes as she stood hopefully behind her Great-Auntie Cassiopeia and Grandpa Arcturus in the wide, white corridor of Saint Mungo's Hospital where they were talking to a Healer. She didn't dare reach up to touch her hair, as Great-Auntie Cassiopeia had pulled her normally very curly hair into a very tight plait then pinned it around the top of her head like a crown. It was much more uncomfortable than her usual pigtails but Great-Auntie Cassiopeia had said she had to look smart for her father so Dorry wasn't complaining. She had enjoyed having Great-Auntie fuss over her hair and clothes rather than leave it to Moppet, her house-elf, like she usually did. Great-Auntie knew lots of pretty hair styles that Dorry was still learning to do for herself. She also liked her new black velvet dress robes with its dark red sash and her shiny black button boots. She was a little nervous, because she didn't remember Father, but she knew what he looked like from her photo albums and Grandpa had always told her that Father was innocent and should never have been sent to prison. Great-Auntie Callidora said it was a tray-vest-tea that it had taken the Ministry three years to consent to giving Father a proper trial and their being embarrassed by its results was entirely their own fault. They should have listened to the Family and given Father a trial sooner.

Dorry might have grown up without her father but that didn't mean she'd been lonely. She had her Great-Aunties, her Grandpa, her Grandad and her aunties and cousins. Her Great-Aunties were strict but that was because they were very old and most people didn't do things properly anymore. Dorry was learning about doing things properly, like what robes to wear on what occasions, good manners and so on, as well as how to behave when things didn't really need to be proper, like when she visited her Auntie Andy and Cousin Dora, who had started school in September so she wasn't there when Dorry visited Auntie Andy now. Auntie Andy had explained that proper behaviour was for visiting people who were not trusted family members, as propriety was a code that enabled people to get along even though they didn't like each-other much.

When visiting Aunt Cissa and Draco of course Dorry had to be _very_ proper even though they were family, but Dorry thought that was because Uncle Lucius had what Great-Auntie Cassiopeia called 'de-loo-shuns of grand-year'. She'd mentioned this to Grandpa once and he'd laughed loudly before agreeing and making her promise not to say so to Uncle Lucius or Aunt Cissa, as pointing that kind of thing out was rude. Dorry would never say such a thing to Aunt Cissa anyway: Aunt Cissa liked taking her out with Great-Auntie Cassiopeia and doing fun things like trying on pretty clothes, walking in parks or riding pegasi on the Black Estate. Aunt Cissa also gave her pretty dresses and jewellery on birthdays and at Christmas, so Dorry refused to be rude to her. Dorry thought Aunt Cissa would have liked to have a daughter, but unfortunately she only had Draco. Draco was fun to play with sometimes but he sulked when he lost, which was silly. Everybody lost sometimes and being a sore loser was unattractive. Great-Aunt Cedrella said so.

Dorry lived with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia during the week and spent weekends with Grandpa Arcturus, generally visiting both Great-Aunt Cedrella and Great-Aunt Callidora for an afternoon each during the week and seeing Draco or Dora at Grandpa's on a Saturday, though now Dora was at school she had stopped coming. Auntie Andy and Aunt Cissa didn't get along, so Dorry never saw them together and Draco hadn't got to meet Dora, which he was grumpy about because Dora could change how she looked and that was _cool_. It was also a family secret, so Draco had promised not to tell anyone. Before Dora had gone to Hogwarts Dora had visited Grandpa three times a week for meta-more-fey-goose lessons so she could control her gift properly and keep it secret. Grandpa had explained to Dorry and Dora that people might try to hurt Dora or the Family if they knew she had such a special gift, so it was important to keep it hidden. Dorry hoped Dora was okay at school and that she made friends who she could trust not to be mean to her because she was special. Dorry could change her hair colour and length, so she was a little bit special too. She'd showed this to Dora but not to Draco, because Draco told tales when he was jealous.

Dorry knew she had lots and lots of cousins, but she'd only met Draco and Dora. Great-Aunt Lucretia had no children so Dorry couldn't meet them. Great-Aunt Cedrella's children were all grown up and Gryffindors so while Dorry had heard lots of stories about their childhoods and about Great-Aunt Cedrella's grandchildren, Dorry wasn't sure she wanted to meet them. They sounded very loud and foolish to her. She'd mentioned this and Great-Aunt Cedrella had laughed and agreed that her children and grandchildren were all very loud and a bit foolish, but she'd married Great-Uncle Septimus because she liked that about him and their children took after him that way. Dorry thought she might like to meet one or two of Great-Aunt Cedrella's grandchildren, but definitely not all of them at once.

One cousin Dorry very much wanted to meet was her Great-Aunt Callidora's great-grandson Neville. He sounded very nice indeed. Dorry hadn't been allowed to meet him though because Neville's grandma had thought Dorry's father was a criminal and that Dorry might hurt Neville. Which was stupid because Neville was family, but Dorry would forgive it because Aunt Augusta just wanted Neville to be safe, like Great-Auntie Cassiopeia wanted Dorry to be safe.

Dory had never met her Great-Uncle Cygnus, which she was pleased about because it had been Great-Uncle Cygnus who had thrown Auntie Andy out of the family when she married Uncle Ted, but she had met her Grandad Pollux who was Grandpa Arcturus' cousin. Grandad was rather loud and sometimes very rude, but he knew lots of funny stories and liked playing games with her. Dorry thought he was lonely because two of his children were dead and the other one, Uncle Cygnus, didn't visit much. She'd mentioned this to Auntie Andy once, and at her next visit Grandad had told her about how Auntie Andy and Cousin Dora had visited him and how proud he was of Cousin Dora because of her special magic. He'd also said rude things about Uncle Ted, but Dorry had been proper and polite and ignored them. He'd never met Uncle Ted and didn't want to, so his opinions were moot. Or was it mute? She couldn't remember.

Dorry was starting to feel impatient though. She wanted to meet her father! After he'd been released after his trial Grandpa had taken him directly to Saint Mungo's, because being in prison was very unhealthy. He'd been in hospital for three whole weeks before Dorry had finally been given permission to visit and now she was there they were waiting outside the room! It was silly! She clasped her hands behind her back, looked down at her toes and tried not to fidget. All four of her Great-Aunties agreed that fidgeting was unladylike.

Great-Auntie Cassiopeia and Grandpa had promised her that if Father agreed Dorry would be allowed to meet other children her age and Dorry wanted that very much. She hadn't been allowed to before because Father hadn't given permission. Which wasn't anyone's fault really, because Father hadn't meant to get arrested or for the Ministry to not give him a trial right after Mother and Uncle James died. Grandpa had explained to Dorry that Father had only given him permission to introduce her to specific people and as Dorry's father that was his pre-row-cat-if. So even though Father had been away for three years rather than just two days, Grandpa would stick to the agreement. Keeping your word was very important, especially to Family.

"Dorea." Dorry looked up hopefully. None of her Great-Aunties ever called her 'Dorry' in public because nicknames were private. Great-Auntie Cassiopeia smiled at her. "Healer Goodwin says your father is well enough for you to visit him today. As your Grandfather and I have seen him already this week you may stay here until visiting hours are over, at which point we will come and collect you. Do not leave your father's room until we arrive, understood?"

"Yes, Great-Aunt Cassiopeia; thank-you Great-Aunt Cassiopeia," Dorry said with a little bob of the head before turning to the Healer and smiling at him prettily. "Thank-you very much for looking after my father, Healer Goodwin."

The healer looked startled then smiled back. "You're very welcome Miss Black," he replied, glancing at Grandpa before reaching over to open the door. "Go ahead and go in."

Quickly glancing up at Great-Aunt Cassiopeia to make sure it was proper, Dorea then walked briskly through the open door into the private room where her father was waiting for her.

* * *

Sirius had been desperate to see his little Dorry-Rose from the moment his grandfather had led him out of the courtroom, but the old man had insisted he go to Saint Mungo's and be looked over by a proper Mind-Healer as well as be treated for long-term Dementor exposure first. The canny Lord Black had pointed out that his mind would be all over the place as he recovered and he didn't want to distress his daughter, did he? Sirius had growled and muttered nastily but he'd gone along with it all without a fight. It was for Dorry after all. Grandfather had visited him most days during the past weeks to tell him stories of his daughter's various adventures and doings, some of which were truly hilarious like her innocent observation on Lucius Malfoy's overly pretentious behaviour. Sirius was also in awe of his daughter's natural charm: how had she managed to reconcile Andromeda with crotchety old Grandfather Pollux, who was so vocal in his pureblood bigotry? True, Dorry sounded a bit prim for a four-year-old, but she'd been raised by Great-Aunt Cassie so that was rather to be expected. That she was as vivacious as she was stood testament to how much all the old ladies adored her.

Great-Aunt Cassie had visited him at weekends and shared more domestic tales, such as Dorry's childish difficulties with various words, her attempts at dressing herself and determination to learn as many hair styles as possible. Sirius had been amazed to see the faint yet fond smile on the elderly lady's lined face as she recounted various mishaps involving semi-deliberate wandless magic, his daughter's slight metamorph talent, her brilliance in her studies and love of reading. She also had a keen understanding of quite how far she could push each specific relative, Cassiopeia had revealed with a wry twinkle in her eye as she recounted the Custard Incident that had so amused Septimus Weasley the day she'd first been permitted to stay over with Great-Aunt Cedrella for dinner. Apparently Sirius had a supporter in the elderly Weasely, as he had encouraged Dorry that wanting to be a Slytherin didn't mean she couldn't have fun. Sirius was resigned to his darling girl being in Slytherin –he'd left Dorry in the care of proud, brilliant Slytherins during her tender impressionable years after all and Lily had possessed a thick streak of cunning– but knowing that the pranking tradition would continue regardless was a great relief. He deeply regretted not being there for all the milestones, triumphs and disasters Great-Aunt Cassie had recounted, but at least he wouldn't be missing any more of them.

Then the door opened and jolted him out of his musing as a slender, impeccably-dressed little girl darted through it, coming to a stop at his bedside with her spine straight and hands clasped in front of her. Sirius blinked at the old-fashioned button boots and rather adorably dated velvet dress with its red sash, which was in itself an unexpected concession to his daughter's Gryffindor heritage. The midnight hair neatly pulled back to a braided crown only added to the charmingly childish picture being presented to him. Then he looked into a fair-skinned, fine-boned face still rounded with baby fat and fell in love with his daughter all over again.

She had Lily's eyes, identical in shape and very similar in shade, being an even more vivid and luminous green uncannily reminiscent of the colour of the Killing Curse. Her facial bones were almost entirely from Sirius' side of the family, barely blunted at all, but her skin had a hint of the golden undertone that James's had and there was something of James about her nose and ears as well. The long-fingered hands clasped in front of her were also Lily's, graceful and controlled for incredible precision in casting spells, and the sense of contained energy roiling around her was something both James and Lily had possessed, though James had been far less controlled. The inky hair and its hinted wild curls were from her Black heritage though, as was her hidden metamorphagus talent.

What made Sirius smile though was the sheer emotion that shone in those vibrantly green eyes: hope, curiosity, frustration and childishly unconditional love. His baby girl didn't remember him but she still loved him. Smiling widely in an attempt to hide the tears welling up Sirius opened his arms to his daughter:

"Come here Dorry-Rose so I can hug you."

His daughter's smile was radiant as she bounced forward and threw herself onto the bed, mussing her dress as she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest.

"Papa?" it was an achingly soft and uncertain whisper. Sirius felt his heart clench in his chest and a tear escape.

"Papa's here, baby girl. I've missed you so much," he whispered, clutching her to his chest. As he felt her body shaking and wetness seeping into the front of his hospital gown to the sound of soft, hiccupping sobs Sirius quietly cursed his own reckless foolishness and swore to never again put himself in a situation that would separate him from his daughter like this. Not even if it meant spending every day with old-fashioned and stuffy-minded relatives, putting up with Grandfather Pollux's blatantly bigoted after-dinner lectures and Narcissa's overt disdain. For Dorry he would keep his temper in check even if it meant drinking calming draughts and Caution Concoction twice daily.

Though hopefully Grandfather Arcturus had plans for Sirius to be able to live independently with his daughter. He could survive seeing relatives every single day of the week so long as he had somewhere to call his own he could retreat to if necessary. He was sure Grandfather understood, as every single one of the Blacks had their own home, though some shared with their spouses. Arcturus _had_ mentioned in passing that Uncle Alphard's old house was still vacant and well cared-for, which might have been a clue. He'd also mentioned that Sirius' mother Walberga had gone completely senile and was unlikely to live another year, which suggested that once it finally happened Arcturus planned to have that house thoroughly cleaned out and refurbished as was his right as Lord Black. Sirius didn't care _what_ Grandfather did to the place so long as he never had to see Kreacher ever again. He didn't mind house-elves as a rule and had always rather liked the Potter elves but he could not stomach the idea of his mother's little sycophant being in the same house as his precious daughter. He'd sooner kill the thing and be done with it. Which wasn't very kind of him, but Sirius just could not separate the little beast from his mother's cruel and unreasonable punishments. Maybe in a decade or two he'd be able to think rationally about the situation and forgive the elf his obedient complicity but not yet.

He could think about that later though; much more important right now was getting to know the person his daughter had become.

* * *

Remus Lupin sat in his modest, outwardly-dilapidated cottage less than a mile from the village of Yearsley in north Yorkshire –hidden by numerous Muggle-repelling charms of course– and stared at the newspaper strewn across his kitchen table. There were ten articles from the past three weeks, all cut from the _Daily Prophet_, and the picture they created filled him with bitter regret and profound confusion.

Sirius had been innocent. He hadn't betrayed James and Lily at all; that had been Peter, who apparently wasn't dead at all and still at large, probably as a nineteen-toed rat. The articles covered everything from Sirius' trial –in which his grandfather Arcturus had been his legal consul and thoroughly tied the prosecution in knots until they hadn't a leg to stand on– to his current sojourn in Saint Mungo's, complete with details of his various visitors: from Professor McGonagall to the Minister of Magic, who never actually got in and was escorted out 'so as to prevent distress to the patient'. Bagnold's political capital was waning fast, had been ever since the War ended, and now Remus could see that the Black family had a significant role in helping her on her way. There had been occasional articles in the Prophet ever since the January after Voldemort's defeat about how the Lord Black was seeking a public trial for his grandson and heir, but it had taken nearly three years for Sirius to get one, years in which Bagnold had steadily lost the support of the Wizengamot and the Neutrals. She'd finally agreed to the trial as a publicity stunt, stating that 'there would be no doubt concerning Black's guilt' but she had a lot of political egg on her face now and her supporters were thinner on the ground than ever. There was even talk of an inquiry into all the arrests made following the end of the war, with Veritaserum interrogations and investigations into actual crimes committed by the accused individuals.

Remus felt awful knowing that one of his best friends had spent three years in prison for a crime he was not only innocent of but had been committed by Peter. Peter, who always tried so hard to be brave but was, thinking back, inclined to fold if he was in genuine personal peril. Remus wanted to hate Peter for that cowardice, but bitterly recognised that he was just as much of a coward sometimes, if for different reasons. As a werewolf he'd never had friends before Hogwarts, so he tended to silence his conscience rather than risk antagonising them. He was weak-willed and he knew it, knew that he let people who treated him well take advantage of him. Dumbledore had asked all manner of things of him during the War that he would have preferred not to do –including distance himself from his friends, for their safety of course– and he had done them because if not for Dumbledore he could never have attended Hogwarts, which was far superior to the Trade Schools he would never have dared to attend for fear of being found out or the private tutoring he had expected his father to give him. His parents had loved him dearly but they hadn't been wealthy and paying for tutors and examiners in addition to schoolbooks would have been far too great a strain on the Lupin family budget.

It was the other articles that bothered him the most though, the ones with titles like '_Girl Who Lived a Myth!_' or '_No Evidence of Rose Potter in Ministry Archives_'. Remus had seen –and smelled– Lily's pregnancy, held the green-eyed baby and had food thrown at him by the curly-headed toddler when she was older; Rose Potter _had_ existed but the way she'd vanished into the ether was highly suspicious. That Sirius had insisted –under Veritaserum! – that James had no children told Remus that something was afoot, some plot he'd not been privy to during those last years of the War. James and Sirius had always been the schemers and their joint efforts had always been of the 'so outrageous I can't believe it worked' variety; James had doted openly on his 'darling little Rose' so Remus had to be missing something pretty major for Sirius to be telling the truth.

Sighing, the werewolf reached out to pull the more recent articles towards him, the ones blaring the outrage of how the Potters' Wills had been sealed by the Supreme Mugwump after their deaths. Dumbledore had been quoted as saying that the wills being sealed had been for the protection of Rose Potter and now it had been 'proven' that no such child existed the press –and the public– were out for blood. Dumbledore's past decisions were all being scrutinised and people were being quoted raising concerns about his integrity and mental acuity. One quote by Cassiopeia Black concerning Dumbledore's reluctance to join the fight against Grindelwald until the final month of _that_ war had prompted a whole lot of muck-raking by the ever-opportunistic Rita Skeeter, who had followed up with an article about Dumbledore being an opportunistic glory-hound who preferred not to get his hands dirty but still take credit for everything.

The mess concerning his friends' Wills was what had led him to be sat here contemplating his situation: he had received an invitation from Gringotts for the reading of the Will of Lily Potter. As James had died before Lily and his Will had stated simply that in such a situation she would be left everything as Lady Potter, his Will did not require a public reading. However Lily's Will involved a lot of other people, who all had the right to be at the reading or send proxies on their behalf. Remus had clearly been bequeathed something, so he had to show up. He was dreading it: what if Sirius was there? What would he say? Worse, what if Sirius _wasn't_ there and one of his Black relatives –it was rather scary how all those elderly yet still terrifying witches and wizards had crawled out of the woodwork following the trial– showed up as his proxy? Or even Lord Black himself? Remus couldn't fool himself that they'd be pleased to meet a school friend of the heir to their House, especially not when that school friend had vanished from Wizarding society completely following the War; worse still if it came out that he was a werewolf, which was perfectly possible.

Staring at the letter, Remus swallowed hard and resolved to attend. Lily had left him something and to not accept it would be an insult to her memory. If he did get ripped into by anyone over his not visiting Sirius in hospital he would take it as punishment for his own cowardice: he certainly deserved it.


	4. Chapter 4

Beta'd by the delightful InsaneScriptist.

If I owned Harry Potter I wouldn't be writing on this site.

* * *

**Of friendship and misinformation**

The first friend that Dorry was allowed to make was Neville Longbottom: Father had been friends with his parents during the War. Father had informed her seriously that Neville's parents had been badly hurt right after Mother died, so badly hurt that they couldn't look after Neville anymore. So Aunt Augusta was taking care of Neville like Great-Auntie Cassiopeia did Dorry herself and now that Father had been ex-honour-hated by the Ministry Aunt Augusta had agreed that Dorry, Father and Great-Aunt Callidora could come and visit Longbottom Hall.

As it was nearly Christmas Dorry had picked out a present for Neville based on Great-Aunt Callidora's stories about her great-great-nephew and was keen to meet someone her own age who wasn't Draco. Hopefully Neville wouldn't mind being her friend and would like the little dittany plant Grubby the gardener house-elf had transplanted from the greenhouse at Black Manor. Grubby was only allowed to tend to the more innocuous plants, but there weren't many dangerous ones in the Black Manor greenhouses now because Grandpa didn't do much brewing. Dorry had asked why and Grandpa had told her that it had been something his wife had enjoyed, but she was dead now and it wasn't as interesting without her. Dorry had found that sad and had asked Grandpa if he would teach her about potions. He had promised to consider it and discuss it with Father, so Dorry was hopeful. Great-Auntie Cassiopeia had promised to start teaching her history in the spring and Great-Auntie Lucretia was going to teach her about art, music and languages, all of which sounded very interesting. Father wasn't going to be teaching her anything in the schoolroom as he felt that he wasn't really suited, but he _had_ promised to take her on weekly outings to the Muggle world so she could learn about how people managed without magic.

Stepping through the Floo and taking care not to let go of Father's hand until she was steady on her feet, Dorry took a moment to gaze at her surroundings before sneaking glances at her hosts. Aunt Augusta was tall and lean, the elderly thinning out to bones and skin that seemed to happen to old people, unless they went the other way and became pudgy. Dorry liked that word, pudgy. It described Grandad very well, as did the word 'flabby'. Aunt Augusta didn't look frail like Great-Auntie Cedrella did; instead she looked concentrated and very proper indeed in her old-fashioned green robes and austere hairstyle. Dorry liked the word 'austere' too. It had been in a book Auntie Lucretia had read to her.

Standing next to Aunt Augusta was a short, round-faced and very nervous-looking boy with fluffy blond hair and an air of general hopelessness. His shoulders were slightly hunched in his smart red jacket and tan shorts and both his knees were scuffed. On catching her eye he seemed to sink even further into himself, a bit like a tortoise she'd seen at the Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley. Dorry would have frowned, but that would have been rude. She wasn't scary or mean, so why was he acting like that?

"Papa?" she asked. It wasn't _quite_ proper, but Sirius had explained that the rules of propriety were slightly relaxed in this case as it was a private gathering and small children had a certain amount of freedom anyway. He'd advised her to enjoy it while it lasted, so she was trying to.

"Yes, Dorry-dear?" Father said, glancing down at her with a smile.

"May I give Cousin Neville his Christmas present?"

"C-c-cousin?" Neville stuttered. Dorry's heart immediately went out to the poor boy: she'd had an awful stutter when she was three but Great-Auntie Cassiopeia had coached her past it so now she was stutter free.

"Yes: I'm Dorea Black and you are my fourth cousin on my father's side," Dorry said brightly. "You are the third cousin I've met who isn't an adult and you are already my second favourite." Because Neville could not possibly be more of a trial than Draco.

"Oh." The round-faced boy looked rather baffled, but he did straighten up a bit.

"Can I give him his present, please?" Dorry repeated.

Her father smiled, that fond and slightly naughty smile that Great-Auntie Cassiopeia scolded him for saying he was being over-indulgent. "Of course you can princess."

Dorry smiled brightly at Neville, who looked vaguely alarmed. "I asked your Great-Grandma Callidora what you liked, since she knows you," she explained, "and she said you liked plants so I got you this!" She held out the tall, glittery paper bag containing the potted dittany. Neville glanced up at Aunt Augusta, then cautiously stepped forwards and accepted the bag. His face brightened as he looked inside it, then reached in to pull out the plant pot with its hopeful little shoots.

"Dittany," he said quietly, a tiny smile on his lips. "Thank-you Cousin Dorea."

Dorry beamed. This was going to be a wonderful friendship!

* * *

Sirius couldn't help the wide grin splitting his face as his daughter managed to coax Frank and Alice's boy into taking her arm and taking her to where he was going to put her present. Great-Aunt Callidora looked quietly amused as well and Madam Longbottom had a look on her face that suggested Dorry was not at all what she had been expecting. As if she had heard his thoughts, Augusta Longbottom turned away from where Neville and Dorry had vanished around the corner towards where Sirius remembered the Conservatory being and addressed him:

"I have to admit that when I invited you over I expected your daughter to be much like Frank described you as being at school," she eyed him with slight disapproval, "and find myself agreeably surprised. Dorea is quite charming and mannerly."

Sirius chuckled nervously. He'd been a little hellion in his first few years at Hogwarts. "It's not like I've been raising her, Augusta: I only got out of Azkaban six weeks ago."

"That dreadful business," Augusta shook her head. "Do come into the parlour and I'll have Tilly make tea so we can be comfortable while the children are busy."

Sirius gamely followed; he felt far too young and brash to be taking tea with two such grey and wrinkly ladies as Madame Longbottom and Great-Aunt Callidora but Azkaban had not been good for him and his joints still hadn't quite recovered enough for him to be comfortable standing up for long periods of time.

To be honest, the trial hadn't gone how Sirius had expected it to either. Grandfather Arcturus had spoken on his behalf during it and somehow between the questions the cunning Lord Black had put to him and the clarifications requested by the vaguely familiar wizard leading the prosecution Sirius had accidentally managed to convince the Wizengamot that that there had not been a child present at the cottage at all when Voldemort murdered the Potters. Sirius wasn't entirely sure _how_ he'd done that, but the newspapers were _still_ screaming about how the public had been lied to and that 'The Girl Who Lived' was a myth. Dumbledore had been put on the spot a lot about that, as he'd been the one to state that Rose Potter had been present and survived the Killing Curse and Sirius couldn't really say he cared. He was pleased that his best friends had finally been given the credit they deserved, Lily especially as she'd devised the runic Blood Ward that had finished off Voldemort. Blood Magic was legally considered Dark, but Grandfather had played the public like a violin in describing Lily's research into it 'an act of desperation doubtless prompted by the urge to curb the terrible losses being suffered by our society' and 'a fine example of why our traditions should not be allowed to fade away'. Sirius had already been approached by an Unspeakable who had politely requested access to Lily's notes. Arcturus had dealt with that for him, but Sirius knew that now it was known that it _was_ possible to deflect the Killing Curse with a magical shield a lot of people would be working on ways of achieving it. Some of them might even get somewhere. It would be difficult but, as Lily had proved, not impossible.

Sirius was also grateful that he's managed to completely avoid mentioning his daughter during the trial, which was most definitely the result of Grandfather finessing things. The old man was extremely protective of Dorry and the green-eyed girl had him wrapped around her little finger. Great-Aunt Cassie could complain all she wanted that Sirius was spoiling his daughter but Sirius was of the opinion that Arcturus was the main culprit there!

* * *

Neville didn't know quite what to think of his cousin Dorea, who didn't trip over her feet at all, walked as straight-backed as his grandmother was always telling him to and was quite terrifyingly sure of herself. He'd initially been very nervous but she'd smiled at him, didn't seem to mind his stutter at all and had brought him a Christmas present. Neville had no idea what he was supposed to give her in return but Christmas was still a few days away and Great-Grandmother would probably be able to tell him what Dorea would like. What did girls like anyway?

Dorea was actually the first person his age Neville had ever met and he thought she was rather nice. She'd admired his plants in the conservatory, been very interested in all the portraits of his ancestors even though some of them had been a bit rude to her and didn't snap at him to 'speak clearly' when he stammered. He'd been amazed to hear that she had used to stutter too, and had listened avidly when Dorea told him firmly that when he felt a stammer coming on he was to pause, take a breath, think about what he wanted to say then say it. Carefully. Hurrying would only make things worse. Neville nodded seriously and resolved to try; clearly his problem could be overcome!

After showing her around the whole house from the attics to the kitchen Neville led his new friend back to his day nursery, where they played with his wooden menagerie until Tilly came upstairs to summon them to dinner. Neville was very grateful that Great-Uncle Algie wasn't there, as he always made Neville feel nervous as he was rather mean and scary. Great-Grandmother was always kind to him and even though he'd heard some rather scary things about Dorea's father Sirius Black –had he really been in Azkaban? – Grandmother had told him that his and Dorea's fathers had been in Gryffindor together and been friends, so hopefully he and Dorea could be friends when they went to Hogwarts too. Provided he wasn't a squib like he'd heard Great-Uncle Algie muttering once. He wasn't sure if Dorea would still be his friend if he was a squib.

Then he had to sit up for tea and cake and Neville had to put the matter out of his mind in order to concentrate on not spilling anything down his jacket. He didn't want Dorea to laugh at him.

Neville was also rather curious about the other cousins she had mentioned and if he had any more relatives in common with Dorea that neither of them had met yet. Maybe he could ask Great-Grandmother about them next time she visited?

* * *

One morning in mid-February Dorry sat thoughtfully at the breakfast table, scowling pensively at her porridge as she pondered the problem of Neville. She did like him: he wasn't mean, played her games and didn't mind when she beat him at exploding snap. But he always seemed so _surprised_ whenever she came through the Floo, like he hadn't been expecting her to some back. She'd finally asked him why and learned a new word, one which didn't quite match up to the definition she had found in Samuel Johnson's _A Dictionary of the English Language_, which was one of the few Muggle reference books Great-Auntie Cassiopeia kept in the house; Neville wasn't an author of any kind, let alone of rude things about other people. He was far too nice for that. Which meant she had to ask Great-Auntie Cassiopeia or Papa about it, and either would want to know where she'd heard the word.

Dorry was sure it wasn't a bad word, not like the one she'd heard in Diagon Alley when the shop assistant at Slug and Jiggers had dropped a stack of cauldrons on his foot. She'd got in trouble for repeating that one.

Papa was away a lot during the week now as he was responsible for looking after Uncle James' inheritance and making sure everything was in order, even though Uncle Remus was doing most of the book-work. Dorry had met the Potter house-elves at the New Year for just long enough to reassure them of her commitment to them and since then Papa had been busy making sure all the houses were habitable, having the damaged ones mended and chasing down people who'd thought that because Uncle James was dead they didn't have to pay their debts. Dorry missed having Papa around the house all the time but she guessed he'd been bored, even with Uncle Remus coming round most days to talk to him. He was always home on Saturdays though, as Saturday was when he'd take Dorry out and about in Muggle London, to walk in Hyde Park, visit the Museums, go to the cinema, see a matinee performance at the theatre or the ballet or just wander around the streets enjoying the incredible variety of goings-on, sometimes with Uncle Remus as well. Saturday was Dorry's favourite day of the week now!

Sunday mornings were for being quiet and Sunday afternoons were when Dorry either visited Neville or went to Grandpa's and saw Draco. Weekdays were spent at home with Great-Auntie Cassiopeia in Papa's house in Hampstead or visiting other Great-Aunties, but that would change soon as in March she would be starting her lessons. Dorry was looking forward to it as she likes learning new things.

"Dorry, stop playing with your porridge." Dorry started, glanced down at her bowl than up at her Great-Auntie.

"Sorry, Great-Auntie Cassiopeia," she said meekly before spooning more of her breakfast into her mouth. She hadn't meant to be naughty and she was hungry really, but all her thoughts had distracted her. Soon the porridge was all gone and nothing remained but the persistent nagging question in the four-year-old's mind.

"Great-Auntie?"

"Yes Dorry?"

"What's a squib?"

Great-Auntie Cassiopeia put down her teacup and frowned at her over her spectacles. "Where did you hear that word, Dorea?"

"Neville told me it," Dorry said quickly. "He said he thought I wouldn't be his friend anymore when I found out he was one. I told him I'd always be his friend so long as he wasn't mean to me but I don't think he believed me." she paused. "I looked it up in the Johnson's but I think Neville meant something different as Johnson's says a squib is someone who writes things that make fun of people."

Great-Auntie Cassiopeia sighed. "Johnson's is a Muggle dictionary and therefore limited, Dorry-dear. In Wizarding terms a squib is someone who is aware of magic but can't use it. So they can see through Muggle-repelling Charms and such-like, but cannot wield magic as you and I can."

"So Neville thinks I won't be his friend because he can't use magic?" Dorry clarified.

"Yes, though young Neville may not be a squib at all: it is impossible to tell before your eleventh birthday."

"Might I be a squib?"

Great-Auntie Cassiopeia laughed. "Goodness me no, child! You've been doing magic since you were in your cradle! Your little reading lights and the way you change your hair are proof enough that you'll be a powerful witch when you're grown, providing you work hard."

"Oh." Dorry considered this. "If Neville is a squib he won't be allowed to go to Hogwarts, will he?"

"No dear, he won't."

Dorry pondered the difficulty of staying friends with someone if you were at boarding school for most of the year and they weren't. She hadn't seen Cousin Dora since Christmas, and that had only been for three days. Dora was all excited about her studies and new friends and didn't have much time for her 'baby cousins' anymore.

"Is it bad, being a squib?"

Great-Auntie Cassiopeia frowned. "All pureblood families consider squibs to be an embarrassment and they are banned from inheriting, though any magical descendents of theirs are not so long as lineage is proven. In the past some families killed squibs, but the Blacks never did: squibs can find gainful employment in Muggle society and still be useful to the Family. They are not talked about in polite company though."

Dorry tried to get her head around how she could have relatives who weren't strictly proper Family. Being a squib seemed to be like being in prison, as Aunt Bellatrix wasn't talked about openly either.

"Dorry-dear?" The four-year-old looked up at her Great-Auntie, who seemed distracted.

"Yes, Great-Auntie?"

"Be a good girl and play in the day nursery: I'll take you out for a walk on the Heath once I've written some letters."

Dorry slipped off her chair with a, "yes, Great-Auntie" and dashed out of the room. She really liked walking on Hampstead Heath, even when it was cold, but Great-Auntie didn't take her out very often. She would be able to wear her smart dark green coat and red scarf!

* * *

Cassiopeia Black did not talk about her younger brother Marius much, but that did not mean she did not think of him. He had been revealed to be a squib shortly after she had turned fourteen and while not exactly cast from the family, neither her siblings nor her parents had ever mentioned him again in public. Her mother had never mentioned him in private either, considering Marius' very existence to be a blot on her reputation. Her father had been more pragmatic about the whole thing; upon braving his private study to ask after her younger sibling Cassiopeia had been dryly informed that her brother was now apprenticed to a Muggle lawyer, who was under the impression that Marius was the son of his late business partner. She had eventually attended Marius' wedding alongside her father in 1938, mere months before the beginning of Grindelwald's war. Marius had been packed off to war himself less than a year after the birth of his son, covered with all the Wards and Charms his father Cygnus Aries Black could muster without outright breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

Cassiopeia sighed heavily; her father had never come home, dying on the battlefields of Eastern Europe against Grindelwald's forces while the war was at its height. She held no love for Albus Dumbledore, who had cowered in Hogwarts until the war was almost at an end then sallied forth to do battle with Grindelwald, securing a name for himself as the man who had defeated the most feared Dark Lord of his time without having done any of the leg-work. Her father had been a patriot, something her elder brother Pollux had somehow debased into pureblood supremacy rather than noblesse oblige. There was a distinct difference between the two, even though of Pollux' children only the short-lived Alphard had managed to discern it.

Marius however had inherited that noble spirit, and after returning from the war magically unscathed he had sired another three children and thrown himself into his work, expanding the legal partnership their father had bought him shares in and dedicating a certain portion of his time to charity cases. His children had all been squibs as well, but Cassiopeia had hope in her brother's grandchildren, her great-nieces and nephews. Eduard, the eldest, had married a French witch and their eldest Martin was, according to her dear friend Thérèse Trianon, attending Beaubatons. Their younger daughter Morgane was not quite old enough for school yet but Cassiopeia was hopeful.

Marius' elder daughter Ophelia had married a Woodmore, likely a squib himself considering the Woodmores were a minor Wizard family. Their eldest Donald was sadly unmagical, but Cassiopeia suspected the next son Desmond would be receiving a letter from Hogwarts in the coming summer. As might Marius' second daughter Drusilla's firstborn Richard, as Cassiopeia had witnessed how the lid of the biscuit tin had removed itself when a certain three-year-old had been glaring at it. As for Marius' youngest son Leander's offspring, Cassiopeia had not had the opportunity of meeting them as they did not live in the London area. Leander had married a Welsh girl and lived with her and their three children in Wrexham.

With all this in mind Cassiopeia wrote a letter to her dear brother informing him that she and her great-niece Dorea would be visiting him on the morning of the day after tomorrow for elevensies, with a view to him tutoring the family heiress in mathematics. Marius had a head for numbers that was almost entirely absent elsewhere in the wider Black Family, Arcturus being the only other one so gifted. Sirius managed, given time, but he had already bowed out of teaching his daughter anything so essential to her upbringing. Hopefully Marius would agree, as Arcturus was not as young as he had once been and was beginning to tire easily.

Sealing the letter with her personal variation of the Black Crest, Cassiopeia handed the letter of to a house-elf and ordered it to put the missive through the door of her brother's home in Acton. He had retired from practicing Law some years ago, leaving the business in the hands of his younger daughter's husband, so he would doubtless receive the missive by luncheon and be prepared for her arrival in good time.

She did not at any point consider that her imposition would be unwelcome; Cassiopeia Violetta Black _never_ considered such things.

* * *

Of all the ways for his condition to be revealed to Sirius' family, Remus had _not_ expected to be pegged as a werewolf by his friend's great-aunt from the moment he walked into the room at the Department of Testament and Estate Law where Lily's will would be read. The department was located in a separate building to the rest of the Ministry, alongside the Department of Magical Births, Deaths and Marriages and the Central Archives. The wizards who worked in those areas swore certain very binding oaths and were not under the authority of either the Minister or the Wizengamot, swearing only 'to Truth, Accuracy and Confidentiality'. Breaking those oaths had only happened a few times in all of the Departments' long history, but in each case death had been swift and dramatically messy.

He'd tried to come early, so he could sit down in a corner and not draw attention, but there had already been three older women in the room. Minerva McGonagall had recognised him immediately and wanted to know what he'd been up to since she'd last seen him, then introduced him to Augusta Longbottom, who was here on behalf of her daughter Alice and grandson Neville, both of whom had been named in the will. Remus had expressed his condolences over the fate of her son and daughter-in-law, which she had taken with calm aplomb: Augusta Longbottom was do doubt used to people saying such things to her. The other woman present had been Cassiopeia Black, who had not stated on whose behalf she was attending but had scrutinised him intensely for a very uncomfortable half-minute before requesting that Madam Longbottom introduce her to him.

By the time the lawyer in charge of Lily's will arrived to close the room Elphias Doge, Horace Slughorn, Severus Snape, a representative of St Mungo's hospital and Lord Black himself had entered and seated themselves, making it rather uncomfortable company for Remus. The lawyer, one Hercules Brand, checked everyone's invitations to ascertain they had the right to be present then sealed the doors, walked briskly up to the dais at the front of the room and placed his paperwork on the lectern. Then he had read the will aloud, pausing after each bequest so that the party could accept or refuse and sign the appropriate paperwork to that effect so that the transferral could be processed. It had been somewhat surreal really, as the part of the will read aloud had begun with the words,

"Should my husband James Charlus Potter predecease me, I, Lily Potter née Evans and Lady of the House of Potter by right of marriage and magic, do bequeath the entirety of the Potter Estate, Artefacts, Monies and Holdings to Dorea Rosamund Black, who holds the right to inherit by blood and magic, with the exception of the following…"

Remus had lost track slightly there, reeling at the knowledge that James had actual surviving blood relatives. Who, admittedly, had the Black surname, but that might have been through marriage. It was still something that sent him reeling and picking over the past in his mind, trying to put the puzzle together. He tuned back in at the sound of his name:

"–Remus Lupin, a dear friend, I leave unconditional access to the holiday cottage in Mynydd Du and permission to wander the forest as he pleases: you do so enjoy your woodland strolls that I felt you would appreciate the freedom to do so in the oldest Potter-owned forest in Britain. Do watch out though: the Welsh Green Dragon Reserve is just up the valley!"

Chuckling at Lily's delicate wording, Remus had gone to the front of the room to sign the papers. He had not actually been _given_ the property –it was a Potter property– but so long as he lived he could not be denied residence or access to the surrounding land. Which was rather sneaky: even if more stringent anti-werewolf laws were passed he would still be permitted to reside there. It was also exponentially more remote than his current abode, making it far less likely that he would stumble across some lost Muggle on full moon nights, even with the repelling wards in place and locking himself in the basement.

Upon sitting down again, Remus listened to the rest of the bequests. He had missed Snape's and Sirius's, which was unfortunate, but the following ones were no less interesting and Lily's vivaciousness, kindness and humour shone through each of them.

"To Alice Longbottom I leave my husband's racing broom–" James had never let Alice so much as _touch_ his precious Cleansweep Seven, claiming that he didn't want it to get damaged. This wasn't because Alice was in any way incompetent on a broom –she was in fact a confident and gifted Quiddictch player– but because her favoured position on the pitch was that of the Beater and when she and James had been on the Gryffindor team together she had frequently skimmed his head with a Bludger when he was being obnoxious. She had mostly done it during practice, but had made exceptions during actual matches from time to time.

"To Neville Longbottom, at my husband's insistence, I leave eight hundred Galleons, to be dispensed to him in twenty Galleon sums each and every birthday and Christmas until the funds run dry and spent on whatever item, pursuit or cause dearest to his heart at the time of the dispensation with a moderate disregard for parental concern. This is a compromise, Alice, so be grateful I was able to wear James down. Examples would be Zonko's products, Quidditch tickets, clothing of the sort Augusta would never approve of or whatever else catches his fancy, be it magical or Muggle. Stewardship of this account goes to Sirius Black, but I expect Remus to keep him in line for me."

Remus had to work very hard not to laugh at the outraged expression on Madame Longbottom's face as Lord Black rose to sign for the bequest on Sirius' behalf, though he suspected he would be hearing from her in the very near future about that account as despite stewardship being officially Padfoot's, _actual_ power had been left to him.

"To Minerva McGonagall, I leave the photo album titled 'Marauders Mishaps in Domesticity' for your perusal and enjoyment." Lily had always had a bit of a vengeful streak despite not being interested in pranks, which she considered bullying. Guilt, coercion and modest blackmail however had been another story; Remus wondered how many of those pictures he featured in. That business with the mashed potatoes had been a total fiasco, for one...

"To Horace Slughorn, I leave the Enchanted goldfish bowl I spent two weeks making while bored, pregnant and under virtual house arrest. It has the Runic version of the Petal-Fish Charm I cast on my farewell gift to you inscribed in its base, so this one will last in perpetuity. I experimented with different flower petals and categorised seventy-three different fish variants before James protested, so I wish you many hours of enjoyment and my heartfelt gratitude for your kindness." The old Potions Master was almost in tears as he signed the form; Lily had always had a soft spot for Slughorn despite knowing very well why he favoured certain students over others, which she had occasionally used for her own ends.

"To Elphias Doge, for your kindness I leave you the puzzle-boxes you so admired." The puzzle-boxes had been Lily's way of staving off boredom: James had bought the Muggle toys for her at every possible opportunity, stockpiling them whenever he could find them and doling them out when she started displaying the signs of feeling their semi-fugitive status more acutely. Lily would take them apart, put them back together again, take them apart again then charm the pieces so that errors in the opening process would have humorous, peculiar or downright nasty effects upon the person attempting to get into it. One box had a repertoire of over three-hundred insults which it doled out depending on the mistake made, one insult for every possible incorrect permutation in the opening sequence. Lily had kept sweets in most of the boxes, but the genuinely unpleasant ones –made in the aftermath of the deaths of people she had been close to– were always empty and clearly labelled to prevent accidents.

Lily had also left twelve hundred Galleons to St Mungo's hospital, to be spent equally on pioneering new cures and supplying medical potions to wizards too poor to be able to afford them. After the hospital representative signed for the donation the will was declared complete and Hercules Brand informed them that the documents would be handed over to Gringotts for processing, so they would likely receive confirmation from the bank at some point in the coming week. Then he gathered his paperwork, opened the room and departed, leaving everyone else to follow in his wake. Remus would have made himself scarce, but Madam Black caught his arm in a startlingly strong grip, informed him that her great-nephew wished to speak to him and all but dragged him out of the building and down the road to St Mungo's, deaf to any protestations. She had marched him all the way to Sirius' private room in the wing of the Creature-Induced Injuries ward dedicated to Dementor damage and other proximity effects, intimidated the nurse on duty into letting them into the room than locked and Warded the door behind her before releasing him and addressing Sirius:

"I've brought your friend, since it was clear he wouldn't be bringing himself; I would have however appreciated being told he was a werewolf _before_ you asked me to find him for you, Sirius Orion."

Remus knees had given way at this bald statement and he'd barely made it to a chair before his knees gave way. She knew! _How_?

"Great-Auntie Cassie?" Sirius had managed after a few moments of gaping like a fish. "How–?"

"–did I know?" the elderly lady finished the sentence, raising an eyebrow. "I fought on the front lines of the Grindelwald War for six years, young man: I've met a great many werewolves. Some of them were even on our side." Her expression softened. "Jean-Pierre Lavarre was a most charming scoundrel regardless of his affliction and an excellent fighter in a tight spot. We were battle partners for nearly four years and had he not died when he did I would have been greatly tempted to give in to his shamelessly frequent proposals of marriage."

Remus had felt his jaw drop at that pronouncement; Sirius had looked equally stunned. Finding out that a cool, stern and highly traditional lady of the Black family had almost married a werewolf was rather like discovering that yes; your parents _did_ still have sex despite being old and rather grey. Your mind was never quite the same afterwards.

That Madam Black was cackling at their abject horror did not help.


	5. Chapter 5

Beta'd by the engaging InsaneScriptist.

I own nothing, I'm just playing in Rowling's sandbox.

* * *

**Of death and conspiracy**

It was mid-morning on a Wednesday in mid-May when Arcturus Black's routine was interrupted by the abrupt arrival of a shrivelled, ill-kempt house-elf with a hooked nose wearing nothing but a filthy bit of ragged pillowcase around its middle.

"Speak," Arcturus said briskly, recognising that this had to be a Black Elf or else the truly paranoid Wards around Black Manor would have lobotomised it.

"Mistress Walburga is dead, Lord Black," the elf muttered miserably. "Kreacher told Master Pollux and Master Pollux said to inform Lord Black. Master Pollux will see to the funeral but requests that Lord Black deal with the house as he sees fit, as it is Master Sirius' house now. Mistress wouldn't-"

"Enough Kreacher," Arcturus said sharply before the elf could say anything further. "You are to bathe, sleep, eat what Tansy gives you and be on hand to assist the Family from the day after tomorrow. In the meantime you are to obey Lurcher."

"Kreacher obeys," the skinny elf muttered before vanishing with a crack.

Arcturus set aside his quill and rubbed his temples. He'd arranged his son's marriage once it became clear that quiet, intellectual Orion would not be finding a bride for himself, but to this day he wasn't sure why he'd thought his cousin's eldest Walburga would make a good match for his heir. That she had still been unmarried at the age of thirty-four should have been indication enough of her personality and his poor son had been completely crushed by his wife's overbearing temperament. Sadly there had been a shortage of eligible witches after the War against Grindelwald and Arcturus had genuinely believed his Uncle Cygnus' granddaughter would be an agreeable and dutiful spouse.

Orion had died young, passing away during the conflict against the self-styled Lord Voldemort mere weeks after the death of his younger son Regulus. Arcturus would have to ask Kreacher what he knew about that; after Sirius' disownment by Walburga Kreacher had primarily served Regulus. As Kreacher had been Walburga's elf and part of her dowry, this was permissible, if irregular. Orion's house-elf Pippy had been found dead within two years of the marriage, which Arcturus had his own suspicions about.

Sighing over how his unlamented daughter-in-law had managed to impose on his daily routine even after her death, Arcturus penned a letter to his daughter Lucretia and son-in-law Ignatius, requesting that they visit him for afternoon tea either today or tomorrow. In stark contrast to Walburga, Arcturus was very fond of Ignatius as the cheerful Prewett had followed in his father-in-law's footsteps and become a curse-breaker. Not that Arcturus had actually _been_ a curse-breaker: instead, newly graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Arcturus had been a tomb robber. Back then Gringotts had not had their own exploration teams but had been happy to purchase artefacts from any who found them and Arcturus' intimate understanding of the Dark Arts had made him a truly excellent ward-breaker. He'd multiplied his personal riches to equal the Black family fortune by the time Muggles had opened Tutankhamen's tomb, the aftermath of which had forced the Egyptian Magical Community to restrict the investigation of the graves of their nation's dead. Within two years of the discovery Gringotts were the only organisation large, bureaucratic and wealthy enough to sponsor expeditions, so Arcturus had retired to marry his fiancé and settled down to raise a family and write up his experiences in a proper format. He had thus far published six books on the tombs, magical artefacts and curses of the various Egyptian dynasties, though four of them only existed within the various Black Family libraries due to their restricted content making them unsuitable for sale in the British Magical Community. The two public books were standard reading material for all aspiring curse-breakers and were what had brought Ignatius Prewett to enjoy his favour.

Arcturus' daughter Lucretia took after him in being an avid student of the esoteric and largely banned magic governing the heart, mind and soul. Like him, she was also interested in the past efforts of other magical cultures in studying these most mysterious of magics and at Hogwarts had met a kindred spirit in Ignatius Prewett, a Hufflepuff with strongly Ravenclaw tendencies. Arcturus had met and approved of Ignatius, both for his eager pursuit of knowledge in the face of reactionary government censure and his devotion to the Lord Black's daughter. Their engagement approved of, Lucretia and Ignatius had completed their OWLs and NEWTs respectively then married and joined a Gringotts expedition to China, remaining abroad for the better part of fifty years. The couple had no children, but their work filled that absence easily and had retired back to England six months after the end of the recent Voldemort conflict. Both were still active as ever, but wished to be nearer their younger relatives, write up their journals in textbook form and not worry about whether their next foray into the mysteries of past civilisations would be their last.

Considering how his harridan of a daughter-in-law had been obsessed with dangerous magical artefacts, his dear Lucretia and her husband were the best people to entrust clearing the house to on Sirius' behalf. His grandson had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with his childhood home or any of his mother's belongings, though Arcturus was sure the boy would accept the library and several of his father's possessions so long as he never had to set foot in the town house on Grimmauld Place to obtain them.

* * *

A week later Arcturus was standing in the drawing room of the town house on Grimmauld Place, Kreacher cringing silently beside him in a clean teatowel and looking rather less gaunt. Facing him across the low tea table were Ignatius and Lucretia: the former looked silently irate while the latter was pale with cold fury. On the tea table were laid out several dozen items, some of which Walburga had no right to at all such as Pollux' Order of Merlin that had gone missing two years ago. Slightly to one side of the very damning evidence of his daughter-in-law's insanity-fuelled kleptomania was a simple, elegant golden locket inlaid with emeralds to form the letter S. It took Arcturus a moment to recognise it; it had been a while since he'd read Bayard Rosier's twelfth century opus _An Accounting of the Lives of the Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_.

"That is Salazar Slytherin's locket," he said flatly.

"It is heavily cursed and has been turned into a Horcrux," Lucretia said tightly. Arcturus' eyes widened: no properly raised wizard would _dream_ of creating such a foul abomination! He turned on the cowering house-elf.

"Kreacher!"

The elf burst into tears. Arcturus listened to the snivelling confession of the trembling creature and was able to determine that the locket had been brought into the house by Kreacher himself, on Regulus' orders. Regulus had been aware of its identity as a Horcrux and ordered Kreacher to destroy it, which the elf had been unable to do. Regulus had died after stealing the locket and ordering Kreacher to take it away, and his body was likely still where it had fallen. The Horcrux belonged to the Dark Lord, whom Regulus had abandoned the service of immediately upon discovering that Voldemort had indulged in such self-destructive and polluting rituals.

As the pitiful litany continued Ignatius' face became very grim indeed, Lucretia went even paler and Arcturus felt his lips set into a thin, hard line. Conventional knowledge might hold that a Horcrux could only be destroyed by Fiendfyre or Basilisk venom, both of which were so inimical to magic that they consumed and destroyed all magical artefacts until there was nothing left for a spell to anchor itself to, but there were other ways known only to curse-breakers: more complicated and less damaging ways that left the items used as soul anchors intact so they could be sold. The Lord Black met the eyes of his daughter and son-in-law and saw agreement there.

Currently standing in the late Walburga Black's drawing room were a Dark Arts Master, a Master Ward-Breaker and a Runes Mistress; once a ritual had been decided on and proper precautions taken, the Horcrux did not last more than five minutes against their concerted assault.

* * *

Sitting in the drawing room drinking hot chocolate provided by a much saner-seeming Kreacher as Lurcher, Mimsy and Filly packed up the now entirely curse-free contents of the property and Grubby dealt with the contents of the greenhouses, Arcturus pondered the startling and distasteful facts he had just learned concerning the supposedly late Dark Lord.

"He cannot possibly be wizard-raised," Lucretia said firmly, her mug gripped tightly in both hands, "not unless he is completely insane. He claimed to be a Hogwarts alumnus and recruited heavily from my peers in Slytherin, suggesting he was there at the same time I was and I would have noticed such an unbalanced individual. There were many who were ambitious but no-one so blatantly unhinged."

"Leading one to believe he was either a Muggle-raised half-blood or Muggleborn who never sought to learn the fundamental tenets of our culture, or discarded them entirely out of ignorance," Ignatius continued, eyes hooded under greying red eyebrows as he stared into space above the rim of his mug. "Considering he claimed to be the last true heir of Salazar Slytherin and a pureblood, I would suspect that while he is quite possibly related to the Gaunt family, who were recognised to be the last remnant of Slytherin's line prior to their deaths, his claims to be pureblooded are entirely false."

"So he has deceived the Family, brought several members of it into ruin and caused the death of my younger grandson," Arcturus concluded quietly. "This cannot be borne."

"Neither can his crimes against magic," Lucretia hissed, knuckles whitening around her mug. "The nature of the soul fragment released once the Horcrux was dismantled suggests that it was not the only one made and according to Kreacher, Regulus' heard the Dark Lord say that he had 'gone further down the path of immortality than any before him'; the largest number of Horcruxes ever made by any single individual was by Terrentius the Mad in the third century, who made two and was partly responsible for the fall into anarchy of the Roman Empire." She snarled, pausing briefly to take another sip of hot chocolate. "Which means this _abomination_ was one of at least four, since after three the next magically stable number is five."

"Unless he made six," Ignatius pointed out grimly, "as seven is the most magically powerful number."

Lucretia made a low growling sound in her throat startlingly reminiscent of Arcturus' own father Sirius Phineas Black right before that formidable wizard lost his temper and cursed someone into oblivion.

"Regardless of the number made," Arcturus said calmly, "it would probably be a good idea to examine the Blood Ward on young Dorea more closely as after making more than one Horcrux the soul becomes fractured, if Claudius Cassius Dio is to be believed."

"There is no soul fragment attached to Dorea," Lucretia said positively, "but that Ward is a true work of art. Did you know it converts background magical energy and focussed emotional energy into Soul Fire?"

"Soul Fire?" Ignatius perked up. "The 'Flames of the Will' described in the texts in the Library of Alexandria purported to be recovered from Atlantis?"

"The very same," Lucretia confirmed smugly, "and the counter to Fiendfyre as they spring wholly from the soul rather than from magic. It likely only started working that way after Lily Potter died, as her willing, selfless sacrifice and magical power kick-started the process, but little Dorry is very well protected against mental and spiritual attack so long as she remains in a magical environment and has people around her who love her."

"One less concern," Arcturus admitted, "as I'm not sure how one would go about exorcising a living Horcrux. But now let us decide what to do about the Voldemort problem."

"As he has made multiple Horcruxes he will be bound to the physical plane but not to any Horcrux in particular," Lucretia said confidently, "so he will not be able to regenerate and spontaneously reform as Herpo the Foul did before his Horcrux's destruction. He will therefore be stuck as a wraith until someone willingly offers him aid, as Terrentius was."

"According to Cassius Dio, Terrentius' haunting of Rome and its environs played a major part in the fragmentation of the empire," Ignatius mused, "as the area he inhabited became saturated in repugnant and necromantic magics, poisoning plants and animals and driving men mad." Left unsaid was that the wraith of the man calling himself Voldemort would be having a similar effect on his immediate surroundings, wherever they might be.

"As we cannot deal with the self-styled Lord Voldemort until his abominations have been destroyed, let us concentrate on those for the time being," Arcturus said firmly. "Ignatius, can you track down who had the locket before Voldemort's rise to prominence so we can narrow down potential culprits. Lucretia, you go through your Hogwarts contacts to find who vanished completely from society before the Dark Lord burst onto the stage; attacking the problem from both ends will make unravelling the middle less difficult."

"We will come to tea at Black Manor every Friday afternoon to discuss matters," Lucretia said decisively. "We should also keep detailed records; none of us are getting any younger."

Arcturus smiled over his hot chocolate at the headstrong woman his daughter had grown into and conceded her point. This quest for vengeance upon the man who had so ravaged their society with his lies and madness was likely to take some time. Time, a lot of work and research and considerable magical effort: unravelling Horcruxes was not in any way easy.


	6. Chapter 6

Beta'd by the fabulous InsaneScriptist.

I own nothing at all except the products of my own fevered imagination.

As so many reviewers have been asking, rest assured that this _will_ be a true crossover with the full KHR cast; however that will not happen until Dorea is in her teens. Just enjoy the ride, people!

* * *

**Of education and friendships**

Seven-year-old Dorea Rosamund Black sat cross-legged on the floor of the library, a massive textbook on the history of magecraft in Ancient Rome on her lap, happily engrossed. It was now more than three years since she had begun her education and she was enjoying it immensely, even though it left her little time for anything else and she had not had the opportunity to make any more friends in the Magical Community since meeting Neville Longbottom.

She was far taller and leggier than she had been at four, her face far less rounded and her hair both longer and much tamer. Her eyes were the same uncanny shade of green, her skin still pale but lightly gilded across her forehead, cheekbones and chin, her manner still vibrant and intense. Her fingers were far more nimble than they had been at four and she was also far more graceful overall, though there was no sign of that in how she was slumped against a bookshelf with her skirt untidily pushed up above her knees and her lacy petticoats showing. Her dress was made of golden green muslin with a high neckline, close-fitting bodice, creased calf-length skirt and puffy sleeves gathered at the wrist. The garment's collar, cuffs, waistline and lower hem were decorated with blackwork embroidery of flowers and vines and the wide band around her head holding her hair out of her eyes was similarly decorated. The ribbon holding up her hair in a high ponytail was dark green, her tights were equally dark green and her buckled shoes were black leather. Her appearance made her blend in startlingly well with the few portraits hanging in the library, giving her an air of being a ghost of some past Black, lingering still.

"Dorea!" The image was lost as the seven-year-old bolted to her feet, balanced the massive tome she had been so engrossed in on a side table and hurriedly straightened her skirts in a vain attempt to banish the creases.

"Coming Great-Aunt Cassiopeia!" she called, glancing down at her dress with a wince before dashing out of the labyrinth of shelves, through the library door and down two flights of stairs to the first floor of her home. The large, magically-expanded house on South Hill Park Gardens in Hampstead called 'The Planetarium' was the place Dorea loved best, as it was where she lived with her father. She also loved her Grandfather's elegant estate in Gloucestershire, with its park, woods, farms and many secret hidey-holes, both within the main building and without. The current Black Manor had only been built in the early eighteenth century, but a great deal of the earlier Tudor palace still existed behind the house's massive Georgian façade and concealed amongst the associated outbuildings. At a distance from the main house were the remains of an even earlier Norman castle, which were not so much ruined as so heavily magically concealed that they were impossible to recognise unless you were both a Black and already knew the keep was there.

Dorea visited Black Manor every Sunday without fail, arriving mid-morning and not departing until after supper. About every other week Aunt Narcissa and Draco also visited, but Dorea found Draco's company ever more tiresome and less enjoyable. He was reluctant to do anything he believed his father would disapprove of, was ridiculously snooty about all manner of stupid things and refused to run around outdoors with her. As a result Dorea had gone out of her way to avoid him in the past month, which was likely what had instigated the change of routine that had her dashing down the stairs at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning, the first Sunday in living memory when she wasn't going to see Grandpa, not counting those occasions when she or Grandpa had been ill.

Reaching the top of the wide staircase leading to the ground floor Dorea paused to check her appearance in the hall mirror, frowned sternly at the lingering creases in her frock until they magically smoothed themselves away, then descended the last set of steps swiftly but not hurriedly and let herself into the public parlour on the ground floor.

The ground floor parlour at the Planetarium was the larger of the two such rooms within the building, with pale grey silk wallpaper patterned with floral damask, a fine parquet floor and a deep green carpet lying in the middle of it in front of the wide bay window facing the street. On the carpet were four of the room's Bergère chairs set in a semicircle around the coffee table, the other three chairs and matching loveseat set back against the walls. Only one of the chairs, the second from the right, was unoccupied, so Dorea closed the door behind her and walked across the room directly towards where she was clearly intended to sit. Picking up the cup and saucer waiting on the table she settled herself on the forest-green-and-gold upholstery to wait for Great-Auntie Cassiopeia to introduce her to the girl her own age sat on the far left.

Dorea had met lots of Muggle girls over the years and was sort-of friends with several of them; she was also friendly with her Black second cousins on Great-Uncle Marius's side of the family, though they were mostly older than her and both Dawn _and_ Deborah would be joining Desmond, Richard and Patricia at Hogwarts this September. But those cousins were mostly Muggle-raised and went to Muggle day-school during the week, so they didn't really get it when Dorea talked about learning Latin, dance, etiquette and magical history; though Gregory had been delighted with the books she'd given him on the latter for his ninth birthday back in March. Gregory Leander Black _really_ liked history, the gorier the better.

This girl however was her own age, dressed in a wizarding robe of pearly mint green with bright white embroidery all over the bodice and thin matching bands around the cuffs of the short sleeves. Her tights under the shin-length skirt were a similarly bright white and her very fashionable ankle boots were dark grey. She had fair, rosy skin, pale golden hair that was rather more vibrant in shade than Draco's flat platinum blond and large, slightly lidded eyes in a very pretty shade of blue that held a certain hint of green in their depths. Her face was much rounder than Dorea's own with a pointed chin, small, pert nose and fine, arched eyebrows. Looking at her Dorea felt like the Muggle stereotype of the wicked witch facing the good fairy. The person peeking out of those wide blue-green eyes looked to be interesting though, as her response to Dorea's intense scrutiny was to ever so slightly raise an eyebrow. Dorea's lips twitched. This might work.

* * *

Upon being informed that her mother was taking her to befriend the Black Heiress, Daphne Greengrass had not been hopeful. She'd met Draco Malfoy at a variety of minor society gatherings in the past year and a half and considered him to be a stupid, snobby boy with no concept of what _real_ Slytherin qualities involved. The younger boy mentioned his 'cousin Dorea' infrequently but regularly, generally to disparage whatever Daphne and Tracy were doing in comparison. Dorea spoke French, Italian, Russian _and_ Chinese. Dorea could play the piano well enough to impress his father. Dorea could _control_ her magic. Dorea was a _real_ pureblood of impeccable breeding and no other female could possibly match that inherent family quality.

From what Daphne had picked up from between the lines and strategic eavesdropping on adults, Dorea Black was the only child of Sirius Black, heiress of the infamous, Dark and impeccably pure-blooded House of Black, incredibly intelligent, very powerful and had a rather disturbing facial resemblance to Bellatrix Lestrange at the same age. Oh, and eyes in a truly uncanny shade of green. The pure-blood princess in question lived secluded from her peers, educated to the highest old-fashioned standards by a variety of aging relatives and had never interacted with anyone any less connected to her than a third cousin. All in all, she sounded as unpleasant as Pansy Parkinson but much more dangerous. Not that Daphne had met many of her peers yet either; the only reason she was best friends with Tracy Davies was that her mother and Tracy's mother had been best friends at Hogwarts and they had kept up the connection afterwards. As an old and respected pure-blood family, the Greengrasses were welcome in the highest of social circles such as the Malfoys, the Parkinsons, the Flints, the Bulstrodes, the Notts, the Macmillans, the Averys and the Carrows. Of course the Blacks were one such family as well, but they were much diminished in numbers and the unseen Dorea Black was the only scion of that house to carry the Black name in her generation. Well, the only _pureblood_ scion of that house; according to rumour there was a Patricia Black in Ravenclaw who was apparently a half-blood, as well as her first cousins Richard Oatley and Desmond Woodmore who were both Slytherins and two years older than her. How closely connected these three were to Dorea Black was unknown, but Daphne suspected they were descended from either squibs or disowned family members who had married muggles. Rather interestingly, said muggle-raised scions of House Black _were_ familiar with enough Magical culture for their presence in Slytherin to go without comment, if Tracy's older brother Roger's friends were to be believed. Roger Davies wouldn't be starting at Hogwarts until September after next, but most of his social circle was older than he was.

With all this in mind, it had been rather a surprise for Daphne when her mother had informed her that they had been invited to Sunday morning tea by the infamous Cassiopeia Black, Dorea Black's great-aunt and primary female guardian. Cassiopeia Black was a highly respected and very dangerous witch, a Slytherin alumnus of the class of '33 who had made a name for herself as a Dark Arts and Transfiguration Mistress on the battlefields of the War against Grindelwald. She was also a powerful Occlumens, perilously well-informed on other people's misdeeds to the point of being a suspected Legimens and highly influential in fashionable pureblood circles. That she had largely withdrawn from those circles to raise her great-niece suggested that Dorea Black was being groomed for a similar role, which did rather explain why Daphne's parents had instantly agreed to the invitation. Daphne had been all but ordered to befriend the other girl and was resigned to playing nice regardless of personal preferences.

The actual morning however had not gone quite as expected. Upon arriving at the Black residence in question, a very fine and well-kept house in an upmarket Muggle neighbourhood, Daphne and her mother had been greeted and welcomed inside by a house-elf then shown into the front parlour, where Cassiopeia awaited them. The formidable spinster had welcomed them in, poured tea for four then walked out into the hall and _bellowed_ up the stairs in a most unexpected manner before gliding back into the parlour, closing the door behind her and engaging Daphne's mother in conversation. Daphne had listened to the polite chit-chat with only half an ear, more interested in the distant thundering on the stairs, brief pause then more sedate descent down the final flight followed by the summoned Dorea Black's entrance into the parlour.

The slightly younger girl was very striking, with inky black and strongly wavy hair hanging to mid-back in a high ponytail. Her face was long and oval, her forehead high, her cheekbones, nose and jaw sharp, her chin stubborn and her eyebrows angular. Her eyes were large, long-lashed and a startlingly vivid shade of green, her skin was pale and ever so slightly sallow and her mouth was full and pouty. She wore a very old-fashioned but impeccably cut dress in golden green with delicate black embroidery around the neck, waist, hem and cuffs and had on contrastingly modern black buckled shoes and dark green tights. Daphne had seen her grandmother wearing a similar outfit in a childhood portrait and was privately glad that _her_ mother allowed her to wear the latest fashions.

As she was pondering the girl she was required to befriend said girl had gracefully and unhesitantly crossed the room to sit on the vacant chair, collecting her teacup and gazing thoughtfully at Daphne over the top of it. Daphne sat calmly under the intense scrutiny, raising an eyebrow as Dorea's eyes met her own. The slightly wicked smirk that twitched in the corners of Dorea's mouth in response to Daphne's cool acknowledgement of the Black heiress's lapse in manners made the blonde girl wonder if maybe this would work out after all.

"Now you are here, Dorea, I would like to introduce you to Lady Atalanta Greengrass and her daughter Daphne. Atalanta, Daphne, this is my great-niece Dorea."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Greengrass, Daphne," Dorea murmured politely, glancing briefly at Daphne's mother before renewing her scrutiny of her age-mate.

"Likewise," Daphne said softly half a beat behind her mother.

"Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, might I show Daphne the schoolroom?" Dorea asked abruptly.

"Of course you may Dorea; I intend to arrange for you take your dancing lessons with Daphne, so you will be seeing a lot of each-other in the future," Cassiopeia said firmly. Daphne noted with interest that the elderly lady had not demanded that she and Dorea get along; it was entirely possible that Dorea was the kind of person to take such expectations as good reason to be contrary. In which case this friendship might be very interesting indeed, the eight-year-old realised with an inner thrill of mischief. Getting to her feet and politely excusing herself to her host, Daphne followed Dorea Black out of the parlour.

* * *

Dorea _liked_ Daphne Greengrass: the older girl had a quick mind, a good sense of humour and agreed that Draco was an insufferable twit. Sharing dance lessons with the blonde girl on Thursday afternoons was a welcome change in her weekly routine and Dorea found she rather liked Tracy Davies too, despite the other girl's initial standoffishness. It was nice to have friends who understood what it was like to have tutors with high expectations, relatives who decided who you would be allowed to meet and the distant but still heavy weight of duty hanging over your head. Dorea had known all her life that she was expected to marry well and produce two sons at least to carry on the Black and Potter lines. To do otherwise would be to disappoint her living relatives and let down her late mother and Uncle James, who had placed all the hopes of his family line upon her shoulders. Though it had to be said that Daphne's schedule was rather lighter than Dorea's and Tracy's was lighter still, though that was partly due to Tracy being a half-blood of a minor family and not her parents' heir.

Dorea's weekly schedule ran as follows:

Monday mornings with Great-Uncle Marius, studying mathematics and accounting followed by Muggle sciences after a midmorning break. Monday afternoons was for Muggle literature and culture, a short break for tea then cooking without magic with Great-Aunt Honora, Marius' Muggle wife. On Monday evenings Dorea practiced on the Music Room piano and spent time with her father.

Tuesdays were spent with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia: Magical History and Russian first thing in the morning followed by a brief Occlumency session and Latin. Tuesday afternoons were for Herbology and Potions' Theory before tea and Family History after tea. Tuesday evenings Dorea practiced dance, also in the Music Room, then again spent time with her father after dinner. They usually played various board or card games, talked about her lessons and what she wanted to do on Saturday with him. Sometimes Father talked about what he'd been doing during the day or shared funny stories.

Wednesdays were spent with Great-Aunt Lucretia: Art and French in the first half of the morning –usually at the same time– followed by Chinese language and culture before lunch. After lunch Dorea had Music, both theory and practice, followed by Italian language and culture. Then they would have afternoon tea and Great-Aunt Lucretia would take her riding for an hour on the Heath. Upon returning home Dorea practiced music and after dinner she listened to the Muggle Radio with her father, as Wednesdays was usually when he had paperwork do to in the evenings and thus had little time for her.

Thursday mornings were for grammar and poetry with Great-Aunt Callidora, followed by 'manners, etiquette and making friends with different kinds of people' which her Great-Uncle Septimus insisted was important. Those lessons reinforced to Dorea that Gryffindors were an alien species, Ravenclaws were stupidly insular and Hufflepuffs were highly useful and so must be cultivated. After lunch she had another Occlumency lesson with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia followed by dance lessons with Daphne, Tracy and a number of other pureblood girls including Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Lavender Brown and Lisa Turpin at a private upstairs studio off Diagon Alley. Dance was very important in pureblood society and not just for balls; a lot of family magic and ritual women's magic involved dance or at least rhythm, so it was a vital skill. After dance lessons Great-Aunt Cassiopeia would take Dorea out to a late tea in Muggle London, which was always a wonderful treat. After tea she would practice her new steps at home until supper, spend time with her father than go to bed.

Fridays continued with the same pattern: mornings were for Astronomy in the Star Room which gave the Planetarium its name, Handwriting and Composition until elevensies then Charms or Transfiguration theory until lunch. After lunch was Diction and Drama with Great-Aunt Cedrella followed by embroidery, tapestry and similar 'ladylike pursuits' that lasted until tea, after which she had another riding session before dinner. On Friday evenings Dorea practiced music or went to bed early in anticipation of the next day.

Dorea would have liked to take lessons from Uncle Remus, who was always happy to help her with her studies when he had the time, but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia wouldn't allow it because Uncle Remus wasn't family. Besides, Uncle Remus managed the Potter Estate for Papa so he was too busy to teach. Dorea accepted this laying down of the law, but didn't let it stop her from asking Uncle Remus for help with her Magical Theory. He was very good at explaining things.

Saturdays were the best day of the week for Dorea: she would get up early, have breakfast in the kitchen with her father then dress in Muggle clothes and spend the entire day out and about in London with him. Some Saturdays he took her even further afield: they had visited York, Nottingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Winchester so far. In the mornings they would visit museums, castles, stately homes or just wander around the streets while afternoons were for parks, gardens and seeing shows. Dorea had been to the ballet, the opera, a wide variety of theatre and musical performances and seen a great many movies and loved it all, though she liked musical theatre and ballet more than opera. As Saturdays were inevitably more tiring than weekdays Father would take Dorea home in time for an early dinner and they would spend the rest of the evening in the smaller, much cosier parlour on the first floor. Sometimes they played games, sometimes Father read to her and sometimes Dorea just fell asleep on him as they listened to the radio. Father never listened to the Wizarding Wireless, claiming the sound quality and programmes were vastly inferior to the Muggle ones.

Sundays were slow days: breakfast was later than on other days and right after breakfast Father would take her to Black Manor, where she was expected to make herself scarce until noon, when Sunday dinner was served. After dinner she could spend time in the parlour or library with Grandpa, explore the house and grounds or play with any other cousins who were visiting. Since Great-Uncle Marius' older grandchildren had started at Hogwarts their younger siblings were sometimes brought to visit Black Manor with their parents, but that usually didn't happen more than once a month. On Sunday afternoons before supper Dorea would practice her dance, read in the Planetarium Library or play, then after supper she had one last Occlumency lesson with Great-aunt Cassiopeia before bed.

This strict routine continued until the January after Dorea's tenth birthday, when Grandpa Arcturus died suddenly one frosty Tuesday night.


	7. Chapter 7

Beta'd by the generous InsaneScriptist.

I do not own Harry Potter, though I probably do own my Dorea.

Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers! I love hearing from you!

* * *

**Of loss and trauma**

Grandad Pollux had died in the first week of the September after Dorea turned ten, prompting Cousin Dora to be hastily recalled from Hogwarts for the funeral. Despite being a curmudgeonly and bitter pureblood bigot Pollux had been inordinately proud of his Metamorphagus granddaughter, to the point that she was the only person in his will who got a significant personal bequest. The rest of his estate had passed on to his only surviving son, Cygnus. Cygnus who had disowned Auntie Andy and whom Dorea had never met. Cygnus who was apparently even more bigoted than Grandad Pollux had been.

Dorea had been shocked by the death of her father's maternal grandfather, but it had passed quickly. He'd left her all of his late wife's jewellery on the basis that, as the granddaughter of his only daughter, she had the rights to it. Irma Black née Crabbe had died of the 'flu nearly twenty years before her husband and had never been very strong to begin with. She had however been very beautiful in a pale, ethereal and slightly consumptive way and her jewel box contained a very precious and varied selection of pieces going back several generations in all manner of styles. Dorea wasn't even old enough to wear the pearls yet, but she could appreciate the beauty of the collection.

Pollux had left Dora a house and a small independence, both entirely unexpected. But even Dora had admitted quietly to Dorea after the funeral that, no matter how grateful she was for her inheritance, she didn't miss the man much. He'd not been very likeable.

On the other hand, waking up on a chilly Wednesday morning in early January to find Papa sitting at the breakfast table with his head in his hands and a nervous house-elf addressing him as 'Master Black, sir' had been the most upsetting event Dorea could remember happening to her. Her lessons had been cancelled but Great-Aunt Lucretia and Great-Uncle Ignatius had come to the Planetarium anyway to talk to Father. Dorea had sat in the garden, hugging one of the half-dozen puffskeins Saint Mungos had insisted her father keep as 'therapy animals', trying to make sense of her Grandpa being gone and never being able to see him again. Never having him praise her for her piano playing, or having her read aloud to him on Sunday afternoons, or poke at her mental barriers and praise her for her dedication to Occlumency. No more being taught rude words in other languages behind Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's back, no more being tutored in German or having her Russian pronunciation corrected, no more fascinating lectures on the differences between what magic the British Ministry had banned and what was actually Dark, no more being taught wand movements on the sly using a conductor's baton, no more little gifts and treasures at odd moments, no more debates on the nature of magic, no more pats on the head, no more hugs, no more creaky chuckles. No more Grandpa.

Dorea clutched the cooing puffskein and wept, her hair hanging lank and dull around her face.

* * *

Grandpa's death meant that Papa was now Lord Black, so Dorea, Papa and the increasingly tired and frail Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had to move out of the Planetarium and into Black Manor. The actual moving would be done by the house-elves, who were channelling their own misery and mourning into ruthless efficiency and devotion to the surviving members of the Family. Dorea was packed off to Great-Aunt Cedrella's for the duration of the move, something she had protested strenuously but to no avail. Papa had hugged her fiercely before quietly asking her to behave for her great aunt and having Moppet take her and one of the puffskeins to Weasley Hall with an overnight bag. Dorea however was not feeling at all inclined towards being a good girl. She wanted to cry and scream and break things, possibly even people. Especially if they were stupid, Gryffindorish people who wouldn't leave her alone, such as her Great-Aunt Cedrella's incredibly irritating grandchildren who had invaded the Hall for a family Christmas.

Dorea had retreated into the attic within minutes of being left at Weasley Hall and staked out a window seat half-hidden amongst the rafters to read the books she'd managed to hide in her overnight bag, the puffskein snuggling against her hip. Her current favourite was one of the books Grandpa had given her for Christmas from his own library, a treatise on the various schools of wandless magic and how each claimed to work. True wandless magic had a strong emotional component, making it a Dark Art by Ministry definition, though in most cases that emotion could simply be utter certainty that the magic would work rather than fear, rage, passion or loathing. Strong negative emotions made any spell harsher and sharper, just as strong positive emotions like love softened and strengthened them.

Wandless magic depended entirely on the mind of the person wielding it, requiring single-mindedness for the duration of the casting and a very precise visualisation of what that person wanted to achieve. Unlike wand spells, which were arithmanticly constructed to create a specific effect so long as the caster got the wand movements and pronunciation right more or less regardless of their mental state, wandless magic was completely freeform. Ritual magic was technically wandless, but it used runes, body movements and other symbols to create a structure to channel magic through. True sorcery was magic controlled solely and entirely by the mind of the sorcerer. Hogwarts was a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so it taught its students to use wands. Sorcery was almost a lost art in Britain.

There was a soft crack and Moppet appeared, ears drooping apologetically. "Lady Cedrella is sending Moppet to fetch Mistress Dorea for luncheon," the elf said softly, hands nervously twisting the edge of her pillowcase frock. The pillowcase did not look very pillowcase-like anymore, due to Dorea having used it as an embroidery sampler when she was learning to do blackwork and having also practiced smocking on it. It looked more like a dress than not, but was not clothing due to being a modified pillowcase rather than specifically created as a garment. Moppet was very proud of it.

Dorea did not want to go down to lunch and wasn't hungry, but saying so would only distress Moppet and Dorea couldn't see the point in bullying the poor creature. So instead she slid a bookmark into the hardback tome, snapped the clasps on the cover closed and tucked it into her bag so she could pick up her puffskein before heading off down the narrow spiral staircase connecting the attic to the highest actual floor of the Hall, the house-elf padding along behind her. Dorea had been given the option of leaving her bag in the small private dressing room she would be sleeping in, but had decided against doing so in light of the stories Great-Uncle Septimus had told her about some of his grandchildren. Cousin Arthur's twelve-year-old twins in particular, though their older brother William sounded interesting and less incomprehensible than the average Gryffindor.

Sitting in the large dining hall with nearly thirty other people, most of them noisy children, did nothing for Dorea's appetite; she picked at her meal, made no attempt to respond to any of her fellow diners and vanished from the table while dessert was being served, puffskein and bag in tow. This time rather than risk her attic hidey-hole being discovered she put on her coat, scarf, hat and mittens and retreated outside, climbing the massive yew tree behind the pond with a little magical assistance to help her past the tricky spots. Settled as high as she could reach, Dorea removed her gloves and absently petted the puffskein as she stared blankly out across the valley laid out below the Hall, remembering her Grandpa and doing her best not to make enough noise to attract well-meaning but very much unwanted attention from Gryffindor relatives. The tears however were beyond her control.

* * *

Fred and George Weasley weren't sure what to think of their black-haired scrap of a cousin who was the daughter of the infamous Sirius Black. They weren't sure why she was at Weasley Hall interrupting their family Christmas with her gloom and general air of misery, but it really had to stop. Christmas was a time for fun and celebration! Dorea had apparently been mostly raised by old people, which might explain why she was so miserable all the time, but that just made it all the more imperative to show her what real fun looked like. A few pranks, maybe a minor temper tantrum and Dorea would be smiling and laughing like their little sister Ginny. Ginny was a tough one to prank, being the family baby, but she _loved_ payback so when she was down in the dumps the twins sometimes pranked her on purpose to drag her out of her funk.

It took them well over an hour to hunt down Dorea, she of the scary eyes and depressing disposition, but Fred eventually located her perched up in the branches of the old yew tree at the end of the back garden. He would have missed her entirely if not for the disembodied cooing of the toffee-coloured puffskein she had not let go of since arriving, a sound which had floated down the breeze as he hesitated by the gate leading to the orchard. She had been hard to spot up that tree, dressed in Slytherin colours as she was, but Fred had caught a glimpse of her wine-red bag and quietly snuck back up to the house to fetch his twin so they could plot their attack.

Their prospective victim being up a tree meant changing their plan slightly, as trees were not easy places to catch people by surprise in. Easier by far would be to set the trap on the ground and either coax her into it or wait for the early dusk to drive her back into the house. Judging the waiting game to be their better option given the demonstrated anti-social tendencies of the girl in question, Fred and George quietly set about putting together their prank on the path leading back to the house. They also set a different prank on the path leading around the pond in the opposite direction, just in case. That done, both boys retreated to hide behind the low evergreen bushes on the far side of the pond. Their baby cousin would be forced from her perch soon enough.

In fact it was already starting to get dark, so they barely had to wait any time at all before there was a scraping and scuffling from the yew tree and the leggy ten-year-old appeared beneath the spreading evergreen, red bag on her back and puffskein balanced on top of it. As they watched Dorea scrubbed her face with one gloved hand, hiccupped unhappily then turned to stare at the Hall for a long moment before sagging slightly and turning slowly along the path around the pond.

She walked right into the trap, which exploded beautifully with dungbombs, lurid pink smoke and a potion that dyed a person's hair and skin an eye-searing shade of orange. As the smoke cleared both boys eagerly leaned out of the bushes and burst out laughing as their victim became visible. Dorea looked utterly gobsmacked, eyes wide and posture as stiff as a wet cat with her hair and skin dyed in uneven orange streaks, dung splattered all over her coat and her puffskein coloured as glaringly bright as her hair. It was _hilarious!_

Then suddenly icy green eyes were boring into George's, a fey smile twisted Dorea's lips into an unsettlingly vindictive parody of amusement and both he and his twin were airborne and floating above the thin icy crust of the rather deep pond. Fred had a moment to widen his eyes in horrified realisation and let out a yelp of sheer terror before their cousin brought her hand down in a swift, deliberate movement and both of them were forcefully plunged head-first through the thin ice, into breath-stealingly cold water and pressed face-first into the sludge at the very bottom of the pond.

* * *

Dorea's mind was oddly blank as she dunked the two boys who had assaulted her and laughed at her into the icy pond; part of her recognised that drowning the idiots would get her into trouble while the rest of her felt the horrible beasts _deserved_ it for their mockery of her grief. However if they drowned they wouldn't get to suffer so she hoisted them out of the water for long enough for them to catch their breaths, glance at her and realise that she wasn't letting them off the hook just yet. Their wide-eyed horror and terrified screams as she plunged them back into the muddy pond were music to her ears. It was oddly easy to levitate them like this, directing their movements with a wave of her hand. It felt like there was nothing else in the world other than herself, the pond, her magic and her two victims.

She dragged them up again, shook them slightly to make sure they were both breathing and was about to dunk them once more when burning pain abruptly seared across her face and she lost control, dropping the boys into the water and blinking stupidly into the pale and furious face of her Great-Uncle Septimus, who had just slapped her. Dorea then noticed that she and the sodden duo being dragged from the pond were not the only people present, that she was covered in smelly dung and that her hair and hands were streaked with a truly awful shade of orange. Looking down further, she saw that her puffskein was equally orange and dung-spattered as it huddled against her calf, meeping pitifully.

Dorea looked back up at her Great-Uncle and promptly burst into tears.

* * *

Dorea did not see the twins again until shortly before leaving Weasley Hall the following day: she had not been severely punished for half-drowning the two twelve-year-olds due to the cruel prank they had played on her immediately beforehand and her own evident grief, though Great-Aunt Callidora had given her a brief but thorough lecture on disproportionate and inappropriate responses and confined her to her room for the rest of her visit. She had not expected to see the twins at all, considering that Cousin Arthur had come to apologise on his sons' behalf shortly before she went to bed. So their surreptitious entry into the dressing room in the early hours of the morning, wrapped up in many layers of pyjamas and blankets with the steam characteristic of the pepper-up potion billowing from their ears, was entirely unanticipated.

"Dear-"

"-darling-"

"-deadly-"

"-cousin Dorea,"

"my brother and I-"

"-would like to sincerely-"

"-grovellingly-"

"-unreservedly-"

"-apologise for our insensitive-"

"-and downright moronic-"

"-behaviour yesterday,"

"and promise to never-"

"-_ever_-"

"-prank you again,"

"no matter what."

"Please don't kill us!" they finally chorused, throwing themselves dramatically upon the carpet in front of the fireplace. Dorea stared at the two boys, whom she _knew_ were Hogwarts students, and couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up in her throat. It was all so ridiculous!

"A-p-p-pology ac-c-c-cepted," she managed to articulate thought the giggles, waving a hand at them. "Now g-g-g-get off the floor!"

The twin bounded back to their feet. "As you command, oh princess of payback-"

"-supreme queen of retribution-"

"-architect of swift and horrific vengeance-"

"- and mistress of magical doom!" with that they bowed low and vanished from the room with identical bright grins and cheery winks, leaving Dorea to giggle to herself and wipe away a few errant tears. Perhaps her Weasley cousins were not as bad as she thought, despite being idiot boys. With that hope in mind, she set about packing away her pyjamas in anticipation of Moppet coming to take her back to Black Manor in time for breakfast.

Little did Dorea know that she had just secured the dubious accolade of being the only person to ever succeed in traumatising both Weasley twins for life; though if she had fully understood the depth and breadth of their past exploits she would probably have decided that they deserved it.


	8. Chapter 8

Beta'd by the helpful InsaneScriptist.

I am not JK Rowling, nor do I want to be.

* * *

**Of victories and their price **

When Arcturus died suddenly less than two weeks after the winter solstice Lucretia felt horribly guilty despite recognising that there was absolutely nothing she could have done to prevent it. Her father had been the one to locate the Horcrux made from the Gaunt family ring and had done most of the ward-breaking on the shack where it had been hidden before assisting Ignatius in unravelling the structure of the Soul Trap itself. Lucretia had exhausted herself as well, beating back the ward defences so that her father could take them down and drawing and maintaining the Exorcism Ward within which the Horcrux had been deconstructed.

Lucretia was well aware that she, her husband and her father were all far too old to be doing something so strenuous, but there wasn't anyone in the younger generation with the necessary strength and specialised skills that such difficult and dangerous work required. Dumbledore's actions in the Wizengamot following Grindelwald's defeat had made it illegal to teach the branches of magic needed to disassemble Soul Traps and unravel Dark curses at Hogwarts, so those magics persevered only abroad or within Dark families such as her own, meaning that those with both the proper mindset and access to accurate material were all but non-existent. The War against the Dark Lord had slain or driven abroad almost a third of her nieces and nephews' generation, thinning the ranks even more. Sirius' upbringing and time in prison had made it impossible for him to become a true Dark Arts Master regardless of natural aptitude –he was far too angry– and Dementor damage meant that while her nephew had a stunning aptitude for both Charms and Transfiguration, it would take him years to rebuild the mental and spiritual resilience needed for a Ward-Breaking Mastery. His inner rage at those who had abandoned him at the various stages of his life was what had prompted Arcturus to decide against informing Sirius of the Horcrux issue as soon as it emerged, as there was nothing Sirius hated more than knowing about a problem and then not being allowed to do anything about it. Though informing her nephew of the gravity of the matter would likely cause him to lose his temper, the thirty-year-old was much more mentally stable than he had been even six months previously and now could be relied upon to think about things in a mature, responsible and adult manner so long as he had taken his potions.

Upon reaching the Planetarium Lucretia had requested that Aunt Cassie send Dorea away, so as not to risk her overhearing anything. The older woman had done so with smooth logic and surprising speed, bundling the ten-year-old off to Cedrella's with an overnight bag, puffskein and personal house-elf in tow. Then as the other elves were packing up the contents of the house to either put in storage or transfer to Black Manor Lucretia led her nephew to the Planetarium's Smoking Room, which was barren other than a few elderly armchairs and a modestly-sized table.

"Sirius, now that you are Lord Black I am obliged to tell you about a project my husband and I were working on for my father," Lucretia began, sinking into one of the chairs and folding her hands in her lap. Ignatius settled in the chair closest to her while Sirius sat opposite and Aunt Cassie to one side. "He swore us to secrecy on it until his death, at which point he left things to your discretion. We kept detailed books on the project, so once I've given you the gist of things you can chase down the details for yourself if you wish." She took a breath past the misery chocking her throat. "I am reasonably certain that Father's dogged pursuit of this matter hastened his death, but I am equally sure that had you been in his shoes you would have done the same."

Sirius clenched his fists, took a deep breath and breathed out shakily. "Please continue, Aunt Lucretia."

"It began with your mother's death," Lucretia began, not beating about the bush but deciding it best to proceed in an orderly manner. "Father requested that Ignatius and I check the house for Dark and dangerous artefacts before he sent in the house-elves to pack everything away, so as to prevent accidents. We found a lot of unpleasant items, some stolen from other family members, and a Horcrux that Regulus had stolen from the Dark Lord shortly before his death."

Sirius gaped. "A Horcrux? Voldemort made Horcruxes? No wonder he was completely 'round the twist! Wait, _Regulus_ stole it? Mild, meek, obedient Regulus?"

"It seemed his loyalty did not extend far once he'd discovered that his master had blasphemed against Magic," Ignatius said dryly. "Kreacher was able to give us the details; Arcturus and I were able to locate your brother's body and take down the Wards Voldemort had placed around the place intended to protect the Horcrux, but Regulus' corpse had been transformed into an Inferius so we were forced to destroy it. The ashes are in the Black Crypt." The many, many other Inferi had also been destroyed, most of them Muggle but a few not. The Wizard bodies Ignatius had turned over to the Unspeakables, who had in turn quietly informed the relevant parties so that the ashes could be interred.

"Sweet Merlin, my poor brother," Sirius choked, hands covering his face as his shoulders shook. "So damn true to his principles no matter how misguided; I was supposed to be the rash Gryffindor of the family, not him!"

A soft crack heralded the arrival of Tansy, who set down a tea tray on the table then retreated from the room. Aunt Cassie leaned forward to pour the tea, handing it out as Sirius tried to recover his composure.

"You were saying, Auntie Lulu?" he rasped, carefully cradling his cup and saucer with slightly trembling hands.

"The Horcrux was anchored in Slytherin's locket," Lucretia went on, the childish nickname warming her heart in spite of the situation, "and the Dark Lord always claimed to be both a Slytherin alumnus and heir to the founder himself, so once Father, Ignatius and I had neutralised it we set about seeking his true identity in order to make finding the other Horcruxes we believed him to have made simpler. He recruited heavily from my peers, so I began investigating which of the male Slytherin alumni in the years above and below mine had vanished without a trace before the Dark Lord started recruiting." That had been no easy task: several had vanished overseas, some had changed their names and Lucretia had found the long-dead remains of three in their heavily-warded homes, their disappearances from society never investigated, which smacked of premeditated murder and cover-ups. "At the same time Ignatius was investigating the locket, hoping to come across the Dark Lord's identity from that angle."

Ignatius lowered his teacup and continued, giving Lucretia the opportunity to wet her throat and gather her thoughts. "The last known owner of Slytherin's locket was Hepzibah Smith, who was rumoured to also own Hufflepuff's cup. Smith bought the locket from Caractacus Burke; I managed to get out of him that he'd bought it from a very pregnant young witch who'd not had a clue as to its value but _had_ known it was Slytherin's." Ignatius paused. "The only pureblood line that could claim to be descended from Salazar Slytherin was the house of Gaunt, though their fortunes turned rather sour halfway through the eighteenth century and their last male heir died in Azkaban a few years back. Interestingly, what landed Morfin Gaunt in Azkaban in 1943 was his murder of the family of the local Muggle landowner, one Thomas Riddle. Morfin's father was Marvolo Gaunt and he had a sister called Merope, who vanished without a trace after her father and brother were put in Azkaban back in 1926 for using magic on the son of the Muggle landowner Morfin later murdered, whose name was Tom Riddle."

Lucretia took up the tale again. "Putting Ignatius' results together with my own, we identified the self-styled Lord Voldemort to probably be Tom Marvolo Riddle, a Muggle-raised orphan who was in the year below me at Hogwarts. He was brilliant, charming, had a circle of friends who all went on to be Death Eaters and any indiscretions he may have committed were never discovered. His surname suggests a connection to the Muggle family murdered by Morfin Gaunt and his middle name is unusual enough to indicate a definite link to the Gaunt family, making it likely he was Merope's son by either the married landowner or said landowner's son, who would have been about her age. I left Hogwarts before Riddle started his fifth year but I managed to find out that after graduating he tried to apply for a teaching position, turned down several Ministry positions and got a job at Borgin and Burke's, which he resigned from less than two years later. He has not been seen or heard from since under that name, but a man calling himself 'Lord Voldemort' started recruiting followers about a decade later."

There was a brief silence as Sirius and Aunt Cassie took this in.

"Arcturus took our research and conclusions and took it further," Ignatius said, setting his cup and saucer down on the table. "He investigated the Gaunt residence, determined that it contained a probable Horcrux and purchased the land and property from the Gaunt Estate, the money from which was likely used to pay for the estate to be fully dissolved and properly valued by the Ministry. Then, this past midwinter, he took us down to the shack and broke through the wards so we could verify that there was indeed a Horcrux on the premises. Once Lucretia had identified it and I'd broken the curses on the item, Arcturus took the magic apart." The greying redhead paused. "Curse-breaking's a young man's job really; it takes a lot out of you. Arcturus knew damn well he was shortening his life by using Dark Arts that much at his age but he was determined to sabotage the bastard who'd murdered his grandson and committed such an abomination."

Sirius huffed. "To think mother could never understand where I came by my Gryffindorish tendencies."

Lucretia snorted. "All of us _real_ Blacks are unafraid to do what it takes to protect and avenge family; we just happen to prefer doing so in cunning and untraceable ways. You are far too brash about it all, which gives _your_ enemies more of a chance to thwart you."

Sirius let out a short bark of laughter. "Too true, Auntie! So, Grandfather died after exhausting himself destroying a second Horcrux."

"We believe there to be at least one more," Lucretia said calmly, "possibly the still-missing Hufflepuff cup that was not among Hepzibah Smith's belongings after she died. We think there are actually two more, as five is the next most stable magical number after three and if the Dark Lord were truly dead his followers would have lost their Dark Marks completely, which we would have heard about in the Prophet by now. Ignatius believes the Dark Lord's wraith to currently be haunting the forests of Albania, given the Dark rumours emerging from that part of the Europe at the moment. As the wraith will not fade until all Horcruxes have been unmade we are leaving him to his own devices for now, since we cannot destroy him."

"Understandable," Sirius muttered. "Auntie Lulu, can you teach me to unravel Horcruxes?"

Lucretia raised an eyebrow. "The Ministry considers the knowledge and spells required to make and unmake Soul Traps to be Dark Arts, you realise, despite them having initially been created to contain amortal beings such as poltergeists, boggarts and dementors. Herpo the Foul perverted their purpose to create the first ever Horcrux and they were tarred with the same brush ever after, though that was partly due to a number of other earlier Dark Lords and Ladies using Soul Traps to ensnare the souls of the newly-dead for various Dark Rituals and imprison ghosts."

"Voldemort's hiding bits of his soul in Dementor traps?" Sirius hooted in glee. "That's just so damn poetic!"

* * *

Sirius would be the first to admit he didn't know anything about Horcruxes other than that they were Abominations with a capital 'A'. Considering it had been his mother he had heard it from _that_ had stuck, as there were very few branches of magic Walburga Black had considered inappropriate. Learning the details of what one _was_ made the new Lord Black want to vomit, and he understood all too well why his little brother had defected from Voldemort on discovering that his master had made even _one_ of the foul things.

He would have preferred to start learning about Soul Traps at once –the idea of imprisoning Peeves was incredibly tempting– but there had been a hurried Floo call from Weasley Hall at that very moment and Sirius had been forced to confront an irate Molly Weasley over his daughter's attempt to drown her twin sons. It had taken minutes –admittedly chopped up into fifteen- and twenty-second snatches in the intervals within Molly's tirade– to get the full story from Septimus and Cedrella but most of an hour to get their temperamental Prewett daughter-in-law to calm down and be reasonable, even with Ignatius and Lucretia supporting him. Once Molly had understood the situation she had apologised profusely for her children's insensitive behaviour, her own impetuousness and her slander of Sirius' character, then hurried back through the Floo, no doubt to give the young twin Weasleys what-for. Her husband Arthur had stayed behind just long enough to apologise again before following Molly back to Weasley Hall, by which point Sirius was too tired and drained to do anything except eat a light meal and fall into bed early. It had been a truly dreadful day, full of news of unpleasant revelations and premature deaths.

The rest of the week did not improve: moving into Black Manor felt strange and wrong somehow without Grandfather there with them, but Dorea seemed to find the antiquated surroundings comforting. Her lessons remained cancelled until after the funeral on the coming Saturday so his green-eyed girl took to haunting the Black Library, riding the family's Aethonans across the skies high above the bleak, wintry landscape and watching the griffins that were nesting on the battlements of the otherwise uninhabited and heavily Warded Black Keep on its hill in the middle of the estate. Sirius was somewhat relieved by her absence, as it gave him the time and space to do his own mourning and get to grips with the details of his family's financial situation –extremely comfortable and well-managed, unlike the Potter Estate had been by the time he'd got out of jail– and read the journals Arcturus had left behind for him. The old man had known very well that he was coming to the end of his life and had set up everything so that Sirius would be able to take over without a hitch.

The young Lord Black couldn't help comparing these clear records, precise financial plans and carefully annotated business forecasts with the mess he'd had to deal with upon being recognised as Regent Potter. Over half the Potter accounts books hadn't been touched since Charlus died due to James being so busy fighting on the front lines of the War, almost everyone who owed the family money hadn't paid a knut since the War ended, the investments were stagnant, the businesses poorly managed or being heavily embezzled from, the properties were decaying and the house-elves were barely surviving! Only James' forethought in having all the Potter elves meet his baby daughter and heir had kept them from passing away within a year of his and Lily's death and they had still all been in truly dreadful shape.

Sirius had been forced to acquire new elves so the older ones didn't kill themselves through overwork, thoroughly shake down all the business managers –being a Black newly released from Azkaban had helped there– go over all the financial records with a fine-tooth comb and reapportion everything, which had been a headache even with Remus deciphering the legalese for him. He'd also taken the time to sue the people who'd been making money off the 'Girl Who Lived' nonsense, sent Goblin bailiffs to reacquire all the missing Potter heirlooms –which had cost him _all_ of the Potter Estate's Goblin-forged artefacts but had been completely worth it– and been forced to hold his temper when it turned out that James' invisibility cloak, the special family one that even hid you from the Marauder's Map, had been in Dumbledore's possession that fateful Halloween night. As it was he'd made it clear that any past allegiance to the Headmaster was permanently severed then gone back to the Planetarium and locked himself in his room so he could shout and scream and rage at the unfairness of it all. If James hadn't lent the cloak to Dumbledore he and Lily might have still been alive!

It had taken three years for him and Remus to get everything straight and another two for the Potter fortunes to start recovering. It would be at least a decade before the Potter coffers were as full as they had been when Charlus died, but that didn't mean Dorea would be hard-up upon inheriting the Potter title at seventeen; quite the opposite. Even in their original state of shambles there'd been enough hard cash in the vaults to get Dorea through Hogwarts very comfortably and allow her to live another thirty years without ever working so long as she did so modestly. Sirius was very proud of how well he'd managed his brother's estate though: the houses ruined during the War were rebuilt, freshly Warded and being properly maintained, the businesses were thriving, Potter Manor was in excellent nick and he'd upgraded the house's Ward system to include a few Black wards that were a bit more nasty than those his adoptive family had installed. Which reminded him, it was past time to start Dorea on the Potter Grimoires as he was pretty sure Grandfather and Great-Aunt Cassie had already taken her through the preliminary material in the Black Grimoires, even though he doubted his daughter had been permitted to see the books themselves.

His father had been the one to tutor him in Family Magic before he left for Hogwarts, as Orion Black had been the heir to the main family and inheritor of those Grimoires. Those lessons had continued in the following three summers despite his being sorted into Gryffindor, but after his fourth summer had been devoid of that precious time away from his mother –his birthright! – Sirius had not returned to his parents' house the following year. After getting out of Azkaban and getting his equilibrium back a bit Arcturus had taken up teaching him where Orion had let off and Sirius was far enough through now to be able to continue alone, but it stung sometimes that his mother had pressured his father into breaking with the very traditions she claimed were so vitally important just because he'd been sorted into the 'wrong' House.


	9. Chapter 9

Beta'd by the inspirational InsaneScriptist.

I'm sure I've done enough disclaiming by now, haven't I?

* * *

**Of change and anticipation**

After Grandfather's funeral Dorea's weekly schedule changed dramatically, becoming much less busy yet far more challenging. In anticipation of her starting Hogwarts in the coming autumn Great-Aunt Cassiopeia completely did away with the strict, predictable regime that had accompanied her from early childhood and introduced her to the much more difficult concepts of personal motivation and independent study. She now had either two short lessons each weekday followed by a project or task to be completed by the lesson the following week, or else a long practical session that lasted half the day and had to be studied for in advance. Saturdays were entirely free for her to do with as she wished –and if she wanted to go somewhere with her father or any other relative she had to ask at least a day in advance and have a specific location in mind– and Sunday afternoons were now dedicated to learning her Potter heritage. It took Dorea until mid-March to really get to grips with the new system, by which point she'd come to enjoy the freedom it gave her.

Monday mornings were now dedicated to Muggle outings, usually with Aunt Drusilla, Great-Uncle Marius' younger daughter. Dorea had to be appropriately dressed, have the right money and accoutrements and use her initiative and theoretical knowledge to navigate different situations without attracting unnecessary attention to herself. Dorea thus learned to catch a bus, plan and execute a train journey, buy clothing in a variety of different kinds of shops, navigate a street market, buy music recordings, navigate a public library and many other everyday Muggle activities. It was always the clothes that gave Dorea the greatest difficulties, but she was getting better at discerning which Muggle garments went together and which were most suitable for different occasions.

Monday lunchtimes were for discussing what had happened in the morning, listening to what improvements could be made and being told what the next week's expedition would be; After the chaotic first few weeks Dorea bought a diary and several notebooks and made a point of writing everything down. Monday afternoons were for reading Muggle literature, which was something of a guilty pleasure of Dorea's, and the only limitation on her time was that she had to be back at Black Manor in time to change for dinner. Dorea had quickly learned that it was best to be back at least an hour before dinner, so she had some time to do her independent study in.

Tuesday mornings included an hour-long lesson on Magical History, a ten-minute break then another hour-long lesson on Russian conversation and literature, generally a conversation discussing what she'd read since the previous lesson from the books Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had made available to her. She then had an hour before lunch to use as she pleased –which she'd personally designated to piano practice– then after lunch she had an intensive two-hour session on preparing potion ingredients and basic brewing, during which Great-Aunt Cassie always spent the first half-hour explaining different ways of preparing ingredients, why they made a difference and which kinds of potions different methods were best suited for. Dorea took lots of notes and really enjoyed the lessons, no matter how much pressure her Great-Aunt put on her during them. After potions Dorea had to change for afternoon tea, but was free for the rest of the day. She generally studied for an hour or so while sitting in the private parlour with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia then went riding above the grounds on Lark, her Aethonan. Dorea loved flying, loved being high enough up to feel cradled in the sky. Brooms didn't quite do it for her though; they were somehow fake. What she secretly dreamed of was unassisted flight, something her father had told her that Lily Potter had been capable of.

Wednesdays still involved art, but instead of visiting Great-Aunt Lucretia her aunt came up to Black Manor and sent Dorea out of the house for an hour to draw or paint something from life. Her work was never finished in that time, but she then had a week to complete the picture –not necessarily in a manner that was true to life– to her own satisfaction. She then had an hour and a half of Chinese calligraphy under her Great-Aunt's exacting eye, followed by French conversation over lunch. In the afternoons Dorea had two hours to herself before being taken to piano lessons in a studio above Concordia and Plunkett, the music shop in Diagon Alley. Her tutor was a severe, grey-haired spinster by the name of Miss Luella Selwyn, who was the best pianist Dorea had ever heard and frowned severely whenever she divined her pupil hadn't practiced enough. After an hour under Miss Selwyn's stern tutelage Dorea was whisked away home again for a brisk walk around the Manor's extensive gardens –rain or shine– and Italian conversation, followed by dinner. After dinner her time was once again her own, so Dorea usually studied for an hour before immersing herself in her latest book taken from the Black Library until bedtime.

Thursday mornings had changed entirely: she now had combat lessons in the Manor's Long Hall. She was instructed on the etiquette of the duel, the many reasons _not_ to abide by that etiquette in a real fight and actual physical combat with real swords. Well, real wooden swords since she was a beginner. Her tutor was a lean, grizzled wizard whom her great-aunts Cassiopeia and Callidora had gone to school with; his name was Domitian Rookwood and she was required to call him 'Sir'. He was a harsh taskmaster and bruised her multiple times every single session, but Dorea stuck with the lessons regardless because she was allowed to use a real wand during them. A family wand rather than a personally fitted one, but she could still cast real spells!

In recognition of the severe exertion required of her in the mornings, Thursday afternoons were dedicated to ladylike activities such as her completing her art, reading aloud, embroidery and so on. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia now regularly invited acquaintances, allies and so on around for tea on Thursdays, so Dorea got to spend time with her own friends and allies as well as get acquainted with the other purebloods and halfbloods her age and younger that she would be attending Hogwarts with. As host Dorea was required to be impeccably polite, but she soon got very good at concealing snide or cutting remarks within seemingly innocuous phrases. Great-aunt Cassiopeia considered the ability to do so a life skill, so Dorea's efforts in this area was encouraged.

Friday mornings were when Papa sat down with her for two hours after breakfast to guide her through her first forays into the Black Grimoires. As her father's only heir and the only heir he was ever likely to have, considering he couldn't find a witch who matched his exacting personal standards for a wife and his having spent several years in Azkaban –though Dorea wasn't sure why that mattered considering he'd been wrongfully imprisoned– she had the right and duty to learn the Family Magic so she could pass it on to her heirs. In fact, she had the right and duty to learn as much of it as possible, so the sooner she got started the better. It was not at all easy or even reliably fun, even though she got to use a wand, and Dorea was incredibly grateful for all the lectures on the nature of magic and the differences between banned magic, dangerous magic and Dark magic that her much-missed Grandpa had given her over the years.

After this taxing lesson she was free until lunch, after which she was free until four at which point she had advanced dance lessons at the studio until six. They were now learning partnered dances, which meant boys and, inevitably, Draco. He had become an embarrassing and pretentious snob, saying things best left unsaid and making Dorea cringe at his utter lack of tact and utter incomprehension of the concepts of 'promoting allegiances' and 'politic behaviour'. His heavy-handedness was almost Gryffindor in its arrogant assurance of success and Dorea did a lot of quiet apologising behind his back to keep the Family's allies sweet. She blamed the idiocy on Lucuis Malfoy's over-indulgence of his son, which was pretty much public knowledge and much deplored in private parlours as having ruined the boy. Dorea often heard about his various social gaffes on Thursday afternoons over tea.

Saturdays were, of course, entirely open for her to do with as she wished, as were Sunday mornings. Dorea had made a list of things she liked doing and places she wanted to visit and worked through it methodically, as that was the only way to get things done. Leave the day entirely unstructured and she'd end up doing nothing at all!

* * *

The months passed by swiftly for Dorea; she learned quickly, became more fluent in using the theoretical knowledge already acquired and started to explore what it was she enjoyed as opposed to what her relatives thought she would enjoy. She also grew more independent, asking for adult accompaniment on her various ventures out of the Black Estate rather than waiting for someone to take her somewhere. She also started to visit Daphne at Greengrass Court, getting to meet Daphne's little sister Astoria and even Astoria's friends, the Carrow twins Flora and Hestia.

By June Dorea was starting to feel the creeping excitement infecting everyone in her age-group, the anticipation of receiving their Hogwarts letters. Dorea knew she would be seeing Neville at Hogwarts; about a year ago he'd written to her about being dropped out of a window by his Great-Uncle Algie and bouncing down the front drive. Dorea had responded to this outrage against her cousin's person by sending Algernon Fawley, Great-Aunt Callidora's son-in-law, a cursed letter. Since then she had not been permitted to visit either Great-Aunt Callidora or Neville, but she could exchange letters still and Neville had written to her that the Healers at Saint Mungos had managed to reverse the curse transfiguring his ears so he no longer looked like a donkey, but that he still brayed sometimes when he laughed. Sirius had punished her for stealing a wand to cast the curse, but he'd thought her 'prank' hysterical and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had seemed quietly pleased with her appropriate, embarrassing and non-lethal vengeance on a relative's behalf.

The next change in Dorea's life as a direct result of her immanent transition to Hogwarts was carried out by her combat master. On the third week of June Dorea entered the Long Hall –in half-armour of course, because combat should be planned for– to find Mr Rookwood waiting as usual and a well-built teenage boy she didn't know standing next to him in half-armour with a real sword at his hip. Dorea judged him to be fourteen or possibly a bit older and he had freckles, a somewhat sullen expression on an otherwise rather pleasant face, mousy brown hair and ears that stuck out slightly.

"Black, this is Avery," Mr Rookwood said shortly. "He's another of my pupils and he'll be responsible for continuing your swordplay at Hogwarts. From now on you will be fighting him, either under my supervision or that of the Bloody Baron, until I decree otherwise. Questions?"

Dorea thought quickly. "Might I know my new tutor's full name?"

Domitian Rookwood grinned toothily. "Miss Black, may I introduce Audric Avery? Audric, this is Dorea Black, heiress of House Black."

The newly introduced Audric bowed shortly and Dorea made a quick curtsey in return.

"Now that foolery's out of the way," Mr Rookwood continued seamlessly, "Avery, put your sword down and pick a practice blade. Black, prepare yourself."

The lesson continued from there and Dorea got several different impressions: that Audric Avery didn't like her much; and that Mr Rookwood had brought him here as a favour to either the boy personally or one of his immediate relatives. Her tutor had not specified that Avery was in line to inherit and Dorea was familiar enough with recent history to know that at least two members of the Avery family –one the current family head– had been supporters of the Dark Lord. It was possible that Mr Rookwood was somehow related to _this_ Avery and was trying to give him alternatives, but equally possible that the frankly intimidating older man was trying to teach the teenager a lesson of some kind. Dorea didn't speculate, didn't go out of her way to make cruel, snide comments about his family or social status and just concentrated on the lesson to hand.

The weapon she was being trained to use was the tenth-century Germanic spatha, which was a real battlefield weapon rather than the stylised duelling rapier more commonly taught as a sporting weapon. This hammered home the fact that she was being taught a life skill rather than a diverting pastime; the spatha had been developed by the Romans to kill people efficiently with and the tenth-century Germanic variant had a slightly longer blade tipped with a short curve to the point and was made of much better-quality steel. It was a tool for killing people and Mr Rookwood made sure she knew it and knew how to use it.

Dorea hoped that Avery would decide to like her; it would make things so much less difficult for the both of them in the long run.

* * *

After three weeks of fighting Avery and being corrected and berated for her incompetence by Mr Rookwood, Dorea got the feeling that her teenage tutor was settling into his position as senior student and didn't seem inclined to abuse that authority. He stuck to fighting her on a level she could almost match, didn't demonstrate new moves unless Mr Rookwood told him to and the tension around his eyes had eased entirely. Dorea hadn't managed to have even a rudimentary conversation with the older boy yet, but recognised that it was unlikely they'd be given time for such pleasantries until they were both at Hogwarts. In the meantime she got to know his fighting style, favourite moves and footwork in the vain hope of managing to outwit him.

However she was tidily distracted from that goal first thing in the morning on Friday by the arrival at the breakfast table of a self-important-looking tawny owl carrying a crisp parchment envelope sealed with the Hogwarts crest. Upon setting eyes on the letter Dorea squealed in a most unladylike manner, quickly accepted it from the owl's talons and shakily slit the envelope open. She ignored the overly pretentious heading and the crisp perfection of the calligraphy; these letters were all written by automated quills and Albus Too-Many-Middle-Names Dumbledore was, according to Papa, a man with far too much on his plate and well past his prime, who insisted on meddling in things he should leave well enough alone and didn't have anybody to deflate his ego for him so he could realise these deficiencies for himself. The whole 'Girl Who Lived' nonsense he'd started was evidence enough.

_Dear Miss Black, _the important bit of the letter began,

_We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_Deputy Headmistress_

The only thing on the letter actually written by a person was Madam McGonagall's signature, but Dorea didn't really care. She had her Hogwarts letter! Then she remembered that she was required to answer.

"Could you wait a few minutes while I reply?" she asked the owl politely, using the manners she'd developed to talk to the griffins with. "Please help yourself to bacon in the meantime."

The owl hooted agreeably and snatched up a rasher of bacon as Dorea pulled out a sheet of parchment from her bag and a good quill. The letter she wrote was short and to the point:

_Dear Deputy Headmistress,_

_Thank-you for your letter; I will be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and look forward to the beginning of term._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Dorea Black_

_Heiress of House Black_

Quickly reading the letter over to ensure there were no ink blots or glaring errors, Dorea then rolled up the parchment for the owl to take. The large bird swiftly gobbled down another rasher of bacon then accepted the note and flew off again.

"Well, that suggests a change of plans for the day doesn't it?" Papa said cheerfully. "Get your booklist out, Dorry-Rose, and we'll see what you need to buy new as opposed to what we've got already. After all, why buy a new book when you could have one that already has lots of useful notes in the margins?"

"Papa!" She was a big girl now, so she was too old for baby nicknames!

"Fine, Dorea-dear, as you wish," Papa sighed. "They grow up so fast…"

Great-Aunt Cassiopeia snorted quietly but did not voice disagreement, so Dorea started reading the other sheet of parchment that had been in the envelope. Great-Aunt Cassie had got very frail these past months and Dorea was starting to worry about whether the elderly lady would still be here when she came back from Hogwarts for Christmas.

Dorea skimmed over the uniform requirements; those would be bought new regardless. The book list gave her pause and elicited a disgusted huff: Bathilda Bagshot's _A History of Magic_ was as boringly middle-of-the-road as it was possible for a history text to get, didn't cite any original period sources and glossed over most of the important bits like how and why things had happened at all; Adalbert Waffling's _Magical Theory_ was equally derivative, lacked depth and was hopelessly outdated in places; and _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_ was the same book her father had used twenty years ago! The other books had been in use for over forty years and were all standard texts: reliable, basic and superficial. She already had several copies of the entire seven volume set of Miranda Goshawk's _The Standard Book of Spells_ and had been studying the other four required books for several years already. If she was to make any progress at _all_ she would clearly have to take along some additional reading, as well as properly explore the Hogwarts Library.

Of course, she'd have to leave at home most of the interesting books, as Hogwarts limited itself to what the Ministry considered legal. Which wasn't all that much, considering.

Her eyes drifting down to the other equipment she'd need, Dorea realised that she had an important question to ask:

"Papa? Will I be getting a new wand?"

"Yes you will; new wands sold to underage children are a means of identification, but I'll let you take a second, Family wand in case of emergencies. Be sure to keep the second wand a secret though!"

"Yes Papa!" thrilled at the thought of getting a wand of her very own, Dorea dismissed the rest of the list; those she had already. The final note concerning pets was a bit disheartening, but she hadn't really expected to be allowed to take Lark with her anyway. She didn't have an owl of her own –Black Manor had an extended family of eight great grey owls in residence that ensured the mail was delivered and woe betide anyone who tried to stop them– and didn't care for toads, but she didn't fancy a cat either. A snake would be nice, as they were good conversationalists, but that would give away her extra-secret gift, the one Great-Aunt Lucretia had instructed her to keep even _more_ quiet than her moderate Metamorphagus ability and had led to much mumbling about her mother's magical heritage.

The injunction against brooms she ignored; brooms were boring compared to winged horses, griffons and hippogriffs. They were just wood and spell-work created in a mockery of the living, breathing magnificence of a winged beast. However there remained just one vitally important question:

"Can we go straight after breakfast, Papa?"


	10. Chapter 10

Beta'd by the jovial Insane Scriptist

As so many people have asked, I am officially announcing that this _will_ be a full cast KHR crossover, but that bit won't start until after Dorea is fifteen. I have big plans and those kinds of things take time to set up properly.

* * *

**Of shopping and foreshadowing**

Slightly unfairly, Papa did not agree to take Dorea shopping immediately after breakfast. His reasoning was that waiting until mid-morning would give Dorea time to send Daphne a message via Moppet, so the two girls could shop together, and mean Great-Aunt Cassiopeia would have someone to talk to over tea while Papa accompanied Dorea around the Alley. While still impatient to get going Dorea bowed to her father's reasoning and scribbled a quick invitation to Daphne and her family. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia tired rather quickly now, but Dorea knew better than to suggest she stay behind at Black Manor while Dorea did her Hogwarts shopping!

Moppet came back with a reply not even five minutes after Dorea had sent her: Daphne's equally hurried missive stated that the Greengrass Family were delighted to accept the Black Family's invitation, and that they would Floo over in an hour's time. Dorea made good use of that time to go rooting around in the Lumber Room for a suitable trunk to transport all her various possessions to school in. Due to the numbers of past Blacks attending Hogwarts having been much higher, there was a large variety of different trunks of varying ages to choose from. Dorea eventually settled on a large, modestly ornamented dome-top trunk made of teak which was barely scarred at all and had a large number of very interesting security runes painted all around the inside lip of the lid. It also had an interior six times the size of the actual trunk divided into in two separate compartments accessible by different unlocking methods, three different secret cubbyholes on the inside and six more on the outside, the smallest being only just large enough for a wand. According to Lurcher this trunk had belonged to her Great-Great-Great Aunt Isla, who had travelled a lot in the Muggle world before marrying a muggle and getting thrown out of the Family. It was fitted with permanent internal Security Charms to prevent anything placed inside from being moved or damaged during transit no matter how much the trunk was thrown around, Anti-Theft Wards, considerable Warding against magical damage and could always be lifted easily no matter how much was inside it. When she'd run away to get married she'd taken her other, rather larger trunk with her, but this one had just been put into storage and forgotten about.

The trunk wasn't actually empty: the compartment hidden in the top of the lid was actually a built-in mirror and makeup case still containing a number of bottles, jars and packets of soap, perfume, powder and so on. They were all perfectly useable due to the Stasis Ward carved into the sides of the compartment, so Dorea moved them all to the lower shelf of the miniature vanity so her own hairbrush, soap, shampoo and lip balm could go on the upper levels. She'd never worn makeup before herself –she'd not even considered it really– but if she ever did want to there was plenty of space for things to fit into.

Lurcher insisted on carrying the trunk to her bedroom, ready to be packed once she returned from Diagon Alley, and Dorea checked her watch then hurriedly changed into a clean and rather smarter lightweight robe in royal blue with silver piping, slipped her feet into her sandals and took a brush to her hair, taming and softening the wild ringlets before tying them back in a high ponytail. Her hair sorted, Dorea grabbed a shoulder bag, picked up her Gringotts key from her jewellery box and hung it around her neck for safekeeping and dashed off downstairs to greet her friend, who would be coming through the fireplace in the atrium any minute.

She arrived just in time to see the flames flare green and Lord Greengrass step out, holding onto Daphne's hand. Dorea beamed.

"Welcome to Black Manor, Lord Greengrass, heiress Greengrass."

Lord Greengrass smiled fondly at her as he released Daphne's hand. "Good morning Dorea. All ready to set out for Diagon?" Behind him the fire flashed green again and Lady Greengrass and Astoria stepped out onto the front hearth.

Dorea bounced on her toes. "Yes! I'll just go and see if Papa and Great-Auntie are ready too." She ran to the door then had to pull herself up short to avoid running into her father, who grinned down at her mischievously as Great-Aunt Cassiopeia appeared in the hallway behind him, wearing her summer coat, hat and lacy gloves.

"All ready, Dorea dearest?" Papa asked, that naughty look still shining in his eyes. Dorea huffed; she knew that look.

"What have I forgotten, Papa?"

Her father obligingly held out the piece of parchment detailing what she would need to take to Hogwarts. Upon seeing it Dorea abruptly remembered that she'd left it on the breakfast table and groaned, her cheeks darkening the barest fraction. She tried to snatch it off him but he held it up out of her reach. "What do we say, Dorry-dear?"

"Papa!" Dorea protested at the babyish nickname before dropping her hand and sighing dramatically. "Thank-you for picking up my list for me, Papa. May I have it?"

Her father promptly handed it over, still smiling cheekily. "Of course, daughter-mine. Do try not to lose it."

Dorea sniffed, putting her nose in the air as she slid the parchment into her bag. "_I'm_ not the one who left their coat at the theatre and had to send Wispy to fetch it, Papa."

"Shall we depart?" Great-Aunt Cassiopeia said firmly before Papa could do more than gasp dramatically and clutch at his chest. "The longer we wait the busier it will get." With that she set off towards the front door, outside which Mr Stewart was doubtless waiting with the car.

The Stewarts had been retainers of Black Manor since time immemorial, and while no Stewart had ever attended Hogwarts they were nonetheless a magical family with a strong affinity for creatures: they tended to the Estate's griffins, cared for and exercised the Aethonans, made sure the Muggle tenants on the more far-flung farms weren't bothered by jarveys and other, similar tasks. They also drove large number of coaches that Dorea had been taken to various places in as well, which was always fun as hitching up Aethonans to a coach meant flying to your destination, but since the thirties a number of cars had been added to the small fleet of conveyances. All the cars were fully licensed in both Muggle and Magical societies and extensively Charmed. As there would be seven people sitting in the back of the vehicle, Dorea knew the car outside would be either the 1936 Rolls-Royce Phantom II or the much newer Bentley T2, which had been bought and Warded during the Voldemort War and was probably bomb-proof. Shortly after Grandpa had bought it Mr Stewart had reputedly run down a Death Eater firing Blasting Curses directly at the windscreen and the car hadn't even been scratched.

The car waiting was in fact the classically stylish Phantom II, so Dorea clambered in after Astoria, settled herself on one of the four backwards-facing seats and waited impatiently for everyone to settle. It didn't take long.

* * *

Once they arrived at the Wizarding entrance to Horizont Alley Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and Lady Greengrass left the main party, taking Astoria with them. Dorea suspected they'd distract the nine-year-old with a trip to Pilliwinkle's Playthings and possibly a sweet shop before settling in at Theodosia's, the best tea shop in the entire Wizarding district. Leaving them to it, Dorea grabbed her father by the hand and tugged him onwards towards Gringotts: this would be the first time she would be allowed to take money out of the vault Mother and Uncle James had left her and she was really looking forward to seeing it!

Emerging from Gringotts half-an-hour later, windswept and slightly giddy from the cart ride, Father steered her firmly towards Twilfitt and Tattings. "Much as I would like you to enjoy the same Hogwarts experience as everyone else, including getting fitted at Madam Malkins," he said quietly as they left the main thoroughfare and into a small square lined with much more tastefully dressed windows, "as heiress Black you have an image to uphold and I'll not have your school friends getting silly ideas into their heads concerning the Family's finances." Because the Blacks were as close to royalty as Wizards could get and were held to a higher standard, so wearing normal school robes would be seen as either penny-pinching or a sign that the family finances were not what they should be. Either of which would have unfortunate political repercussions.

"I understand father," Dorea said meekly, making sure to use the more formal mode of address since they were in public. "See you later Daphne."

Daphne glanced up at her own father imploringly and the man's lips twitched. "Far be it from me to stand between a young lady and her wardrobe," the sandy-haired Lord Greengrass said wryly, "but your uniforms _only_, Daphne. When you finally stop growing I'll let you buy everyday wear at Twilfitt's, but not before."

"Thank-you father," Daphne said demurely, eyes downcast and smirk triumphant.

Miss Tatting was politely delighted to have two young ladies in her shop purchasing Hogwarts' uniforms and soon had them selecting a finely woven, double-breasted, thick black tweed winter cloak lined with dark silk and a soft, lush black broadcloth material for their everyday robes. The saleswoman successfully persuaded them to buy five sets of uniform robes rather than the required three, pointing out that, after a messy Potions or Herbology class, they might like to change and the minimum uniform requirement did not cover such things. She also scoffed politely at the requirement for a hat, mentioning that nowadays it was rarely worn, but provided a variety of very attractive ones for them to chose from. Dorea picked a rather short hat with a fairly narrow brim and built-in Warming and Cooling charms that could be activated at the tap of a wand; Daphne picked a slightly taller and more dramatic hat. Miss Tatting then presented them with a selection of dragonhide gloves, pointing out how the differences in breed affected the material. She explained that yes, the Hebredian Black gloves were slightly sturdier than the Welsh Green ones, but it would not make a difference in a scholastic context and the skin of the Welsh Green was considerably more flexible, granting greater dexterity and reducing the chances of fumbling something. The Short-Snout gloves were considered the most attractive due to their silvery blue colouring, but as they would be used for rather menial tasks they were a tad over-ostentatious.

Both Daphne and Dorea bought the Welsh Green gloves in the end, though Daphne confided quietly that she suspected Pansy would buy Short-Snout gloves. Pansy, despite coming from an old pureblood family, lacked class. Draco was an embarrassment but he did at least have excellent taste.

After making them stand still for half an hour to have the robes properly fitted, Miss Tatting informed the two girls that their uniforms would be delivered to their homes in two days time and directed their fathers towards Mr Twilfitt to pay. That done Lord Black decided that wands were the next things to buy, because visiting a bookshop with Dorea had never taken less than two hours since she'd learned to read. Pouting slightly, Dorea walked hand-in-hand with Daphne to Ollivander's at the other end of the Alley.

* * *

Dorea did not like the wand shop. It was too quiet, magic weighing down the air and sending shivers up and down her spine that contrasted unpleasantly with the slight sense of heat radiating from her forehead.

Dorea's forehead was smooth and unscarred, but when Voldemort had attacked her and her mother's Ward had retaliated the cot the runes had been inscribed in had not been able to withstand the power channelled through it. This had resulted in the Ward attaching itself directly to Dorea rather than collapsing in on itself, the Sowilo rune that was its anchor and focus etching itself onto her skull in the centre of her forehead. It doing so had left a nasty burn on her skin, but proper healing had dealt with that easily enough and now the only way to see the mark indicating she was under an active Blood Ward was to use a very complicated and sensitive Diagnostic Charm.

She could feel the Ward whenever she did something dangerous though: its warmth danced under her skin like liquid sunshine when she duelled and practiced her swordplay, granting her additional strength and speed. The hidden rune also heated whenever Great-Aunt Cassiopeia used Legimency to prod her shields and Great-Aunt Lucretia had speculated that if anyone wishing Dorea ill attempted to invade her mind the Ward would repel them.

Her forehead was prickling now and she could sense the potential in this dingy, dusty room. Do something _exactly_ wrong in here and all of Diagon would be nothing but smoking rubble: unbounded wands could be rather volatile.

"Good afternoon." Dorea did not jump, she slid into a defensive stance and twisted around to see who was there. Daphne jumped, then after regaining her composure glanced at Dorea with a raised eyebrow. Dorea lidded her eyes briefly, causing Daphne's forehead to crease. Dorea suspected that her best friend would be demanding duelling lessons as a birthday present next year, particularly since, according to the newly-graduated Dora, Hogwarts Defence professors changed every year and ranged between 'moderately competent' and 'pretty hopeless'.

"Ah yes, Daphne Greengrass and Dorea Black," said the silver-eyed man who could only be Mr Ollivander. "I have been expecting you both." Then he glanced at the two adults. "Sirius Black. Twelve and a quarter inches, laurel and dragon heartstring, slightly springy; a shame about what happened to your previous wand, truly a shame, but it seems this one suits you just as well."

"It has been a delight, truly," Dorea's father said with a wry grin, "less playful than my last one but I find myself liking its reliability."

"Your first wand; spruce and dragon heartstring, eleven and three-quarter inches," Mr Ollivander smiled. "A right mischief-maker that one was: turned my tape measure into liquorice!"

Her father chuckled at the memory and the wand-maker turned to Daphne's father. "Reginald Greengrass: ten inches exactly, pine and unicorn hair. Rather inflexible; has it served you well?"

"It is a most excellent wand, Mr Ollivander," Lord Greengrass said warmly, "but enough of that: my daughter needs a wand."

"We shall begin with Miss Greengrass then," the wand maker said, prompting Dorea to retreat to the spindly chair in the corner.

It took fifteen minutes, but at the end Daphne was equipped with a ten inch wand of yew with a dragon heartstring core, which Mr Ollivander described as "rather springy; a potent combination. I'm sure you will go far with it. Yes, far indeed," which was slightly ominous. Yew had a bad reputation as a wand wood, being associated with powerful duelling skills and fierce, implacable witches and wizards.

"And now for Miss Black," Mr Ollivander said softly. "I do wonder who you will take after, my dear." The way he said that gave Dorea the distinct impression that the old man _knew_ she technically had three parents and was heir to two very different magical families. Potters were traditionally Gryffindors, but Dorea was pretty sure she was a born Slytherin.

"Let's start with ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on and give it a wave."

Dorea obligingly waved the wand, taking care not to point it towards anybody. The wand ignored her efforts entirely and Mr Ollivander snatched it back.

"Beech and dragon heartstring, nine inches. Nice and flexible," he pushed a new wand into her hand, but this, too was unresponsive.

"Hmm, try this: elm and phoenix feather, thirteen and a quarter inches." Dorea sensed _something_ then, but the wand maker snatched it back with a muttered "no, no, not right at all," and hurried off to find more wands.

It seemed in fact that there might not _be_ a suitable wand for her in the shop, given that nearly half an hour later Dorea was _still_ waving wands. Mr Ollivander seemed positively ecstatic at the challenge though and was smiling delightedly as he handed her wand after wand:

"Tricky customer eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match in here somewhere –I wonder– well why not –unusual combination– holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple." A pale wand was thrust into her hands, elegant in its simplicity. As Dorea grasped it she felt the prickling heat in her forehead melt away entirely and deep, gentle warmth fill her body. Gently flicking the wand tip, she smiled as it produced a fountain of iridescent white-orange sparks. Both the other men cheered and Daphne applauded gently, her wide smile and shining eyes in stark contrast to her restrained behaviour.

"Oh, bravo! Yes indeed, very good. Well, well, well… how curious, how _very_ curious…" Mr Ollivander gently took the wand from Dorea and placed it in its box, then wrapped the box in brown paper, still lost in his musing and muttering about the oddity of the situation. Dorea glanced at him warily, but did not comment. It was her father who asked:

"What's so unusual about my daughter's wand?"

Mr Ollivander glanced up at him. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr Black. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your daughter's wand gave another feather –just one other. I simply find it strange that your daughter should be destined for this wand when its brother –why, its brother belonged to the most feared wizard in recent history."

The name 'Voldemort' hung in the air like a corpse from a beam.

"Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. I think we must expect great things from you, Miss Black. After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things –terrible yes, but great."

Holly was one of the rarer wand woods, ironically considered the complete opposite of yew by being protective and nurturing. It was also associated with quests, particularly of the spiritual kind. Dorea's favourite of the Family wands had been Grandpa's, eleven and three quarter inches and made of elm with dragon heartstring. It had liked her even before Grandpa died and he had actually willed it to her. Elm was associated with presence, dignity, magical dexterity and sophistication, making it popular among purebloods of a pretentious bent. To Dorea it was something of her grandfather that remained at her side, helping her even now he was gone, so she cherished it for that reason. It was a little difficult sometimes, but Dorea recognised that compared to Grandpa she was just a naïve child with a lot of maturing to do and that it would take time and dedication to truly master his wand.

* * *

After Mr Ollivander's rather unnerving pronouncement her father paid the wand maker and hustled her out of the shop. Dorea was only too happy to leave behind those too-knowing silver eyes and bury her worries in books. Flourish and Blotts might have been the official supplier of Hogwarts textbooks, but it wasn't the only shop selling books. Those other shops were best left until later though, being less well-organised and having less room for people to stand about in. Sliding past other, older students and their families Dorea pulled Daphne away from the main shelves and back to where the more obscure and interesting books could be found. The manager had a soft spot for her, as she'd once tripped over a large stack of invisible books while trying to reach a rare tome on South American Blood Magic. Dorea had been rewarded for her unexpected discovery of over a hundred copies of _The Invisible Book of Invisibility_ by a copy on the book itself, the rare book she'd been trying to reach and a lifetime discount on all purchases; apparently invisible books were very expensive and he'd been in trouble for losing them.

Away from the noisy crowds Dorea took a deep, cleansing breath and let her shoulders sag slightly as she met Daphne's eyes. "That was… unexpected," she volunteered.

Daphne nodded, eyes shadowed. "Holly has most un-Slytherin connotations," she said quietly.

"If I have no choice, then I have no choice," Dorea said pragmatically, "but that doesn't mean I'm not going to do things my way. Foolish heroics are a lifestyle choice I'm not inclined towards."

Daphne giggled for a moment them frowned. "Wherever Magic takes you Dorea, I'll be there with you. I swear." Her tone was as low and mannerly as ever, yet deadly serious. Dorea realised she had just received her first Pledge. Pledges were what held pureblood society together: members of lesser families made them to members of greater ones and the resulting alliance lasted a lifetime. The Greengrasses were almost as old and respected a family as the Blacks, but they were less infamous, less powerful and less affluent. Daphne had also pledged alliance rather than service, which was an important distinction. The Crabbe and Goyle families had Pledged to personally serve the Malfoy main family for generations now and it truly was service, though it meant the younger Crabbes and Goyles got to attend Hogwarts rather than one of the numerous minor Trade Schools. Pledges were _serious_.

"And Tracy will be right behind you too, I bet," Dorea added humorously, wanting to lighten the mood. She and Daphne were best friends, but Daphne and Tracy were a completely different kind of best friends that were more like sisters. Dorea was hoping to make more friends at Hogwarts because she always felt like she was missing something when she, Daphne and Tracy were all together. It was irrational, she knew, but persisted because Daphne and Tracy knew each-other much better than she knew either of them. Hopefully that would change.

Putting the matter out of her mind, Dorea followed her friend's example and began browsing the shelves. There _had_ to be a more interesting Charms book than the set school text here _somewhere_…


	11. Chapter 11

Beta'd by the kind InsaneScriptist.

October tenth is Xanxus' birthday, so I'm publishing this chapter as well as a bonus! This means that _two_ chapters have gone up today, so make sure you haven't missed reading chapter ten!

* * *

**Of preparation for departure**

The six weeks between Dorea getting her Hogwarts letter and the beginning of her first school terms were intensely hectic. Thankfully all her classes and lessons other than duelling and swordplay had ended when she got the letter, though Dorea had managed to get her piano lessons continued until the ends of August and had been told by Miss Selwyn that Hogwarts did have a Music Room, so she was expected to keep up her practice.

Dorea spent most of her free time wandering around Black Manor to memorise everything for when she was away from home, sorting through her possessions to decide what would go to Hogwarts with her and repeatedly trawling through the Library in search of books to compliment her school texts and provide additional interest. She had decided that Ariadne Morgan's _Practical Charms for Busy Witches_ would complement _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade One)_, as what it covered was mostly the quick, time-saving and low-level Charms used in everyday life but not taught at school. A quick flick-through had revealed a variety of Cleaning Charms for different materials and substances, Repair Charms, Ironing Charms, Quill Charms and Finding Charms, among others. _Exercising you Imagination: Transfiguration Expanded_ by Hesperides Gamp was a proper textbook intended to build upon what the author called 'schoolboy transfiguration' and provided exercises, explanations and suggestions for what could be done, why and how at every step from total novice to NEWT student. It was in three volumes, so Dorea was only taking the first with her. _Animal Ingredients, Their Properties and Effects_ by Eusthenes Tripe had to come too, especially since _Magical Draughts and Potions_ didn't have _any_ of those useful details in and seemed to expect the reader to know them all already, as it didn't even give warnings on why care should be taken at specific points in brewing. Dorea suspected Mr Arsenius Jigger to be a Ravenclaw who, having memorised all that information, didn't see the need to include it in his work. _Magical Creatures, Their Behaviour and Habitats_ by Silas Griffin was coming too, being in all ways superior to Newt Scamander's work but less popular due to being considerably larger and wordier, as well as the controversial nature of some of his methods and findings. Dorea considered the text to be attractively scientific and methodical and didn't care that the author was Muggleborn. She had griffins in her garden and Griffin's chapter on them was supported by everything she'd observed herself.

_The Dark Arts: A Legal Compendium_ was coming too, so she could check what was illegal and what was just discouraged, as was _Self-Defensive Spellwork_ due to it being better written than the set Defence text. She was also bringing four different history texts since Hogwarts unfortunately seemed to consider Bathilda Bagshot's work the ultimate authority despite it only covering the past thousand years of British magical history and glossing over all of the nastier bits. _Ritual and the Right to Rule: Ancient Magical Societies and Their Customs_ had to come, as did _Power and Brutality: How Magic Shaped Medieval European Society_ because despite being obscure it covered in gory detail everything that had led up to the Statute of Secrecy being established worldwide. _Secrets of Hogwarts_ by Gasparde Montague had been written back in the eighteen fifties but Dorea considered it far superior to Bagshot's more recent _Hogwarts: A History_ since it contained a lot of nasty and suppressed stories of things that really shouldn't have been going on or that were culturally appropriate at the time but had since gone out of fashion, like all male students being expected to carry swords and attend physical combat classes, as well as a reasonably accurate map of the castle. Her last history book was Aquila Black's _Creature Wars_, which despite its occasionally crass Wizard-supremacist language was an almost contemporary chronicle of the various Goblin Rebellions and Giant Wars, accurately detailed and very engaging.

She was taking a few other books too, because from what her cousin Stephanie Oatley had told her there was a lot of free time built into the Hogwarts schedule and she wouldn't be able to go horse-riding in Scotland. _Symbol and Secret: The Power of the Written Word_ was coming since her Great-Aunt Lucretia had recommended it as the best book available on how Runes and other language-based rituals worked, as was _An Introduction to Scrying_, which Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had presented to her with a glint in her eye suggesting she learn it or else. Her other books were either fictional or historical biographies rather than reference books: Chinese fairytales in Chinese, some classical Italian literature –Dorea rather liked _Il Decamerone_ so long as she could limit herself to only reading a bit at a time– a few French historical novels, a compendium of Russian fairytales and a variety of books written in English.

She wasn't just taking extra books though. Daphne had already helped her pick out clothing that wouldn't have her peers staring due to how old-fashioned they were and sifted through her Muggle clothing as well. Dorea had also packed her art supplies, her sheet music –Miss Selwyn _had_ said there was a piano, though she would have to find it first– her writing case and her radio, which Papa had magically modified to pick up Muggle stations as well as Wizarding ones. She wouldn't be packing her half-armour and duelling kit until after her last lesson with Mr Rookwood, but that was going in as well. So was her embroidery, her battered toy hippogriff that Grandpa had given her the day he first met her and a variety of other odds and ends like her night-light, her mokeskin purse, her personal jewel box –containing only items Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had deemed 'suitable for a girl of her age' which excluded almost everything she'd inherited from Grandma Irma– and the communication mirror Papa had dug out of storage for her so she could get hold of him in emergencies.

Accompanying her to Hogwarts was Moros, one of the younger members of the great grey owl dynasty that had inhabited the Black Manor Owlery since Caelum Black's seventeenth century breeding experiment had given them sentience comparable with the estate's griffins, some kind of divination ability and a rather startling resistance to spells. The breeding population was far larger than the eight birds currently in residence and according to family records now stretched out across a good chunk of northern Europe and Russia, but if any Black of the main family needed to deliver a letter then an Omen Owl would present themselves to carry it. Moros had clearly decided that delivering Dorea's mail was now his prerogative and that was that; any other owl bought for that purpose would be summarily slain. Had Omen Owls been recognised by the Ministry they would have been classified as dangerous and requiring specialist knowledge to approach, but they were a secret restricted to the Lord Black and his closest associates so nobody else knew that category four creatures were being used by the Family to deliver post. It had the benefit that nobody ever survived attempting to tamper with Black mail, which was why Caulum had done it in the first place.

When not packing, exploring or browsing the library Dorea spent time with her numerous Muggle-raised cousins listening to stories about Hogwarts and its denizens from a Slytherin and Ravenclaw viewpoint, riding Lark as much as possible and reassuring Moppet that she wasn't a failure as a house-elf just because she couldn't come to Hogwarts to take care of her 'Mistress Dorea'. Dorea eventually charged Moppet with keeping her suite clean, airing her clothes regularly, taking care of the puffskeins and anything else that Lurcher felt needed doing, in addition to keeping an eye on Papa and making sure he and her other relatives looked after themselves, which seemed to satisfy to poor creature.

* * *

Dorea's birthday came at the front end of this scramble and was far better attended than any previous birthdays. Grandpa, Papa and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia did not organise the kind of birthday parties her Muggle-raised cousins told her about, but nor did they simply acknowledge the occasion with gifts as was more usual among Wizards. Instead, ever since she'd been introduced to her cousins on Great-Uncle Marius' side of the family, on her birthday Grandpa had opened Black Manor to friends and relatives, had the house-elves lay out a series of lavish buffets in various locations and welcomed everyone he considered Family or a respected ally to come and wish his great-granddaughter a happy birthday. As a result, ever since she'd turned five her birthdays had been major events and been the sight of many a family quarrel or grand fight. Lord Malfoy hadn't come since her eighth birthday, where he'd unwisely made a rude comment about Great-Aunt Cedrella's husband Septimus in said lady's hearing and been promptly turned into cream-coloured spaniel. Great-Uncle Cygnus _never_ came because Auntie Andy and Dora _always_ came, Neville hadn't come last year due to her cursing of his Great-Uncle Algie, but his birthday was the day before hers and he was probably doing something with his family anyway. Since befriending Daphne and attending group dance lessons most of those girls had started attending her birthday parties as well, which was a bit trying really but had to be accepted even though Pansy was always rude to her Muggle-raised cousins when she thought Dorea was out of earshot. She'd gotten progressively less rude as said cousins had started attending Hogwarts –especially after Dawn, Deborah and later Stephanie had been Sorted into Slytherin– but she was still snide and dismissive about them being squib-born. Dorea hoped her older cousins –two of whom had graduated this year along with Dora– would be coming and had even invited Mr Rookwood and Avery. She wasn't sure if they'd show, but she knew Miss Selwyn would because Miss Selwyn was a bit of a snob and had been thrilled at an opportunity to make so many potentially advantageous connections and possibly acquire new students.

Because her birthdays inevitably involved all manner of riotous behaviour, the house-elves packed away everything that might get broken, sealed up all the private rooms and ensured no paperwork of any kind was accessible. Dorea got family gifts over breakfast, well before the rest of the guests were welcomed into the house at eleven, so she had time to get them all to safety before she had to play gracious hostess.

This year being her eleventh birthday, Dorea suspected she'd get a lot of school-related presents. She also suspected that, as she'd met numerous boys her age at dance class since the spring, a lot of pure-blood parents would be bringing their sons along so as to improve their chances of catching her eye. Which was a bit creepy really but very traditional, so she put up with it. It had the added advantage of letting her get to know people before she spent most of a year with them at school, which she liked the idea of. She'd sent an invitation to the Weasley twins as an apology for half-drowning them back in January –specifying that semi-formal wear was required– and additional invitations to William Weasley –now working for Gringotts as a curse-breaker– and Charles Weasley –who had graduated with Dora and was her friend– so that their mother could be reassured that an adult close relative would be on hand if necessary. She'd added a letter explaining that, considering a great many of the other adult guests were not on good terms with Arthur Weasley, she didn't think he or his wife would want to attend but that they were welcome to stop by if they so chose. The letter she got back indicated that they did not so choose, but that Bill might be there with the twins. Providing Fred and George behaved themselves and didn't get grounded beforehand.

* * *

Her birthday dawned bright and clear, promising to get very hot later in the day, which was a relief since on sunny birthdays a lot of the guests wandered about the gardens and grounds, making it less likely for those who did not get along to meet each-other in an enclosed area. Dorea dressed in the new blood red princess-line dress robe laid out for her and the matching slippers, carefully brushed her hair and had Moppet help her fasten it up in a loose bun with garnet-topped pins, put in her garnet drop earrings and went downstairs for breakfast.

To her glee, breakfast was pancakes and Marius and _all_ his children and grandchildren had already arrived. Dorea hugged her Great-Aunt Honora –who at nearly seventy was still going strong and had adapted magnificently to discovering her husband's magical heritage– was kissed by all her aunts including Aunt Antoinette, whom she'd only met once before due to her and her husband Uncle Eduard living in France. Aunt Antoinette was a witch: both Martin and Morgane, hers and Uncle Eduard's children, had attended and graduated from Beaubatons. Dorea had not met either of her eldest cousins before, so she was very curious about twenty-three-year-old Martin and his very pretty part-Veela wife Leonie, as well as nineteen-year-old Morgane, whose fiancé Jean-Yves seemed as nervous about being introduced to the head of his beloved's family as he was elated. What Dorea found odd was that her French relatives spelled their surname as 'Blac', which meant 'pale' or 'white'. However introductions were soon out of the way and the extended family –twenty-six including Papa, Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and Dorea herself– was all seated in the Dining Room for breakfast, which involved a lot of friendly conversation, good-natured teasing and a rousing chorus of 'Happy Birthday'.

Dorea's birthday presents varied from fashionable Wizarding and Muggle clothing –from her female British cousins and aunts– to classical Muggle literature –Great-Aunt Honora– and some very stylish silver jewellery –her French cousins and cousins-in-law. Her boy cousins had mostly given her sweets, with the exception of Donald, the only squib of his generation, who gave her a book on modern motorcycle engineering. Donald was twenty-one, had just graduated from University and already had a job with Triumph Motorcycles which he was very proud of. Partly because Papa so obviously approved of his career choice and was happy to talk motorbikes with him at the drop of a hat. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had given her a silver scrying bowl and Papa had bought her a tea set and enchanted it for her himself, which was very thoughtful of him since Dorea genuinely disliked pumpkin juice and hadn't been looking forward to only being allowed to drink water at Hogwarts.

After breakfast the adults congregated in the various ground-floor parlours, smoking rooms and on the terrace while Dorea's underage cousins scattered across the grounds: Patricia and Stephanie to the stables to coo over the winged horses; Dawn to the small ground-floor library stocked with reasonably innocuous texts Charmed so they couldn't be taken out of the room; Gregory to the Quiddich Pitch as he had apparently promised to teach Anthony to fly; and Deborah to the gardens with her watercolours and a blanket to sit on so as not to stain her robes. Dorea of course had to stay in the house to welcome her guests and wouldn't be allowed to wander until after lunch.

The first guests to arrive were Great-Aunt Lucretia and Great-Uncle Ignatius, followed by the Greengrasses, the Davieses and Aunt Narcissa, Draco and Draco's grandfather Abraxas Malfoy. After their moderately staggered arrivals everyone else started showing up at once and Dorea's head was soon whirling with new names and faces, keeping her wits about her and trying to say relevant and polite things to all the politically-minded people who were angling for an advantage. By one in the afternoon Black Manor and its grounds probably contained an eighth of all the Wizard-born children in Britain and at least a tenth of the adults. Some of the last to arrive were William 'Call me Bill' Weasley and his younger twin brothers, all wearing smart new dress robes, followed five minutes later by their brother Charlie, who apologised self-deprecatingly for his tardiness, explaining that he'd been applying for a job at a Dragon Reserve and lost track of time. Dorea had smiled forgivingly and directed him to the Long Gallery, where a number of wizards with dragon-related business interests had struck up a conversation at the Western end. Charlie had brightened and promptly vanished, much to the amusement of his siblings.

The last guests to enter before the Floo was closed at half-past one were Mr Rookwood, a petite, thin and rather stressed lady whom he introduced as his niece –a Mrs Venetia Avery– and her two children: Audric whom she already knew and Arietta, his nine-year-old sister. Dorea was able to mentally place Audric then as the nephew of Allard Avery, who had been a Death Eater during the War and avoided a prison sentence by pleading the Imperius. Audric's grandfather Antonious Avery had died in Voldemort's service about five years before Dorea had even been born, but he had –according to Great-Aunt Lucretia– been one of the Dark Lord's closest associates.

Dorea did not let any of this colour her treatment of Venetia Avery née Rookwood or her children: she simply greeted them politely, informed Audric both of the small Quidditch tournament taking place and of various of his year-mates wandering the grounds then offered to introduce Arietta to Astoria Greengrass, who was about her age and likely admiring the Aethonians in the stables. Mr Rookwood had smirked at her as Audric excused himself and Mrs Avery smiled tenuously and agreed to Dorea's suggestion, then the older man departed abruptly to seek out his own peers.

Upon reaching the stables Dorea was besieged by hopeful girls and a few young boys all wanting to ride the magnificent winged horses, so she summoned two of Mr Stewart's grown sons to organise short rides around the paddock on Dana, who being old, steady and very gentle was by far the safest Aethonian for beginners and children; her Lark was a bit of a handful in comparison. Escaping shortly after, Dorea sought out one of the many buffet tables scattered across the gardens and loaded up a plate, then wandered around observing her guests and their interactions and occasionally being drawn into conversation.

While wandering around and tracking down the various individuals she was concerned might be a problem Dorea saw all kinds of interesting sights, prompting her to get Moppet to fetch a camera. As it was a nice sunny day no flash was required, enabling her to capture various moments forever. These moments included: Draco Malfoy speechless at being insulted by a Jarvey and Theodore Nott standing behind him, trying desperately not to laugh; Hannah Abbot making daisy-chains with the eight-year-old Carrow twins and Lavender Brown; her cousin Richard Oatley kissing her other cousin Dora Tonks in one of the bowers; Tracy's older brother Roger sitting halfway up a tree in his rumpled dress robes, reading a book; and most amusingly, Audric Avery sitting next to her cousin Deborah as she painted the rose garden and actually managing to hold Deborah's attention for a few moments at a time. Well, that _did_ partly explain why the fourteen-year-old was making such an effort to cultivate Dorea's acquaintance…

* * *

By the end of the day Dorea was exhausted, having made more polite conversation than could possibly be good for her, diffused several arguments, intervened in three separate fights to prevent wands from being drawn, dealt with the aftermath of four actual fights no matter how short they had been and had to coax Boreas, one of the Estate's hippogriffs –which inevitably resulted when breeding winged horses in proximity to griffins– away from one of the buffet tables with dead rabbits provided by Wispy. She'd had an audience for that, which had made things tricky but Boreas was good-natured by hippogriff standards and hadn't charged anyone. Both Weasley twins had been in the audience and had approached her afterwards to assure her that no pranks had been played at her party, no matter how much of a wrench it had been for them to contain themselves. Dorea had thanked them prettily and solemnly if smilingly informed them that playing pranks at other peoples' parties was _rude_, and that if they had been rude she would have let Boreas savage them. It had been a joke and both twins had laughed, but they'd also cast wary glances at the massive hippogriff as he churred and preened under her petting. It was nice to meet Gryffindors with actual survival instincts.

Due to all the guests Dorea didn't get a chance to open any presents until the following day, when every gift had to be examined for curses or traps by a capable adult relative, opened and admired and then a letter of thanks composed to whoever had given it to her. It was a very long job and took her half of the following week, by which point her photos had been developed in the appropriate potion and copies secreted in a variety of locations depending on the subject matter. Papa found what he called her 'blackmail habit' to be hilarious despite featuring prominently in several of the pictures. Dorea also sent copies of most of the pictures to the people who featured in them, which to her was just politeness but amused her father even more and always made Great-Aunt Cassiopeia smile. Draco did not get a picture of his verbal defeat by Jarvey –he wouldn't appreciate it– but she sent Theodore Nott a copy with the letter thanking him and his father for the Nundu skin rug they had given her. She did wonder how the Notts had come by such an unusual item though.

After her birthday and recovering from its inevitable aftermath, which always kept the gossips entertained for most of the following month, Dorea was startled to realise that she had barely a week until she would be taking the train from platform nine-and-three-quarters.


	12. Chapter 12

Beta'd by the lovely InsaneScriptist.

I put up two chapters yesterday, so make sure you didn't miss one of them!

* * *

**Of departure and transition**

Four days before Dorea was due to take the Hogwarts Express for the first time, her father and Great-Aunt Lucretia sat her down for a long, detailed talk about the precise nature of her family background, what had happened on the Halloween her mother and Uncle James had died and everything Great-Aunt Lucretia had found out about the Blood Ward protecting her, both from Lily Potter's notes and her great-aunt's own observations.

It was a somewhat protracted talk and had involved quite a lot of slightly confusing information about various types of ancient ritual magic, but Dorea had managed to boil it down thusly:

Uncle James couldn't have children due to a potions mishap at school, so if any of Dorea's potions exploded or vaporised she was to go directly to Madam Pomphrey, because that kind of thing happening to her would be bad.

Father had brewed a special potion so that he and Lily Potter could have a child without her mother breaking her marriage vows; that potion was highly illegal to use unless you were married to the man who you intended to get pregnant by, but having the express permission of the man in question if you weren't married also made it almost-legal. The book with the instructions in was in the Black Library and Dorea wasn't allowed to look at it until she'd reached her majority.

Once Lily Potter was pregnant, Uncle James had used her as the focus of a Line Adoption Ritual, meaning that both Lily and the unborn Dorea had from than onwards been legally and magically part of the Potter family. This technically cancelled out her mother's status as a Muggleborn, making her a half-blood instead and Uncle James' sort-of cousin. This was how Dorea had inherited both Potter and Black Family Magic, in addition to Parsletongue which might have come from her mother's apparently Muggle –but probably squib– heritage. Sirius had never seen her mother interact with a snake –Lily Evans hadn't taken Care at Hogwarts– so she might have always been able to speak Parsletongue and never realised it.

Shortly after Dorea had been born Lily had created the Blood Ward from a variety of references and examples in books from the Potter Library, which Dorea would be allowed to read only after completing a Runes OWL. Both Uncle James and her mother had died within the Ward's effective 'range', Uncle James on the outskirts and Mother well within the inner focus. According to Great-Aunt Lucretia this meant that _both_ the Potters' deaths and magical power had been absorbed by the Ward as their souls passed on. Uncle James' death had simply given the Ward strength, while her mother's death within the Ward's focal range had given the Ward a degree of sentience and a 'template' through which to retaliate at attackers. This was what had killed Voldemort: sensing his ill-intentions and the Killing Curse he had pointed at Dorea, the Ward had deflected the spell before lashing out and incinerating the Dark Wizard. Dorea had not been touched by Voldemort's spell, but the force which the Ward contained by then was too much for the simple wooden cot it had been carved into so it had re-anchored itself on Dorea herself, in order to continue protecting her.

There was a very nebulous prophecy that both Dumbledore and Voldemort seemed to think applied to her, but clearly did not due to a large number of inconsistencies. Mainly that the prophecy referred to a 'him' rather than a 'her' and that 'the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal' when Dorea was very obviously unmarked other than by her mother's Ward. It was most likely, Papa said briskly, that the prophecy referred to a Dark Lord yet to even be born or that it was no longer valid. As everybody had free will, prophecies could be thwarted and ignored: they only told you what would happen if a specific path was taken. Dorea was to completely ignore the stupid thing and leave the thwarting of Voldemort to the adults.

Lastly, Voldemort, while dead, wasn't gone. He'd used forbidden, blasphemous magic to anchor himself to the physical world and Dorea was to be wary of anyone or anything that made her Ward react by itself, as it was most likely connected to the Dark Lord who had 'imprinted' himself on the Ward as it gained sentience and therefore the only person it currently recognised as a definite enemy, though if anyone attacked her body, magic or mind with clear murderous intent that would change. If the Ward did react without clear provocation Dorea was to contact her father by mirror at the earliest opportunity so he could deal with the situation himself. Voldemort's real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, so she was to keep an eye out for that name while at Hogwarts and let Papa know if it came up anywhere so he could investigate.

After getting her head around all this Dorea pushed it all to the back of her mind, judging it irrelevant to her upcoming school year even though Hogwarts was nowhere near as safe as Dumbledore's supporters claimed it was, if _Secrets of Hogwarts_ was to be believed: a great many dangerous items were probably still where they'd been left after going out of fashion or being damaged. The School likely had rooms full.

* * *

September 1st dawned bright if rather chilly and Dorea was up as early as she usually was on Christmas morning to double-check that she'd packed everything, dress carefully in the outfit she'd decided to wear on the train and make sure that one of her new school uniforms was neatly folded in her equally new leather shoulder bag with its Extension and Feather-light Charms. Once dressed in a champagne-coloured silk blouse, pleated dark green tartan knee-length skirt, black tights and buckled shoes Dorea looked out of the window and, considering the likelihood of it being cold, also put on a dark blue knitted cardigan. Now fully ready for the coming day, Dorea was brought up short by the fact it was not yet six o' clock in the morning and breakfast wouldn't be for another hour and a half. Being too excited to read a book, she instead changed out of her skirt into riding jodhpurs and quietly snuck down to the stables, where ones of the Stewarts was tending to the Aethonians. He seemed more amused than anything else by her request to go riding at the crack of dawn and agreeably had Lark saddled for her.

At half-past seven Dorea skipped into the Breakfast Room still in her riding gear, red-cheeked from wind burn and completely ravenous. Papa of course teased her for her eagerness but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia praised her for 'making good use of her time', which was only slightly dampened by the reprimand to not gobble her food. After a hearty meal of porridge, tea and toast and marmalade Dorea changed back into her skirt, brushed and neatly rebraided her hair and had Moppet transfer her trunk downstairs. Then she stopped by the kitchens for the pack lunch Tansy had prepared for her –a good-sized picnic hamper that only just fitted into her shoulder bag– and hug all the house-elves currently in residence including Kreacher, who was very odd and really didn't get along with her father at all. He was usually responsible for keeping The Planetarium and the townhouse on Grimmauld Place clean, so she usually only saw him in passing every month or so. He'd appeared to help her with her packing and commented that her school-books had previously belonged to 'Master Regulus', but had seemed pleased by that fact rather than offended. Dorea knew that Papa and Kreacher had a history due to Kreacher having been Grandmother Walburga's personal elf and that Kreacher's orders from her father amounted to 'keep busy and out of my sight', which the skinny old elf abided by religiously and without complaint.

Having said goodbye to the elves Dorea put on her dark grey mackintosh and bounced impatiently around the Front Hall, much to the amusement of the portraits, until her father and great-aunt arrived. Papa then tapped her trunk with his wand and moved it out of the front door and down the steps into the back of the waiting Jaguar XJ6, which was the car her father drove her places in if they were going on a father-daughter expedition that required smart clothes like going to the ballet. Papa had been firm that taking his daughter to catch the train to school was _not_ something that required a chauffeur, being a private family activity, so he would be driving. He had his Muggle driving licence for a _reason_. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had once asked dryly if that reason had been to shock his fellow wizards, which had made Papa chuckle sheepishly. When it was just her and her father going out Droea got to sit in the front, but as this was a group outing with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia Dorea would be sitting in the back, as her great-aunt disapproved of sitting in the front unless you were driving.

After parking the Jaguar in one of the discreetly placed Wizarding car parks that the Ministry opened specially on days when Hogwarts students would be travelling to and from Kings Cross, Dorea gripped her father's hand tightly as he pushed the trolley loaded up with her trunk, Moros perched on top of it under a Concealment Charm so Muggles wouldn't notice the two foot four great grey owl glaring disapprovingly at them. No Black would ever dream of putting an Omen Owl in a cage, as it was disrespectful and –more prosaically– the only Black to ever attempt it had needed to go to Saint Mungos to have his arms reattached. Since then the Blacks had firmly classed their owls as family retainers rather than pets, thus obviating the need for a cage. Dorea was therefore officially lacking a pet according to the Hogwarts School Rules, as Moros belonged to her family rather than being personal property.

Upon reaching the barrier that separated the Muggle station from platform nine and three quarters, Papa allowed her to take control of the trolley and stepped back to take Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's arm. Taking a deep breath, Dorea firmly pushed the loaded trolley –which was lighter than it looked due to the properties of her chosen school trunk– through the barrier and onto the platform beyond. As it was barely nine in the morning the platform was mostly empty, with only a few older students travelling alone and a few knots of less well-off families, whose parents would be hurrying on to work after dropping off their children for school. But what caught Dorea's eye were the gleaming scarlet steam locomotive and equally gleaming and scarlet train carriages that filled the track beside the platform from end to end.

"Well darling, this is it!" Papa said, coming up behind her and gently steering her onwards away from the platform entrance. "You're off to school and I won't be seeing you until Christmas." He looked rather melancholy at the prospect. "Be sure to write to your aging father and let him know what you're getting up to, won't you Dorry-dear?"

Dorea turned and hugged her father around the middle, mumbling "It's _Dorea_, Papa," into his chest. She felt him chuckle as he hugged her back then pulled her away so he could look her in the eyes.

"While your behaviour and grades _do_ matter, sweetie, want I want most of all is for you to make new friends, have fun and not get hurt. Can you do that for me, Dorea Rosamund?"

Recognising that this was important to Papa, Dorea nodded solemnly. "I'll do my best," she promised.

"Good girl." Papa hugged her again then set her free to hug Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, who was looking distinctly teary.

"I have no doubt that you will perform admirably at school," her great-aunt said with a fond smile, "so go and be great!"

Dorea nodded and hugged her great-aunt again before letting father lead her up the platform away from most of the other children and load her trunk into a compartment for her. "Once your older cousins get here they'll come looking for you, since I told Marius I'd be bringing you here early. You'll probably want to share your compartment with other people your age though, so look out for Daphne and the others."

"I will Papa," Dorea agreed, feeling slightly exasperated. She wasn't a baby and was well on her way to being a fully grown lady!

Her father seemed to divine the direction of her thoughts and bent down to kiss her forehead. "That's my girl," he whispered, quietly producing a bundle from under his coat and slipping it into her shoulder bag. "Your Uncle James had this from his first year, so I'm guessing that taking it to school is a Potter family tradition. Don't let your great-aunt know and don't get caught, okay?"

Dorea realised that she'd just been given the heirloom invisibility cloak and had to cover her mouth with her hand to prevent giggles from spilling out.

"Right," Papa said with a grin, "I think that's everything. Remember to have fun and not to get caught!" He scooped her up for one last hug then got off the train to rejoin Great-Aunt Cassie on the platform. Settling herself on the backward-facing seat nearest the window, Dorea unbuttoned her coat, removed the picnic hamper from her bag and slid it under her seat then got out the Runes book Great-Aunt Lucretia had given her and settled in to read until more people showed up, taking a moment to wave goodbye to her father and great-aunt as they left the platform.

* * *

Her Muggle-raised cousins arrived in a pack at a quarter to ten, overseen by Aunt Ophelia. Dorea spotted them not long after they passed through the barrier and set her book aside so she could lean out of the window and wave to catch their attention. At first they didn't seem to notice, then Gregory turned his head in her direction and all five of them dashed over to her carriage and started loading their trunks into the compartments on either side of hers.

"You'll want your own friends in with you," Patricia, the eldest, said matter-of-factly, "but there's no reason for us not to be nearby just in case anybody thinks they can be nasty because you're a first year and haven't learned any spells yet. Well, haven't _officially_ learnt any spells," the fifth-year Ravenclaw amended, eyes glinting in amusement. "You _are_ a Black, after all." Patricia ended up in the compartment ahead of Dorea's with Deborah and Dawn, while Stephanie and Gregory settled in the compartment behind. Feeling rather more secure of herself now that a family safety-net was in place, Dorea went back to her reading but was interrupted barely ten minutes later by Daphne and Tracy's arrival.

"I see you've found a nice compartment for us," the honey-blonde Greengrass said pleasantly as an obliging Gregory loaded her trunk into the overhead racks. Her cousin was something of a gentleman once he'd been torn away from his books. "Near enough the front to be quiet, too."

"Did you see anyone else we know on the platform?" Dorea asked, giving up on reading for the time being and nodding politely at Tracy as the chestnut-haired girl took off her coat.

"Draco and his thugs, unfortunately," Daphne sighed, "but he was too busy being coddled to notice me walking past. I also saw Millicent Bulstrode; she's even taller than you are now."

Dorea had been the tallest girl in their age-group since she was eight, despite also being the youngest. She wasn't too surprised to hear that Millicent had overtaken her there though, as Millie was chunkily built and both her parents were tall. Unfortunately Millie was very defensive about her looks and loathed both Daphne and Dorea pretty much on principle for the unforgivable crime of being daintier than she was. She wasn't openly rude like Pansy was, but she wasn't their friend either. Millie didn't really seem to have friends, though Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was friends with her grandmother. Dorea thought it had something to do with the Bulstrode family having lost influence during the Voldemort War despite none of its members being convicted Death Eaters in addition to Millie's mother being the daughter of a squib and a Muggle. Nobody was ever going to insult Otrera Bulstrode née Belby to her face –the woman was tall, forceful and utterly terrifying– but Pansy made snide comments when she knew Millie was within hearing. Dorea privately hoped Millie would grow up to be as statuesque and curvy as her mother, just to spite Pansy and put the nasty girl's squashed-looking nose out of joint.

"Anyone else?" She asked, turning to Tracy to see if she'd spotted someone different.

"I saw Susan Bones' parents, so she's probably on the train somewhere," Tracy said easily, "as well as Lavender and Lisa: I saw their parents too. I also spotted that stuck-up toad Zacharias Smith, who hopefully will prove too overtly obnoxious for Slytherin."

"I don't know Tracy," Daphne said as she settled down next to Dorea, "Draco's probably going to be in Slytherin and he's just as unsubtle as Smith is."

"Eurgh," Tracy grimaced, "don't remind me."

"They seem to try and divide the students evenly between the houses though," Dorea pointed out, "so considering that Draco, Crabbe and Goyle are likely to all be in Slytherin together, there are only two or three more spots left and Nott's going to take one of those."

"True," Daphne conceded, "though I heard that Madame Zabini's son will be attending Hogwarts this year. He might be in Slytherin, considering."

Madame Zabini was an Italian witch who had gained notoriety in the past decade by having remarried four times and each of those husbands dying within the year and leaving her all their money; the last husband had died barely three months ago. Her son Blaise was an only child and the child of her first husband –who had been murdered under suspicious circumstances shortly after the end of the War– but bore her surname due to Angelique Zabini being her father's only heir. The Zabinis were a fairly prominent Italian family, but Madame Zabini's first husband had been British or had at least lived in Britain. Not much was known about him because Madame Zabini had only become a focus for gossip after her second husband's peculiar demise and a lot of people had been killed in the chaos following Voldemort's defeat.

As time ticked onward Dorea, Daphne and Tracy were joined in their compartment by Lisa Turpin, Sally-Anne Perks and eventually Neville Longbottom, who was unfortunate enough to have a toad for a pet. The toad escaped even as a passing Ravenclaw prefect helped the Longbottom heir get his trunk into the racks, which was probably a smart move on the toad's part as the compartment by then contained two cats and three owls, of which Moros and Lisa's conniving-looking Siamese were not in cages or baskets. Neville wanted to go looking for his toad at once, but Dorea managed to persuade him to wait until the train was moving, as by them most people would be sitting in the compartments and it would be easier to move about. She then introduced her very nervous cousin to the other girls sitting with her, all of whom displayed the appropriate pureblood manners which seemed to put Neville slightly more at ease. Lisa, having heard about Neville from Dorea and being interested in Herbology herself, started up a conversation with him about the care of fanged geraniums and the two were soon engrossed. So engrossed, in fact, that Neville didn't notice the whistle being blown and the train starting to move as the station clock struck eleven.

* * *

Neville was still happily discussing plants with Lisa half an hour later as Tracy, Daphne and Sally-Anne chatted about fashion and Dorea tried to follow both conversations at once when the compartment door opened and all the conversations abruptly ground to a halt due to the presence of three very large boys in Slytherin uniform blocking the doorway. Dorea recognised the middle one at once and rose to her feet, setting her book aside again.

"Avery." The compartment somehow went even quieter and Neville paled abruptly. Avery ignored the younger boy entirely, his eyes fixed on Dorea.

"Black," he said shortly, "this is Pucey," he waved a hand at the solid, broad-shouldered teen to his left, "and Higgs." Higgs was the same height as Pucey but long and lanky rather than stocky with a thinner face and rather blonder hair. "They're third years; I've got my OWLs this year so unless it's urgent you let them know rather than me, got it?"

Dorea then realised that Avery was making an effort to take his responsibilities as her swordsmanship tutor seriously and smiled. "Thank-you Avery," she said sincerely. Avery huffed, neck going slightly pink.

"Yeah, right. Now that's dealt with I'll leave you to it." He closed the compartment door again, leaving Dorea to be scrutinised by five wide pairs of eyes.

"You have Alan Avery's son looking out for you?" Daphne said after a brief pause. "How on _earth_ did that happen? And when, pray tell, did you meet him?!"

"He's related to one of my tutors," Dorea said truthfully if deliberately vaguely, "who all but ordered him to keep an eye on me. I also think Avery fancies my cousin Deborah."

"Ah," Daphne settled back down again, her curiosity satisfied and her Slytherin instincts quieted. Avery clearly had an agenda, but now that agenda was revealed and proven relatively innocuous Daphne could leave it alone.

"My brother Roger says Pucey and Higgs are on the Slytherin Quidditch team," Tracy volunteered and the conversation picked up again, this time on the subject of sports, which continued until a witch pushing a trolley loaded with sweets opened the door to see if they wanted to buy anything.

Dorea, having a hamper full of home-made goodies, didn't buy anything, but Sally-Anne bought a box of chocolate frogs, Lisa bought cauldron cakes and liquorice wands and Tracy bought half-a-dozen pumpkin pasties to share, as it was lunchtime and seeing all those sweets reminded everyone in the compartment that they were hungry. Neville didn't buy anything but produced a packed lunchbox from his bag and between the six of them they managed to eat just about all of the food. After lunch Neville remembered his toad again and bravely went looking for it, despite being very obviously aware of how much he'd get laughed at for having such an unfashionable pet. It was a very Gryffindor thing to do, but in a sweet way. None of the girls went with him; Dorea because she'd promised her cousins she'd stay put and the other girls because toads were icky and while they'd doubtless have to handle icky things in class there was no reason to do so unnecessarily. Dorea did promise to look after his things for him and they all wished him good luck, despite it being rather obvious that Daphne, Tracy and Sally-Anne would all much prefer the toad not be found.

Lisa had settled down with her nose in a book and Sally-Anne and Tracy were talking about the latest Weird Sisters release while Daphne watched the countryside go by when the door opened again to reveal the Weasley twins.

"Dearest Dorea!" said the one she was pretty sure was Fred. "We'd wondered where you were."

"And here you are," added George. "What House are you planning on being in?"

"Slytherin," Dorea said matter-of-factly, eyeballing them warily over the top of _Practical Charms for Busy Witches_.

"Alas," said George dramatically, "it seems we will have to go lightly on the Snakes this year."

"Don't want to hit Darling Dorea by accident," Fred agreed; "she might drown us in the lake."

"Or break into Gryffindor tower and smother us in our sleep."

"Or push us off the moving stairs."

"Or tie us up in the Forbidden Forest for the monsters to eat."

Dorea twitched, caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement. "I'm more likely to let Moros savage you right now," she said, tilting her head towards the massive owl perched on the table who was giving the twins the evil eye. "I don't think he'd need much encouragement."

The Omen Owl made a deep, growling sound.

"And on that note–" Fred said brightly,

"–Adieu!" George finished, quickly closing the door as Moros flexed his wings aggressively.

This perplexing encounter was not discussed, Dorea and Lisa going back to their books as the other girls resumed their conversation.

Another hour later the compartment door was pulled open to reveal Neville and a girl in Muggle clothing with distressingly bushy hair and slightly large front teeth. "Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one." Her tone was rather bossy and it was pretty clear that Neville had tried to get her to avoid this compartment, based on the pained look on his face.

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "This is Neville's original compartment," she said dryly. "If the toad was here he wouldn't be looking for it."

The girl flushed, then happened to notice that Dorea was absent-mindedly practicing wand movements as she read. "Is that a text book? It wasn't on the list. I did buy some books that weren't on the list for background reading of course, since I'm the first person with magic in my family and getting the letter was such a surprise. I mean, it's the best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard –I've learnt my textbooks of by heart, of course, I just hope that will be enough– I'm Hermione Granger by the way, who are you?" She said all this very fast.

Daphne's eyebrow drifted higher in the face of such forwardness and clear obliviousness of proper etiquette, then glanced at Dorea, who as the person of highest social standing present had the most right to be offended.

"Did you buy any books on Wizarding Culture?" Dorea asked mildly, setting her book aside.

Hermione Granger blinked. "No, I mean, we're still in Britain aren't we, so why should the culture be different?"

Sally-Anne giggled as the other girls in the compartment exchanged glances.

"Wizarding society has been completely separate from Muggle society since 1692," Dorea said, voice still mild, "which is nearly three hundred years and almost as long as the United States of America have been independent from Great Britain. Is Muggle American culture the same as Muggle British culture, Granger?"

The girl flushed. "No," she muttered resentfully, "it isn't."

"I can recommend you some helpful books on etiquette if you wish," Dorea went on, "and I do suggest you read them, as the manner in which you introduced yourself was quite breathtakingly rude and most Hogwarts students are the Magical equivalent of the Muggle peerage."

Miss Granger's eyes widened. "But, what?!"

Dorea sighed. "Of all the magical children in the country, Hogwarts accepts only the ones of the most powerful, influential, wealthy and long-standing families in addition to a selection of Muggleborns," she explained calmly. "Those Muggleborns are selected for their wealth, academic excellence and political connections: only a fifth of every Hogwarts year is Muggleborn –which is the minimum required by Hogwarts bylaws– and there are at least four times that many actual magical children born into mundane families every year. All the other Muggleborns go to Wizarding Trade Schools with all the wizard-borns whose families aren't wealthy enough or of sufficient standing to merit a Hogwarts letter. I believe a comparative Muggle school is Eton, that the royal princes attend," she added pensively, "so please adjust your manner accordingly lest you make enemies."

Miss Granger gaped unattractively. "Who are you anyway?" she muttered after a pause.

Dorea smiled. "I am Dorea Black, heiress Black, of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, Granger, and you are very fortunate that I am not easily offended by unthinking ignorance."

The girl stewed silently, visibly unhappy at being called ignorant when she clearly prided herself so strongly on knowing everything. "I've read about your family in _Modern Magical History_," she said eventually, sounding rather subdued. "Is your father Sirius Black, who was wrongfully imprisoned for the death of the Potters?"

"Yes," Dorea said simply.

"Oh." Granger then failed to grasp Dorea's unwillingness to continue the conversation and blundered onwards in a way that was both Ravenclaw in its obliviousness and Gryffindor in its idiocy. "Do any of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best–"

Dorea couldn't help it: she laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of this girl's naiveté. The Muggleborn bristled.

"What's so funny?"

Dorea waved her over to one of the vacant seats nearest the door. "Granger, please sit down. You too Neville."

Both sat, the girl with a huff and a flounce. "Why do you call me 'Granger' and him 'Neville'?" The bushy-haired girl asked grumpily.

"Because I have known Neville since we were both quite small, we are related –if distantly– and I have his permission to use his first name," Dorea said easily, her laughter at the absurdity of her fellow eleven-year-old having cheered her up. "He is after all a fellow member of the landed gentry and it would be overly familiar of me to use his first name without being asked to."

Granger, not being by any means stupid, caught the implications.

"Now, you were asking about houses," Dorea went on swiftly, not giving the other girl a chance to react, "and I have to say that if you asked, you would of course be told that Gryffindor is the best house because Gryffindors are the loudest, brashest, most boastful students in the school. I have Muggle-raised cousins and they tell me that the best Muggle comparison for Gryffindors are the so-called 'popular kids', the ones who love the spotlight and feel everyone should follow their lead because they are just that cool. They don't get the best grades, certainly aren't the smartest, the most loyal or the most careful, but they get themselves into high places by sheer force of personality and steam-rolling over everyone else."

Dorea paused to enjoy Hermione Granger's gobsmacked expression. "Ravenclaw are what I'm told are called the 'geeky type', being intellectuals of every stripe with a healthy smattering of eccentrics. They're more individualistic than Gryffindors and less hung-up on social status, but they do get very competitive in-house. I've got cousins in there and you apparently need to keep your wits about you. Hufflepuff's rather different: I had another cousin in there who graduated last year and according to her Hufflepuff's all about making friends, mutual support and not leaving anyone behind. Hufflepuffs don't fail grades because their fellow Hufflepuffs make sure they know what they need to pass and after leaving Hogwarts they go on supporting each-other and usually get jobs through in-House connections. They're like a very large family and it works for them." Dorea paused once more.

"And then there's Slytherin. Slytherin gets bad press because the last Dark Lord was in Slytherin, but he had supporters from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor too, like Peter Pettigrew." Pettigrew had been discovered and arrested six months after Papa got out of Azkaban and was in a cell of his very own fitted with anti-animagus wards, mostly to prevent the rat from escaping through the bars. "There are blood purists in Hufflepuff too, they're just politer about it and less likely to kill you over it. Anyway, Slytherin. Slytherins are ambitious, but without ambition nothing ever gets done. I bet you're ambitious too, Granger. It's also the house of the cunning: Most Slytherins come from old families where proper etiquette is taught practically from birth and there are considerable expectations weighing us down. We are the next generation, the ones who will have the power to shape society in the coming years, and all eyes are on us to see which way we will lean. To get through that without getting dragged down we need to keep our wits about us, be subtle and clever. We also need excellent survival instincts and a willingness to retreat to fight another day, because if we lose then our families will pay the price." Dorea paused again, noting with pleasure that her entire audience was utterly enthralled.

"There is no 'best house'; I personally feel that Hufflepuff comes close although I have no desire to join it. There is simply the house which suits you best and in which you will reach your full potential. I think being in Gryffindor would leave you feeling lonely and frustrated, Hermione Granger, and that you would be far more comfortable in Ravenclaw."

Granger just sat there for several seconds, mouth moving but no sound coming out. Then she got to her feet. "I'd better go back to helping Neville find his toad," she muttered, pushing the door open and leaving. Neville jumped up, threw a wide-eyed look at Dorea and hurried after her.

"Nice speech," Tracy said dryly.

"Think I made an impression?" Dorea asked.

Daphne snorted. "Most definitely. Hopefully she'll get Sorted into Ravenclaw." The blonde glanced at Dorea. "Oh, I know that look; thinking of making the rude girl your new hobby?"

"She memorised her textbooks, Daphne," Dorea pointed out. "Think how useful a legal attorney or personal assistant with all the relevant laws and codes memorised would be."

"Plotting the advancement of House Black at the expense of your year-mates and we're not even off the train," Tracy said, shaking her head. "You are _so_ going in Slytherin, Rhea."

"Willing to help me get hold of the right books, Trey?" Dorea retorted. "I know you know which the best ones for Muggle-raised students are; you gave me a list to pass on to my cousins back when we were eight."

Tracy pouted. "Dee, Rhea's being cruel and unusual."

Daphne smiled. "What's so unusual about it? Just go with it, Trey: Rhea's right. Granger's got potential and she's abrasive enough that nobody else is going to try and take advantage for a few years, so we've got a head start."

"I always forget that you're worse than Rhea sometimes Dee," Tracy muttered, shaking her head. "Fine, I'll write you a list. Hogwarts won't have 'em but you can owl-order 'em from Flourish and Blotts."

"Moros will enjoy terrorizing the staff when I send him with the order," Dorea said equably, the owl looking rather pleased at the prospect of instilling fear in the masses. "Now we seem to be slowing down, so we should probably get our uniforms on."


	13. Chapter 13

Beta'd by the marvelous InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of arrivals and sorting**

They arrived at Hogsmeade station less than a quarter of an hour later, just as Neville slipped back into their compartment with his toad clutched close to his chest to put his uniform on. Dorea suggested he put his toad in his now-empty lunch box while putting on his robes, which prevented the amphibian –which was apparently named 'Trevor'– from getting away again. Once the train had completely stopped they all exited the compartment, leaving bags and trunks behind, though Dorea surreptitiously stowed the Potter invisibility cloak in an Expanded pocket so as to protect it from potential discovery. She also carried Moros outside so he could fly up to the School himself, as the Omen Owl was not the sort to take any manhandling of his person gracefully unless it was a genuinely necessary part of the acceptance or delivery of mail. The station was dark, cold and swimming in students, most of them taller than Dorea's five foot one. The six first-years huddled together to prevent themselves from being carried off by the crush.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" Came a cheerful male bellow. Looking upwards Dorea saw a lantern bobbing well above everyone's heads, grabbed Daphne and Neville by the hand and moved determinedly in that direction. Upon getting closer she could see the man holding the lantern: he was massive, half as tall again as a normal man and easily twice as wide, with a thick black beard that camouflaged his friendly and amiable expression. "C'mon, follow me –any more firs' years? Mind yer step now! Firs' years follow me!"

Dorea followed, not letting go of Neville as they descended a steep, narrow path between evergreens; Dorea could hear the rustling of the spruce needles overhead and the muffled crunch underfoot even through the mumbling, heavy breathing and occasional startled squeak of her fellow eleven-year-olds. Neville nearly fell over twice, the second time losing his toad again as it escaped from the pocket he had put it in after changing into his robes.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," the massive man –who was probably the Hagrid her father talked about sometimes– called encouragingly over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

They rounded the bend and Dorea couldn't help but gasp; she wasn't the only one to do so. The narrow path had opened out onto the side of the Black Lake, which glimmered mysteriously under the starry sky. Straight ahead and perched on the top of a rocky crag on the opposite side of the lake was Hogwarts itself, a massive castle with numerous turrets and towers poking above its walls, windows shining golden in the dark. Glancing around, Dorea saw boats moored up against the shore they were standing on and a wide, flat grassy sward to the left of the castle leading up to dense forest. On the other side of the castle crag was a much narrower green strip that edged onto a rather sparser woodland, above which little lights twinkled in a way that suggested a settlement, probably Hogsmeade village considering it was in the direction they had just come from.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing his very silly-looking pink umbrella at the boats. There was a bit of a scramble as everyone tried to get into a vessel with their friends; Dorea wound up sitting with Neville, Hermione Granger and Tracy; the next boat over held Daphne, Sally-Anne, Lisa and a tall, dark-skinned boy with a cheery grin.

"Everybody in?" Hagrid shouted –Dorea noted he had a boat to himself that was rather low in the water– "right then! Forward!"

The little fleet moved off at once, gliding easily across the smooth lake. "I wonder if they still do this when it rains?" Tracy mused.

"Probably," Dorea muttered. Good sense was not a common trait among Wizards, though Muggles were by no means immune to blatant idiocy. Ahead of them the castle loomed ever closer, blotting out the sky as they approached the cliff where the crag dropped down to meet the lake.

They had to duck their heads as the boats sailed under a curtain of ivy into tunnel carved into the rock, then deeper into the bowels of the mountain until they reached a harbour carved out of the rock where the boats stopped. Everybody then clambered out of the boats –Dorea estimated their year numbered forty– and Hagrid handed Neville back his toad before they ascended another steep rock-cut passageway that led out unto the grass right in front of the castle's main doors. Dorea was grateful for her warm, shin-length robes: Scotland after dark in early autumn was _cold_. Daphne sidled closer to her as Hagrid knocked on the doors, which opened immediately to reveal a tall, black-haired witch with a stern face and austerely cut green tartan robes. This had to be Professor McGonagall, whom Papa had spoken of fondly and whom Dorea knew to have visited him while he was in Saint Mungo's. None of her Great-Aunts knew her very well: the only still-living member of the Black family to have attended Hogwarts at the same time as the Transfiguration Mistress was Uncle Cygnus.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said.

"Thank-you Hagrid, I will take them from here." The authoritative certainly of her voice had them all moving almost before they realised it, entering the door as the Professor pulled it wide and following her down the Entrance Hall, which was all grey stone lit with flaming torches with a wide marble staircase leading to the upper floors. Dorea followed quietly, happy to be concealed as much as possible in the middle of the group. Being about the fourth-tallest after the dark-skinned boy Daphne had shared a boat with, the scruffy redhead who was definitely a Weasley and Millicent Bulstrode, Dorea was incapable of truly hiding but she preferred not to draw attention to herself before she had a chance to assess her situation.

Professor McGonagall led them into a side-chamber off the Great Hall, from which the low murmurings of the older students were clearly audible through the wall, then turned to address them:

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said, "the start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses." Dorea let the rest of the speech wash over her, being already aware of most of the information she was being given. Glancing around, she was able to pick the Muggle-raised students out of the group by their attentiveness and slightly more visible nervousness. Her speech given, the Professor informed them she'd be returning to collect them presently and left them to their own devices. Interestingly, the Weasley boy looked slightly ill and everyone else looked worried.

Dorea wasn't worried. She knew that however the sorting happened it would not hurt nor be humiliating because if it had been Papa would have sent her to Beaubatons or hired private tutors; probably the latter, all things considered. She had no fear of crowds or being the centre of attention, though she didn't crave it either, and was sure that so long as she kept her wits about her everything would be fine.

The screams interrupted her calm; Dorea slid into a ready stance and glanced about, but relaxed as soon as she sighted the ghosts. This she _had_ been expecting: Papa had told her all about Sir Nicholas, Dora about the Fat Friar, Patricia about the Grey Lady and all of her great-aunts had warned her to be polite and ladylike in the presence of the Bloody Baron but not to display either fear or lack of spine.

"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling at them all from the front of a group of about twenty ghosts. "About to be sorted, I suppose?"

Dorea and a few of her braver companions nodded.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff! My old home, you know," the spectral friar said jovially.

"Move along now," came the crisp voice of Professor McGonagall, "the Sorting Ceremony is about to start."

Dorea moved along, Daphne ahead of her as a boy with a dark olive complexion and short black curls fell in behind her as they formed a line in accordance with the professor's directions and followed her into the Great Hall.

It was a large and rather austere space, not much better than the Entrance Hall had been and brightened only by the tapestries on the walls, the myriad lit candles floating in the air above the four long tables that were doubtless intended for each of the Hogwarts houses to sit at and the reflected light off the golden plates and goblets. The students at the table on the far right had green ties –Dorea spotted Avery sat about halfway along and Stephanie only two seats away from the empty space at the near end– and those on the far right had red ties. The Weasley twins were there, about a third of the way along from the near end and not far from another redhead who looked related. On the near left were Ravenclaws in blue ties –Gregory was sat at the near end of that table– and in yellow ties and the near right were the Hufflepuffs.

They were mostly staring at the ragged old hat Professor McGonagall had just set on a stool in the middle of the near end of the hall, right in front of the first-years, so Dorea let her eyes drift over to see what the fuss was about.

The hat twitched, a rip near the brim opened wide –and the hat started to sing:

"_Oh you may not think I'm pretty,  
But don't judge on what you see,  
I'll eat myself if you can find  
A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_  
_Your top hats sleek and tall,_  
_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_  
_And I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head_  
_The Sorting Hat can't see,_  
_So try me on and I will tell you_  
_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor,_  
_Where dwell the brave at heart,_  
_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_  
_Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_  
_Where they are just and loyal,_  
_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_  
_And unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_  
_if you've a ready mind,_  
_Where those of wit and learning,_  
_Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_  
_You'll make your real friends,_  
_Those cunning folks use any means_  
_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!_  
_And don't get in a flap!_  
_You're in safe hands (though I have none)_  
_For I'm a Thinking Cap!"_

Dorea blinked. An enchanted artefact capable of Legimency? Was that even legal? Then again, it was probably a Founders-Era artefact and most modern Wizards had a deplorably rosy-tinted view of the past as a result of reading too many censored text books. Just because something was traditional didn't mean it was a good idea; Great-Uncle Marius had taught her about the effects of inbreeding and its demonstrated effects on both show dogs and people, which proved that marrying cousins to keep the blood 'pure' might have been 'traditional' but was still very, very stupid.

"When I call your name you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor McGonagall said with a small smile. "Abbot, Hannah!"

Hannah stumbled forwards, blushing at being first and her blond pigtails swinging, sat on the stool and put on the hat. Barely a moment later the hat shouted,

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

The table where all the students with yellow ties were sat at cheered and clapped as Hannah took the hat off and hurried over to sit at one of the empty places at the near end of the table.

"Black, Dorea!" Dorea stepped forward and calmly walked over to the stool, sat down and dropped the hat over her head. It immediately fell down to cover her eyes.

_Hmm, tricky,_ said a soft voice in her mind that reminded her of faded curtains, old Wards and the quiet of an oak forest at noon. _Great courage, a brilliant mind and deep loyalty, not to mention a powerful resolve and high hopes for the future; hm, where to put you… _

Dorea frowned inside the hat. She did not have 'hopes', she had 'intentions'; there was a difference.

_Hah, so there is. Well then, better be_–

"SLYTHERIN!" The hat shouted as Dorea removed it from her head, set it on the stool she'd just stood up from and went to sit at the table she'd seen Stephanie at as all the students wearing green ties applauded. Once sat down she smiled up the table at her cousins then turned back to watch the rest of the sorting.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" Susan hurried over to sit next to Hannah, her auburn hair gleaming in the candlelight.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!" The blue-tied students cheered this time, several of then getting up so they could lean over and shake Terry by the hand as he sat down at their table.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Brown, Lavender!"

"GRYFFINDOR!" The table the Weasley twins were sat at instantly erupted in cheers as the curly-headed caramel-blonde hurried over to sit with them.

"Bulstrode, Millicent!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Millicent sat down opposite Dorea, who had joined in the applause, nodded briefly at her then turned to watch the sorting.

"Corner, Michael!"

A pause. "RAVENCLAW!"

"Cornfoot, Stephen!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Crabbe, Vincent!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Vincent lumbered over and sat down a visible distance away from Millie, who ignored him despite having applauded as hard as everyone else at their table.

"Davies, Tracy!"

Another pause. "SLYTHERIN!" Tracy sat down next to Dorea, but leaving a bit of space so she could shuffle up when Daphne joined them.

"Dunbar, Fay!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Entwhistle, Kevin!" One of the boys who was definitely Muggle-raised, if his reactions to Professor McGonagall's introduction had been anything to go by.

"RAVENCLAW!" Ravenclaw table was filling up pretty quickly, Dorea mused.

"Finch-Fletchey, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Finnegan, Seamus!"

Quite a long pause this time. "GRYFFINDOR!"

"Goldstein, Anthony!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Goyle, Gregory!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Goyle sat at a distinct distance from Crabbe, leaving a wide space for Draco Malfoy's inevitable arrival.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Another brief pause. "RAVENCLAW!"

"Greengrass, Daphne!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Tracy shuffled over so Daphne could sit between herself and Dorea, the blonde flashing a brief, relieved smile at them both as she settled.

"Hopkins, Wayne!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Jones, Megan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Li, Sue!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Longbottom, Neville!"

There was quite a long pause this time, as Neville seemed to be arguing with the hat. It eventually shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" and Neville forgot to take that hat off before going to sit down and had to hurry back to hand it over to the next person.

"Macavoy, Heidi!"

Pause. "HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Macmillan, Ernie!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Malfoy, Draco!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Draco swaggered over to the table where Dorea, Millicent, Tracy, Daphne and his two goons were sat, settling himself in the space between Crabbe and Goyle with plenty of room on both sides.

"Malone, Roger!"

A pause. "GRYFFINDOR!"

"Moon, Lily!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Nott, Theodore!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Interestingly, Nott chose to sit down on Tracy's other side and inclined his head politely in Daphne and Dorea's direction. Both girls nodded back.

"Parkinson, Pansy!"

"SLYTHERIN!" Pansy flounced over and sat on the end of the table opposite Nott, with Goyle between her and Malfoy. The only real space at their table now was between Millie and Crabbe.

"Patil, Padma!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Patil, Pavarti!"

A pause. "GRYFFINDOR!" Those last two had been identical twins, which made it unusual to see them sorted into different houses.

"Perks, Sally-Anne!"

"GRYFFINDOR!" Dorea hoped Sally-Anne would still talk to them if they bumped into each-other in the girls' toilets. Expecting a conversation in class would be a bit much, considering how heavily Gryffindors were rumoured to apply peer pressure.

"Rivers, Oliver!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Smith, Zacharias!"

A pause. "HUFFLEPUFF!" Hufflepuff table was now looking pretty full compared to Gryffindor.

"Thomas, Dean!" It was the tall and cheerful boy with dark skin from the boats.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Turpin, Lisa!"

"RAVENCLAW!" Ravenclaw table was just about full too now.

"Vane, Emma!"

A rather long pause. "GRYFFINDOR!"

"Weasley, Ronald!" This had to be one of the twins' younger siblings.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Zabini, Blaise!" The last remaining boy stepped forwards; it was the olivine boy who had been standing behind her in line.

"SLYTHERIN!" Rather than perch on the end next to Pansy or Nott, Zabini walked up the table and sat between Millie and Crabbe, directly opposite Daphne. Catching Dorea's eye he smiled and nodded, so she nodded back. Daphne and Tracy also acknowledged his friendly overtures.

As Professor McGonagall carried the hat and stool away Professor Dumbledore stood up from his gaudy golden chair at the high table, beaming with his arms open wide. He looked somewhat senile in his garish robes and long silver beard.

"Welcome!" he said, clearly making an effort to sound wise and avuncular. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words; and here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank-you!" He sat down amid cheers and applause. Dorea clapped repressively, face bland. An eccentric façade was all very well until it became impenetrable even to those who knew you, at which point a person usually lost track of who they actually were and started doing increasingly dubious things. However as the Headmaster sat down food had appeared at the tables, so Dorea shoved her plans for the letter she was going to write home aside and concentrated on eating; lunch had been a long time ago.

* * *

During the feast Dorea made the acquaintance of the second-year boy on her left, who introduced himself as Miles Bletchley and mentioned that he intended to audition for Keeper on the Slytherin Quidditch team that year. He pointed out to her the people who'd been on the team the previous year, who included Higgs and Pucey alongside Marcus Flint who was the Captain, Graham Montague, Peregrine Derrick and Lucian Bole. Slytherin had won the Quidditch Cup for the past five years and was keen to repeat that performance again this year. Dorea paid polite attention and admitted that, while she did enjoy watching Quidditch, she didn't get any pleasure out of broom flight so was unlikely to ever join the team.

She also chatted to Daphne on her right and engaged in a rather lively conversation on Italian Magical politics with Zabini, who was sharp and very witty. She did try to draw Millie into the conversation too, but with such little success that she soon gave up. As the main course vanished and desserts arrived the Bloody Baron floated over and inserted himself in the gap between Draco and Crabbe, forcing the young Malfoy to budge right over towards Goyle in order to avoid having a ghost sit through him. Dorea caught his eye and inclined her head politely, but did not speak. It was not her place to address an elder –even a dead one– across the table, especially when she hadn't yet been introduced.

"You are a Black," the ghost said hoarsely after scrutinising her for several minutes, his chains clinking slightly as he shifted.

"Indeed Baron," Dorea said demurely, meeting his eyes and holding them. "My Great-Aunts all speak highly of you, as did my Great-Great-Grandfather Arcturus when he lived."

"Whose child are you, Black?"

Dorea dropped her gaze. "My father was Sirius Black, Sir."

"The Gryffindor."

"Yes Sir." She raised her eyes again, meeting his darkly tormented and rather transparent gaze squarely. "My Great-Aunt Cassiopeia raised me, Sir."

The Baron nodded. "A fine young woman." Then he turned away, seemingly losing interest in her in favour of staring blankly into space at a point above Nott's head.

Dorea suspected he would get back to her later on the subject of combat lessons, so instead she let her eyes drift up to the High Table. Dumbledore in the middle with Professor McGonagall at his right hand, a small man who was likely the Ravenclaw head of house, Professor Flitwick next to her and then four teachers she couldn't identify and a space, with Hagrid at the far at the end. On Dumbledore's left was another space, then Professor Sprout the head of Hufflepuff, Professor Snape the head of Slytherin and next to him a pale man in a purple turban whom he was talking to, then another four teachers. Dorea was careful to keep her eyes downcast and head tilted so as not to catch any teacher's eye, Severus Snape's in particular. Papa had warned her that he had been 'a bit of a bully' in school, though he had added that Snape had given as good as he got despite being outnumbered at least two to one at any given time. This meant that Snape hated him and would probably hate her by association, though if she was sorted into Slytherin that hatred would probably be muted into ignoring her entirely.

Papa also warned her that Snape was the person most likely to recognise that Lily Potter née Evans had been her mother, and Dorea had been given a sealed letter to give to the man should he notice the resemblance and put two and two together. That letter was in her uniform inside pocket, had been for nearly a month now, and she rather hoped she wouldn't need it. Severus Snape had been exonerated after the Voldemort War for being a Death Eater due to Dumbledore vouching for him as a spy, meaning he was firmly in Dumbledore's pocket and could easily give her identity away to the old man. Sirius had claimed that Snape and his mother had been friends in school and seemed sure that fondness for her mother would carry over, but Dorea didn't like it. She'd never liked uncertainty and wouldn't really feel comfortable until things had gone down one way or the other.

After the desserts had also been cleared away Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet again.

"Ahem; just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you:

"First-years should note that the forest in the grounds is forbidden to all pupils; and a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore seemed to glance over at the Gryffindor table as he said that. "I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors; Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch; and finally I must tell you that this year the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is off-limits to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

A few people laughed; Dorea just narrowed her eyes.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore exclaimed. The other teachers did not seem enthused by this pronouncement and Dorea steeled herself.

It was worse than she could possibly have imagined. Miss Selwyn would have been appalled.

* * *

Dorea and her fellow Slytherin first-years followed the prefect who had introduced herself as Gemma Farley –no relation to the Fawley family– out of the Great Hall and down a stone staircase into the dungeons, then further down still. It was colder and slightly damper than the Great Hall and the stairs went down a long way. Counting her steps and remembering the ascent from the harbour, Dorea estimated that they had gone down as far below the surface of the lake as the Great Hall was above it. The corridors and rooms they were walking through were darker and the portraits frequently featured snakes and serpent motifs. Farley finally came to a stop in front of a blank stretch of wall.

"This is the entrance to the Slytherin Common room," she said briskly. "Currently the password is 'wormwood', but it will change every fortnight. The current password will always be displayed on the common room notice board, so be sure to pay attention or you'll get locked out." The wall had slid open as Gemma said the password and she led them all inside. Dorea glanced upwards at the ceiling in fascination, which seemed to show the lake above them as the ceiling in the Great Hall had shown the sky. Had Slytherin Enchanted the ceilings?

As Dorea pondered this, Farley continued her speech. "The boy's dormitories are through the far left-hand door in the back wall of the common room; the girl's dormitories are through the far right-hand door. As you are first-years, you will be sleeping in the dorm nearest the common room. The two central doors in the back wall lead to the Slytherin Library and Reading Rooms respectively, which hold copies of the most useful books from the main library so you don't have to wrestle with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs to get hold of them. The door in the left-hand wall leads to Professor Snape's office as Head of Slytherin; he'll be summoning each of you to a private interview there during the coming week. It's something he does for everyone in their first year so don't worry about it. The door in the right-hand wall leads to the duelling halls and you are _not_ permitted to enter before your third year without an older student accompanying you. You won't like what happens if you try, so don't bother." She sighed. "Now everyone to bed; your trunks are waiting in your dormitories."

Dorea walked sedately towards the dorms, letting Pansy scramble to get there first. The dormitory was very pretty, with the same green-tinged underwater view across the ceiling and the beds with their green curtains evenly arrayed around the walls of the oval-shaped stone room. Tracy's trunk was at the foot of the bed to the right of the door, Dorea's was the one after it, then Daphne's at the far end, Pansy's opposite Dorea's and Millicent's opposite Tracy's. The room was large enough for more beds, meaning that there was plenty of room for everyone to do their own thing in, or at least there should be. Dorea suspected things would be rather difficult until they'd all settled into a pecking order. As Heiress Black she had to be at the top, meaning Daphne would gravitate to second. Pansy would technically be third, being a pureblood, but Tracy would have the actual position due to belonging to the same clique as Dorea and Daphne. Millie would be at the bottom, but should she ever choose to ally herself with Dorea's group then Pansy would drop down to last. Hierarchy outside the dorm would be different –it depended on the boys too– but in here Dorea _had_ to rule. She knew she could do it so it was just a matter of getting it over with. But not tonight.

Dorea got onto her bed, changed into her nightgown and pulled the curtains closed before putting a very basic Ward on her curtains with her holly wand. The spell worked perfectly, so Dorea placed the wand on the ledge on her headboard and curled up to sleep, her battered hippogriff toy in her arms. Tomorrow would be her first day of school.


	14. Chapter 14

Beta'd by the notorious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of truth and subterfuge**

Severus Snape had been aware that Sirius bloody Black had a daughter for the better part of a decade; he was after all Draco Malfoy's godfather and the boy complained about his cousin regularly. However those complaints were not the kind of thing he would have expected from a child of Sirius Black; it seemed Dorea Black was more her mother's daughter than her father's, whowever that mother might have been. From Draco's childish whining Severus had deduced –by the time Black was revealed to be innocent and released from Azkaban– that Black's daughter was intelligent, well-mannered, restrained and had a good head on her shoulders. That said daughter was apparently green-eyed Severus did his best not to see too much into; Black had been a womaniser and green eyes were not as rare as all that; it was only his fondness for his childhood friend that led Severus to associate green eyes with just one woman. Lily had been smitten with Potter and Potter would have murdered Black before letting his friend so much as touch his wife anyway, so it was a foolish thought. Rose Potter was Lily's child, whom he would protect despite being the brat being the child of his most bitter enemy.

But the reports on the trial had shaken Severus' certainty of his godson's cousin having no connection to Lily: Black had insisted throughout his trial that Potter had been childless. Severus _knew_ Lily had been pregnant; she had duelled the Dark Lord _while_ pregnant for Merlin's sake! He'd been stricken with doubts for all of the following week and castigating himself for even _considering_ that lovely, honourable, fiery Lily would _ever_ betray _anyone_ when the letter informing him Lily Potter had bequeathed him something arrived by owl. He had not hesitated to attend; even if Black _was_ there, or that damned Lupin, he would bear it if it meant having something of Lily's that she'd left to him.

Then had come the will reading, which had confused him further: she had left him copies of her potions journals and her regrets that the War had made it impossible for their friendship to continue. She'd also left him her hopes that his friends would prove true, which had made him want to laugh, bitter as that laughter would have been: the Death Eaters were in no way true. They had never truly accepted him for whatever reason they had chosen and as soon as the Dark Lord was dead they'd all but ceased to communicate with him. Part of that might have been his exoneration of criminal activities by Dumbledore, but the fact remained that he was teaching his old 'colleagues' children and was Head of House to almost all of them. Only Lucius had kept in touch, having made Severus his son's godfather in the last year of the War, which had likely been prompted by Severus enjoying the Dark Lord's favour at that time due to that wretched prophecy. However at no point did Lily mention a daughter, instead leaving the Potter fortune to the Black girl. Dorea Rosamund Black, she of the Lily-green eyes.

The potions journals were a bittersweet gift: he'd helped her start them in her third year and worked together with her on the variations in recipe and ingredient processing in the following years. They had been as much his journals as hers up until he carelessly insulted and utterly alienated her with a single, bitterly regretted word, but after that he'd never seen them again. Reading her work with its scribbled notes in the margins on everything and anything had been like knives stabbing his heart but he'd not let that stop him, greedily devouring everything he could on her thoughts, plans and feelings. But seeing her set aside a half-finished project shortly after graduating in favour of the Virgin's Child potion had sent him straight to the firewhiskey.

The Virgin's Child potion had been made illegal to 'buy, supply, sell, teach, share the knowledge of or procure ingredients for without prior consent of all parties' for several centuries; Severus only knew about it because he'd come across a mention of it in an old potions text bought from Borgin's. It sounded perfectly innocuous, allowing a woman to bear a man a child without sexual contact, but it had featured in several infamous cases of Line Theft back in the eighteenth century and had been subsequently restricted. It wasn't actually illegal to brew, but it was incredibly difficult and was apparently used privately by various pureblood wives who had discovered a bit too late that their betrothed pureblood husbands were not interested in bedding them for any number of reasons, or indeed bedding any member of the fairer sex at all. However the way the law was worded meant that if a woman had the agreement of her child's future father and was skilled enough to brew the potion herself, she could do so. Lily had filled a quarter of one journal and two-thirds of the next on the difficulties involved, the faults in the recipe and the subtleties in the brewing method.

One of the reasons the Virgin's Child potion had not been simply banned outright was that, unlike Amortentia which only required a blood sample, Virgin's Child required seed. Fresh, fertile seed. Which suggested to Severus that karma had bitten Potter in the balls and made him incapable of siring children since Lily was resorting to potions and the assistance of Sirius Black.

His suspicions were confirmed by the notes in the margins: Black had supplied the original book, stolen from the library in Grimmaud Place, and had been helping Lily with the brewing. Seeing his untidy scrawl here and there in Lily's notes had infuriated Severus, but that fury had been tempered by the hints of how Potter had managed to ensure Lily's child was his heir by both blood and magic, as the will had said she was. Severus had never heard of the Line Adoption ritual, but according to Lily's notes it only worked on pregnant women and ensured that _both_ mother and child would register as belonging to the same family as the wizard casting it. Once Lily had got the potion to work –her elated scribble of _it worked!_ was dated to the second week of November– Potter had done the ritual; a subsequent heritage test –involving another potion carefully documented in Lily's journals– had declared Lily a half-blood member of the Potter family and her husband's fifth cousin. This, Severus realised, was how Lily had been able to legally and magically inherit the Potter Estate for all of three minutes after her husband died and why she had been allowed to leave it to her daughter without Potter's will ever being publically read.

Which meant that Dorea Black_ was_ Lily's daughter; that Dumbledore's public assertions of said child being 'safe' and his private concerns that she was not being cared for by her family were all lies. Dumbledore was unaware that Black even _had_ a child, Severus knew, as the headmaster had expressed concern for the children of various imprisoned Death Eaters numerous times over the past years but _never_ the unseen cousin Draco spoke of. Severus was equally sure that if he breathed a word of the Black girl being the missing Potter child he would find himself meeting a sticky end courtesy of Lord Black, whom even the Dark Lord had left to his own devices after one brief meeting. The older generations of the Black Family had considered the Dark Lord an upstart and a revolutionary, so had not been interested in his goals. They'd listened to his pitch, informed him that they would grant him support once he'd succeeded in taking over the Ministry then shown him out of their homes and ensured he couldn't get back in without disproportionate effort and significant casualties. They were more Slytherin than anybody alive other than possibly Lucius' father Abraxas –whom Severus found most disconcerting despite the man's engaging façade– and therefore best left alone. Cassiopeia Black was one of Dumbledore's most persuasive and coherent detractors and Severus did not want to get on her bad side. So he had not mentioned his well-grounded suspicions to the headmaster and instead savoured the fact that despite stealing Lily from him Potter hadn't been able to give her the child she'd always wanted.

Severus loathed Black almost as much as he had detested Potter, but Black had been a follower and wouldn't have bothered to target him more than any other Slytherin student if Potter hadn't been so bent on making his life miserable. Black had also lacked even the slightest personal interest in Lily and had only made an effort to befriend her after she and Potter started dating. So he had kept his peace, for Lily's daughter's sake.

It had become rather easier to restrain himself when, eight months after Black's trial, a letter had come. It had been delivered by one of the Black Family's infamous and intimidating great grey owls, written on expensive parchment and Black's own handwriting, much neater than his notes or school assignments had ever been. It had been a polite but complete apology for his 'inexcusable' behaviour at Hogwarts, coupled with a mention of how he had realised upon observing his daughter that she would never consider acting in such a manner, knowing it beneath her to be so petty. Forgiveness had not been mentioned anywhere, but Severus' bitterness concerning his treatment by the Marauders had lessened over the following years. Pettigrew he loathed for his cowardice –the rat deserved to rot in Azkaban and would hopefully die there– and Lupin he still detested despite Black's mention in his letter of how the wolf had been horrified when he realised Severus had nearly encountered him under the full moon. The almost throw-away mention of how Black still had the scars had made the Potions Master smirk, but the fact remained that Lupin had been weak: despite being a prefect he had never checked his friends' behaviour. Perhaps not a murderer, but a coward and a monster still.

However knowing of the girl's existence had not prepared him for seeing her in the flesh. Tall and as graceful as Lily at eleven with fair skin and vibrantly green eyes, it had been shocking to see her enter the Great Hall with the other first-years. The inky braid hanging to the middle of her back had faint red highlights under the candlelight and her calm fearlessness had been so very Lily he had needed to deliberately focus on his Occlumency to avoid giving anything away. Seeing her sorted into Slytherin had cemented everything for him: this was Lily's child, Lily's daughter whom the Dark Lord had tried to kill. He died before he could strike due to Lily's brilliance, skill and willingness to sacrifice herself for her daughter's sake, _this_ daughter's sake. She might be Black's by blood but as a Slytherin Lily's girl clearly took after her mother and the elder Blacks who had raised her while her father was in prison. From what Draco had told him she was a smart child, a hard-working child and above all a subtle child. She would be a credit to her House and so long as her true identity as Lily's daughter remained a secret he could favour her as much as he wished.

For the first time in almost fifteen years Severus actually wanted to smile. Instead he kept his face stern and went on watching the sorting.

* * *

For the Slytherin first-years, September 2nd involved Herbology and History of Magic in the morning followed by Charms in the afternoon, as would all their following Mondays for the rest of the year. While Dorea found Herbology to be interesting and fun, if not particularly challenging, History was criminally boring and Charms was so easy it was ridiculous. Dorea had thus far earned herself five points for Slytherin for not damaging the flitterbloom she was re-potting and another five for answering Professor Flitwick's theory question, resolved to charm one of her Ravenclaw cousins into giving her their notes of Binns' lectures so she could pass the exams and used her history lesson to read ahead for the following day's Transfiguration lesson.

After classes were over for the day Dorea spent the rest of the afternoon with Daphne and Tracy in one of the empty rooms down the hall from the common room, practicing Charms. Both girls were as keen as Dorea was to get a bit more practice in and by the end of the hour all three had mastered not only the Door-Locking Charm but a Charm to smooth out creases in clothing. They would have stayed longer, but Dorea had her interview with Professor Snape at four fifteen and did not want to be late.

It had turned out that, while very helpful, the map in _Secrets of Hogwarts_ was not entirely accurate due to the castle's internally mobile floor plan, which was most frustrating. Dorea had a quarter of an hour during History to jot down a list of points she wanted to cover in her letter home, which included details of her sorting, her room-mates, her opinions of classes thus far and her desire for an accurate map of the castle or at least an in-depth explanation of what moved when and where to. This included wanting the Grand Staircase's Arithmancy cycle because she had no desire to be late to class because the stairs moved to some obscure position due to some random interaction of moon phase and day of the week!

At quarter past four Dorea was stood outside the door in the common room leading to her Head of House's office, unsettlingly aware of the letter hidden in her uniform pocket. Hopefully there would be no accusations and she would be treated like any other student, but Dorea was not going to count on it. Her cousins were not the children of Sirius Black.

"Enter," came the stern voice of Professor Snape.

Dorea entered, glancing with interest around the study-like room. It had the same ceiling as the common room with its view of the lake, the same granite walls with serpentine carvings and dark, hardwood furniture. However the lighting was golden rather than greenish white, giving the room a warmer feel, there were tapestries on the walls between the shelves and cupboards and a green carpet covering most of the stone floor. It also lacked a desk, having instead a long coffee table across the middle of the carpet with three stacks of parchment on it, a pair of dark green leather-upholstered chairs facing it on her side and a larger, wing-back chair with matching upholstery on the opposite side in which Professor Snape was sitting, observing her.

"Good afternoon sir," Dorea said politely.

"Sit." Dorea sat in the left-hand chair and Professor Snape flicked his wand, conjuring a tea set and pouring her a cup. Dorea accepted it with a quiet murmur of thanks, considered the wandless detection spell that would let her know if it was poisoned and decided against it. Professor Snape was responsible for her wellbeing at Hogwarts, so he was unlikely to do anything as blatantly illegal as drug a minor when everybody in her house knew she was here and quite a few of them knew her well enough to spot uncharacteristic changes in behaviour. All of her cousins enjoyed wreaking spectacular vengeance, not just the Slytherin ones, and her older relatives would want a say as well.

She sipped the tea; Lapsang souchong. Very pleasant.

"Miss Black, you are now a member of Slytherin House," Professor Snape began quietly as she sipped her tea, "making your behaviour and welfare my responsibility. I do not care how strongly your views differ with your house-mates, so long as those disagreements remain in-house. Slytherin will present a united front before the rest of the school and you will support and be supported by your fellow Snakes in public. You are also expected to do your best in class, not cheek the teaching staff and seek any academic assistance you may require. Should you require assistance in any particular field you will speak to one of the fifth-year prefects, who will assign you to a student in second or third year. That student will mentor you until they are satisfied that you understand the material and know how to go about seeking further clarification from the library." He paused.

"Yes, sir," Dorea said, as that seemed to be expected of her. She took another sip of her tea.

"Other than the compulsory core classes you have been signed up for Ancient Studies, Musical self-study, Art and Combat," Professor Snape went on. "The Ancient Studies classroom is on the sixth floor off the main corridor, the music rooms are along the fifth floor corridor around the Quad and the Art classroom is also on the fifth floor, three or four doors down from the Muggle Studies classroom depending on the day of the week. Combat is held in the Slytherin duelling halls on Saturday mornings between nine and twelve in the morning and two and six in the afternoons, overseen by the Baron; you will be assigned a specific time by your sponsor. Do not be late, dress appropriately and bring all the necessary material with you. First-year Ancient Studies is held on Tuesdays at three o'clock, you are expected to use the music rooms for a minimum of four hours a week and Art is held on Thursdays at four o'clock. All extra-curricular subjects begin in the second week of term and your first lessons will involve being told what to acquire for each."

Dorea had put down her empty tea cup and grabbed her time-table out of her bag as this litany began and had quickly added the details of the different classes to it, as well as a note that she would have to owl-order additional supplies. She hadn't known there were extra-curricular classes available, but expected that it had been Great-Aunt Cassiopeia to sign her up for them and pay the additional fees. Papa probably hadn't taken any extra-curricular subjects or he'd have mentioned them to her. He might not even realise they existed! It was a relief though to know that she had enough subjects to study that she was unlikely to get bored.

"Thank-you sir," she said once she'd got everything written down, glancing up to meet her Head of House's eyes. "Is there anything else I should know?"

Professor Snape poured two new cups of tea then sat back and studied her silently. "I have never got along with your father," he said eventually, "but I will do my best not to let that colour my perception of you. You will find that most of the other Houses and over half of the staff are prejudiced against Slytherins, so be cautious in what you say and do. The headmaster in particular cannot look past his own failings and has no concept of appropriate discipline; if you are summoned to his office you may ask me to accompany you there since as your Head of House I am responsible for all disciplinary matters concerning you beyond the usual points and detentions. Do you have any questions?"

Dorea had a great many questions, but none she could really ask given the distance established between them as teacher and student. She took a fresh sip of tea. "Not at the moment, sir."

"Very well then, once you have finished your tea you may show yourself out." Professor Snape then turned his attention to the stack of parchment, producing a red-inked quill and marking what had to be holiday homework. Judging by the professor's frown the poor parchment would be bleeding shortly.

Dorea finished her tea and quietly left the office, mind abuzz. Professor Snape had not mentioned anything concerning her appearance or family in more than passing, but she suspected he knew about her heritage considering that –according to her mother's will– he'd received a copy of her mother's potion journals. However he hadn't asked, suggested or even insinuated anything at all. That suggested the subject was not to be referred to at all _ever_ and Dorea was fine with that. Heading back to her room, she slipped the unopened letter out of her uniform and into one of her trunk's internal secret compartments, picked up her portable writing desk and set out to join Dee and Trey in the reading room they'd commandeered. She had letters to write and take up to the Owlery before curfew; Moros would enjoy the chance to stretch his wings and bully a few unsuspecting wizards.


	15. Chapter 15

Beta'd by the outstanding InsaneScriptist

Today is Sawada Tsunayoshi's birthday! Of course, by the timeline my story is going by he'd only be two years old to Dorea's eleven, but still...

* * *

**Of fear and prejudice**

Due to how first-year classes were arranged, Dorea didn't actually get a chance to see any of the friends and acquaintances who'd been sorted into Gryffindor until the Friday of her first week of school. The Slytherin first-years had Astronomy on Tuesday nights with the Hufflepuffs, which was bearable because the badgers were good-natured enough not to pick fights over the snapping, snarling and general grouchiness that came from being tired and hungry yet still expected to think and pay attention. No snake would ever pick a fight with a badger in return because Hufflepuffs were considered to be –by and large– too dull to bother taking offense to, so the lesson had gone quite smoothly. Dorea had been paired with Zabini, who hadn't minded her frowns, murderous mutters and bitter sarcasm about how any _real_ school should have a magical planetarium so these lessons could be conducted at a decent hour. He'd even agreed with her.

Other than Astronomy the Slytherins shared all of their lessons except Potions with the Ravenclaws, who were for the most part smart and civil enough not to pick fights with the House of the cunning and ambitious. Granger had been a rather visible exception to this on her first two days, but by Wednesday she had subsided into slightly twitchy silence, broken only by infrequently volunteering information in response to the teachers and interactions with Padma Patil, who had attached herself to the Muggleborn girl and was making an effort to diffuse tension and dispel the misunderstandings that Granger was having trouble avoiding. On Thursday Dorea presented Granger with the stack of books Tracy had recommended and Moros had delivered at breakfast and by Friday the intelligent but socially oblivious girl was looking subdued rather than just suppressed. However Dorea didn't have a chance to discuss anything with the girl because Fridays were when the Slytherins and Gryffindors had Potions together. Dorea was pretty sure it was going to be something of a catastrophe, given the delicacy of the subject matter and the traditional enmity between the two houses, but she was looking forward to being able to chat to Neville, Lavender and Sally-Anne and see how they were doing.

She hadn't expected to have to contend with the same blinkered bigotry Draco and Pansy loudly indulged in coming from her friends' house-mates though. Especially since they'd technically already 'met', for all she'd been avoiding people when her Grandpa died.

* * *

Dorea blinked at the Weasley who just called her a 'slimy snake'. "You do know that your grandmother was a Slytherin, Weasley?" she asked curiously.

The boy went scarlet. "How dare you! All Weasleys are Gryffindors!"

Dorea's lips twitched in amusement. "Your grandmother wasn't a Weasley; she _married_ a Weasley. However I assure you that Cedrella Weasley née Black _was_ a Slytherin as she also happens to be one of my great-aunts; well she is technically a cousin several times removed but I call her my great-aunt when I visit her." Weasley was now almost purple with fury and embarrassment but most of the other Gryffindors looked more amused than angry. "Besides, snakes aren't slimy: that's slugs and toads. Snakes are scaly, dry and smooth."

"How do you know that?" A sandy-haired boy with an Irish accent asked curiously. "I'm Seamus Finnigan, by the way," he added with a grin.

"I wanted a snake as a pet but the school rules don't allow for them," Dorea said simply, accepting his rather rough-and-ready introduction with a nod and a smile. Finnegan's mother had been a Dawlish before she married, according to the various ladies her great-aunts knew. Despite the Thursday afternoon tea and gossip generally focussing on matters other than children and genealogy they still contained a lot of information that was more useful than was immediately apparent.

"Don't you have an owl?" Pavarti Patil asked.

"Moros is a family owl, not a personal pet," Dorea explained; "if he gets bored of delivering my post another family owl will replace him." She turned to Neville. "How are you doing, Neville?"

"I'm having trouble learning spells," Neville said miserably, "and I keep forgetting things."

Dorea patted him on the shoulder, "I'm sure you'll get better. Taking notes during lessons would mean you didn't _need_ to remember as much, so you could do that. As for practicing spells, if you want to meet up this afternoon in a vacant classroom to practice I'd be happy to help you. You _are_ family after all."

"You're a Black," Nott pointed out detachedly, "you're related to just about every pureblood in the building."

"True," Dorea agreed candidly, "but Neville's mother was my godmother and he was my first friend, so I'm allowed to like him more than say Weasley, who is an equally distant cousin."

Neville flushed. "Th-th-thank-you, Dorea," he said quietly, staring at his toes.

"Dorea waved if off. "It's fine. How have you been finding Herbology?"

Neville perked up at once at the mention of his favourite subject and conversation continued in a more-or-less civilised fashion until Professor Snape entered the classroom and started taking the register.

After a rather disastrous first Potions lesson –in which Neville demonstrated that _Animal Ingredients, Their Properties and Effects_ really should have been compulsory reading by adding porcupine quills before taking his cauldron off the fire and thereby melting it– Dorea stayed behind to ask Professor Snape if there were any facilities available for students who wanted to practice brewing in their free time. Her professor had gazed at her contemplatively for a few seconds before asking her why. Dorea had explained that, since _Magical Draughts and Potions_ was rather old and somewhat lacking in detail, she wanted to see if she could adapt the recipes using her knowledge of ingredient preparation and interaction. She also wanted to see if teaching Neville about each ingredient and its properties individually would make him less of a cauldron hazard, which would be easier outside the classroom. Professor Snape listened to her reasoning and agreed to let her use one of the smaller brewing rooms so long as she could find an OWL or NEWT student willing to supervise her efforts. Delighted at this –it wouldn't be hard to persuade her cousin Patricia to sit in– Dorea thanked her head of house and all but skipped out of the classroom. Due to being out of earshot she missed her teacher's amused huff:

"So very much like Lily."

* * *

After lunch Dorea hunted down Neville by locating the entrance of the Gryffindor Common Room –not hard given that it was one of the few locations in the castle that _didn't_ move and her father had mentioned its portrait guardian often– and politely asked the pink-gowned lady in the portrait on guard if Mr Longbottom could be found. The portly lady in the portrait had agreed, proving that manners were a universal currency, much to the amusement of Zabini –who had attached himself to her on the basis that she was by far the most interesting first-year in Slytherin– and Tracy. Daphne just looked as though she had expected nothing less, which may have been part of why Zabini was so amused.

It was not Longbottom who pushed the portrait aside though, but a Weasley. This one was older than the twins though and had a prefect's badge.

"Why are four Slytherins asking after Longbottom?" he asked shrewdly before his eyes fell on Dorea and he seemed to recognise her. "I seem to remember you half-drowning my twin brothers at New Year. Dorea, right?"

Dorea smiled sheepishly. "Yes, though I did apologise afterwards." Now she remembered him: he was the twins' next-oldest brother Percy.

Percy Weasley smiled back, looking moderately amused. "It's fine; they really deserved it and they've been less obnoxious since, so I should probably be thanking you. What did you want with Longbottom?"

"I offered to help him practice spells in an empty classroom," Dorea said with her best social smile. "If Perks, Patil, Brown or any of the other girls want to join in we wouldn't mind."

"Slytherins offering to practice spells _with_ Gryffindors rather than _on_ them?" the prefect sounded rather sceptical. Dorea grinned mischievously.

"I do wonder if any of them will be _brave_ enough to take us up on it," she said, projecting her voice to carry into the rather quiet common room behind the older boy.

There was a bit of a scuffle following her words, but in the end the four Slytherins had been joined by Neville, Sally-Anne, Fey Dunbar and Roger Malone, the former two having the advantage of prior acquaintance and the latter two wanting to 'look out for' the house-mates they had befriended since the sorting. Neville handled the introductions as Dorea led them to a vacant classroom on the sixth floor and the eight of them spent a fun few hours shooting sparks and smoke of different colours out of their wands. Neville was having genuine difficulty, but after getting a good look at his wand Dorea suspected that to be a result of a poor match-up rather than lack of talent. She did not say as much though, simply helping him with the wand movements and suggesting a few manual dexterity exercises to refine his control.

By dinnertime Neville was doing much better than before and looking rather more cheerful, joining in with Tracy and Sally-Anne at attempting to light a candle with the Incendio Charm. Daphne and Blaise –who had asked the Slytherins to call him by his first name– were more interested in learning _Alohomora_, while Malone, Dunbar and Dorea herself were attempting the Mending Charm on the basis that it was a good idea to learn how to fix things _before_ attempting the Severing Charm. Upon noticing the time they descended to the Great Hall as a group, separating to their respective tables with a cheerful promise to meet up again the following week. Dorea noticed with some amusement that the four Gryffindors were promptly interrogated by their house-mates and hoped that her efforts would have an impact.

"Fraternising with lions, Black?" Higgs inquired from across the table.

"I see no reason why house boundaries should prevent me from making useful connections," Dorea said with the sweet smile she knew made her look like she was plotting something. "I may need something dangerous to my health investigating and Gryffindors are the best people for that kind of job."

Stephanie chuckled. "What self-respecting Black would ever let such a minor thing prevent them from getting what they want?"

Dorea's smile widened. "Indeed, cousin."

Next to Higgs Bletchley snorted. "Can't see what use mudbloods, blood-traitors and idiots have."

Dorea felt her smile cool at the crude insults. "Other than bait and distractions, you mean?" she pointed out sweetly. "You never know when you might need a person of recognised honour and integrity to back up your alibi." Grandpa Arcturus had taught her the value of reputation.

Pucey paused, fork half-way to his mouth. "Black, you scare me," he said frankly after staring at her for several seconds. "And not just because the Weasley Twins already know you by name. Who thinks like that?"

"Isn't it a Slytherin way of seeing things?" Dorea pointed out.

Higgs snorted. "Very much so. Yet none of _us_ thought of it first and you're _eleven_, which is what makes it disturbing."

"My Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was in charge of my education," Dorea said idly as she cut up her chops. Said great-aunt had a well-earned reputation and made no bones about the kind of thing she considered important for children to learn.

"Ah." Pucey went back to his food.

"Should you have any grand plans, please let me know so I can get out of the way?" Higgs asked with a grin. "Unless you're recruiting, that is?"

"Not yet," Dorea said sweetly before returning to her food. She did turn the idea over in her head though. She needed to have more tangible goals than 'restore the Family to its former glory' before she started recruiting, which meant she rather needed information on what actually needed doing. Maybe a letter to Great-Aunt Lucretia would help her there?

* * *

Draco had been remarkably quiet about Dorea socialising with the Gryffindors during the first two weeks of school, which had given her hope that, away from his parents' overindulgence, he was starting to think for himself. She had stolen a march on him by immediately asserting her views and acting on them outside the common room, which by Slytherin Code meant that he could not contradict or argue with her in front of non-Slytherins. However on the morning of her second Saturday at Hogwarts before breakfast Draco demonstrated that no, he still wasn't using his brain and confronted her in the common room with Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy as backup. Dorea tuned out the loud accusations of 'dragging the noble name of Slytherin into the dirt' and 'associating with the wrong sort' and concentrated on setting up her thoughts in a straight line.

"You know Draco, you disappoint me," she said conversationally when he finally ran out of idiocy. "You have no idea of what it actually means to be cunning, your only ambition seems to be to have your father pat you on the head and tell you what a good little sycophant you are and you are as blunderingly narrow-minded and as tactless as Weasley. Just because you have no idea of what I'm doing doesn't mean my goals are in any way un-Slytherin. In fact, your incomprehension proves that I am succeeding in being _very_ Slytherin. You on the other hand are being positively Gryffindor in your obliviousness and blind assurance that you will do well because your father won't have it otherwise, despite his not being here to wipe your bum for you."

Draco went red, then white, then red again. He opened his mouth to say something.

"Please just stop talking Draco," Dorea intervened before he could speak, "you are embarrassing yourself. When you finally have something to say that doesn't begin with 'my father said' or 'wait until my father hears about this!' I might be interested, but until then you'd make less of a fool of yourself by keeping your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. You're an embarrassment to the family and I've lost count of the number of times I've had to apologise for you. If my father wasn't your mother's cousin I'd have given up on you by now."

Draco gaped like a goldfish until he finally noticed they had attracted a highly amused audience of older students who were either sniggering or shaking their heads pityingly at him. He instantly retreated, Crabbe and Goyle with him. Pansy foolishly stayed behind.

"Just you wait Black!" She shrilled. "Draco will get you back for this!"

Dorea winced at the pitch and volume. "Pansy, this is a family matter; Draco _made_ it a family matter by accusing me of social impropriety," she said sharply. "Just because your brain lacks the space for more than one thought at a time doesn't mean the rest of us are so handicapped. I have my family's permission and encouragement to act as I have been and that is not about to change. I am Heiress Black; you are your father's younger daughter, to be married off advantageously if at all. Please be quiet before one of the older students decides to Silence you."

Pansy went pink in embarrassment and flounced off.

"You know," said Nott quietly from where he'd been lurking in the shadows to watch the confrontation, "I think I'm going to enjoy Hogwarts after all."

Blaise, who was standing near the other boy, nodded. "If Black gets her way Slytherin really will rule the school, which will open up opportunities outside of school as well."

Deborah moved through the crowd that was dispersing now the show was over and fixed Dorea with a shrewd look. "You have a plan, don't you," she said flatly.

"Not as such," Dorea demurred.

Deborah snorted. "You mean, 'not yet', don't you?" she shook her head. "Keep the family posted, won't you Curly-Top? We can't back you up if we don't know what the plan is."

Dorea considered this. "Would Richard mind my owling him? I'd like a second opinion."

"Go for it, cousin," the older girl said easily before wandering off again.

"Does this mean you are going to take over the government after all?" Daphne asked quietly.

Dorea considered it. "I really rather not, but if all else fails I suppose so," she admitted. "I'd much rather just elevate competent, honest and straightforward people to positions of power."

"Which is why you're cultivating the lions," Tracy said, her tone suggesting she'd figured something out.

"Partly; I'd rather sponsor Hufflepuffs though, as they come with their own support network," Dorea admitted. "Not to mention they tend to actually work hard. I've got time though."

"Damn straight; it's only your second week," Higgs muttered from Dorea's left. "Avery sent me to tell you to be ready for nine thirty, Black; he'll be waiting for you at the door to the duelling halls then and if you're late he won't wait for you."

"Thanks Higgs," Dorea said before making tracks back to her dorm; she did not want to be late for her Combat class, knowing as she did that tardiness would inevitably get back to Mr Rookwood.

* * *

Dorea was much busier in her third week of classes than she had been in her first or second week, due to the addition of two extra classes, music practice and swordplay to her schedule, but she still had more than enough time for homework and making friends. However Granger was avoiding her, which was rather unfortunate. Padma Patil stayed behind after transfiguration on Thursday to assure her that it wasn't really personal: Hermione was just having trouble dealing with the books Dorea had given her on British Magical society. Dorea assured Padma that she'd actually expected Granger to react something like this and wasn't offended, and offered the Indian girl a chocolate frog. Padma accepted with a small smile, promised to let her friend know that Dorea wasn't holding a grudge then vanished down the corridor.

"Longbottom I can understand and you told me you used to do dance with Perks and Brown, but why _Granger_ of all people?" Blaise asked quietly. "She blindly worships authority, is an insufferable teacher's pet and a self-satisfied know-it-all, without even going into her lack of civilised manners and Muggle background."

Dorea smiled. "She told me on the train that she'd memorised her text books," she said calmly as they set off towards the Main Staircase. "If she has, it means she has an unusually detailed and accurate memory, which would be very useful in legal and investigative matters."

"So you want her because that way nobody else will have her," Blaise surmised bluntly, "and you think you can train her to be less awful."

"She's not introverted or single-minded like so many ravens and I get the impression she has Views on how things should be," Dorea went on quietly; "she certainly put her heart and soul into her schoolwork despite it not mattering as much as she seems to think. I think she'd be a good ally once she's got the hang of how we do things." She smiled. "She's much less of a trial than Draco, certainly."

"I don't see how anyone could be worse than Draco, Rhea," Tracy muttered as they reached the stairs.

"Trey, no tempting fate," Daphne murmured.

Dorea was of the opinion that there was nobody at Hogwarts as bad as Draco, with the possible exception of Zacharias Smith whom she didn't know well enough to make an accurate comparison. She did know that both options were equally appalling and that she wasn't interested in getting close enough to both boys to determine who was truly worse: doing so would unavoidably alienate just about everyone else she was attempting to befriend. She didn't say so however and the four of them entered the Great Hall playfully bickering about whether or not verbally tempting fate would actually make your situation worse and whether a person could prove it.

After lunch they had their first flying lesson, which Dorea simply could not work up much enthusiasm for. Brooms just couldn't match up to winged horses and griffons were even more exciting. However broom flight was something all little wizards and witches were expected to master, which was why Dorea was standing out on the grassy sward separating the castle from the Forbidden Forest, an elderly and decrepit broom at her side as Madame Hooch explained to the Slytherin and Gryffindor first-years how they were to behave. Several of the group looked less than enthused about the whole exercise: Neville was pale and fidgety, Fay Dunbar's hands were shaking and Blaise was eyeing the broom beside him with profound doubt. When the time came Dorea stuck out her hand over the broom and said,

"Up," with the same quiet and firm tone she used for the more biddable Aethonians. The broom rocketed upwards and slightly to the left, hitting her wrist rather than her hand. Dorea winced, adding this to the list of reasons why brooms were stupid, pointless and paled in comparison to living winged beasts.

Blaise's broom had twitched but not risen into the air, possibly due to the half-Italian boy not sounding at all like he wanted to risk life and limb attempting to take flight on a magical version of a cleaning tool lacking almost half its bristles. You didn't have to be a broom-maker to know that most of the Stability Charms went on the bristles. Daphne's broom had bounced slightly, suggesting that it _would_ have leapt to her hand were there not something wrong with its enchantments. Tracy's did not move at all, which might have been due to Tracy's dislike of heights as Neville's broom hadn't moved either and he had confided to Dorea earlier that he'd never been allowed to _touch_ a broomstick before and was nervous about falling due to being pushed off things by his Great-Uncle Algie so many times.

Dorea often felt that partial transfiguration had been too good for that nasty old sod, and rather wished she could somehow justify a second cursed letter when Neville's nerves caused him to take off early, lose control of his broom and fall off, breaking his wrist. Madame Hooch removed the unfortunate eleven-year-old to the hospital wing after threatening the rest of the class with expulsion should they fly in her absence. As the Quiddich coach was leaving earshot Dorea spoke quietly:

"Draco, if you do not keep your mouth shut I will be obliged to write to your mother."

Her words did not carry beyond the Slytherins closest to her, but Draco closed his mouth with a snap and turned to glare at her. Dorea ignored him. His ridiculous lies about narrowly missing helicopters over lunch had almost been enough for her to write to Aunt Cissa anyway to inform her that her precious baby boy was making an arse of himself. Imagining how Aunt Narcissa would react to such a letter was amusing, as was how Draco's mother would squirm if Dorea told tales back to Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and the elder lady took it upon herself to share the news over tea. However telling tales like that to her great-aunt would be ungracious to Aunt Cissa, so Dorea wouldn't do it.

"Since it's going to take Hooch at least ten minutes to get back, how about a game?" Dorea said lightly, eyes raking over the Gryffindors. "It's called 'Continuity': I say a word, the person next to me says a related word, then the person next to _them_ says a word related to the previous word, but utterly disconnected from the penultimate one. Repeating words or failing to follow the rules means you're out."

Weasley was ignoring her completely, but Malone, who seemed to be spokesperson by dint of getting on with just about everyone in his year, agreed and by the time Hooch returned they'd gone eight times around everyone –Weasley included, the redhead having succumbed to peer pressure– and even Pansy seemed to be enjoying herself and trying to catch out Nott, who was after her, with obscure and unusual terminology. Crabbe and Goyle had only lasted two rounds, but Dorea was privately impressed they'd made it that far. The flying lesson then continued without a hitch, the word game continuing in mid-air as the mixed group of eleven-year-olds did their best not to push the aging and somewhat temperamental brooms too far.

Dorea hoped it was a hopeful sign of things to come that no insults were thrown during that entire lesson.


	16. Chapter 16

Beta'd by the persuasive InsaneScriptist

* * *

**Of deeply suspicious educators **

By late October Dorea had settled into life at Hogwarts and her new routine, to the point that she was able to properly get on with all her various extracurricular activities and critically assess her surroundings. So it was that, on the morning of Halloween, she put the finishing touches on the list she intended to use as a basis for her letter home. The list covered all the points Dorea considered worth notifying her family of and ran more or less as follows:

_Hogwarts does not have enough teachers._ There was only one professor per subject, so they were busy giving lessons at every hour of every weekday while their evenings and weekends were too full of marking homework for them to be available to offer explanations or extra help. This business cut into Professor Snape's availability as Head of house, which was why he only ever saw first-years at the beginning of the first school term of the year and everybody else was supposed to get on with things. If you needed help you were expected to approach a prefect, who would in turn find an older student to help you. A few of the professors had apprentices who helped out in class but none of those professors taught core subjects, presumably because the ones who taught core subjects didn't _have_ the time to take on apprentices. Dorea considered this most unfortunate, as teaching the lower years hardly required a Mastery and having junior teachers in those positions would free up Professors Snape, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Sinistra. Dorea did not consider either Binns or Quirrell worth mentioning, but for different reasons.

_Hogwarts needs a proper History teacher_. Binns may have had tenure, having taught at Hogwarts since before Professor Dumbledore was a student, but that just highlighted how horribly out of date his classes were. Cuthbert Binns had died in the nineteen fifties, had not changed his subject matter since the eighteen forties, as various Ravenclaws over the years had proven by how consistent their notes were decade after decade, and was criminally boring in his style. So many wonderful new discoveries had been made in the past hundred and fifty years and Binns never mentioned any of them! He lectured solely on the period of history between the founding of Hogwarts and the mid-nineteenth century, referencing sources known at that time and not accounting for recent advances or events. Dorea was willing to pay for the exorcist herself if it came to it as no living teacher could possibly be any worse! Students in Trade Schools probably got a better history education than Hogwarts students due to being more up-to-date and moderately engaging!

_Hogwarts needs a Planetarium._ Dorea actually believed the school might well actually _have_ a Planetarium somewhere, but that it had fallen out of use at some point and been forgotten about. From reading _Secrets of Hogwarts_ she had determined that having Astronomy classes at night on the top of the Astronomy tower was a recent development, if by 'recent' you meant 'of the past three hundred years'. Before that they'd been held _within _the tower, something Dorea intended to investigate once she had some time. Having classes at midnight was ridiculous and made all the first-year Slytherins tired and irritable on the following day. Not to mention how cold the halls got at night and how unpleasant it was going outside at that hour. More irritatingly was how the classes would be cancelled in inclement weather but there was no real system for _informing_ students of that vitally important fact. Notices went up in the common rooms after dinner sometimes, but mostly you had to check the notice board outside Professor Sinistra's office. The Prefects did their best to do so every day after dinner and let the affected students know, but it was often prudent to get up and go check for yourself at midnight, just in case.

_Please may I have more sheet music?_ Disappointingly, the music section in the Hogwarts Library was limited to magical composers, with only a few scraps of Mozart and Beethoven to brighten it up. Dorea wanted more _real_ music to play, written by _real_ composers who did it for a living rather than just bored or self-important wizards who dabbled. Music, like magic, required inspiration and passion to create rather than merely cobble together or reproduce.

_Can you give me any scrying tips?_ Dorea was keeping this particular discipline secret by dint of booking a music room for more hours than she strictly needed to practice her music, then getting the silver bowl out of her bag and filling it with water from the ever-full pitcher each music room contained so she could scry. She was mostly seeing snatches of things she couldn't really identify, but was gradually getting better at picking out images in the water. Dorea was fairly certain that she was seeing only the present, but her most recent attempt at seeing specific places had included the image of a Cerberus, which was disconcerting considering she'd been trying to see the off-limits third-floor corridor. There were four practice rooms with pianos in and it seemed there weren't that many students in Hogwarts interested in playing them, as Dorea had never had a problem booking several hours at a time even on short notice. Most of the music students played more portable instruments, so they could use any music room they pleased or even Charm an empty classroom if they fancied a change of venue.

_I am doing well in class._ In fact, Dorea was well ahead of all her core classes except Herbology, considered Astronomy to be boring and pointless and despised History of Magic for being a crime against the subject matter. They had covered the Levitation Charm in class this week but Dorea had mastered it two weeks previously, as well as the Floating Charm, the Levitation Charm and the Locomotion Charm. She, Daphne, Tracy, Blaise, Hermione and Padma were currently working on the Knockback Jinx, Dancing Feet Jinx and the Jelly-Legs Curse for Defence. They were also working on the Tongue-Tying Curse and the General Counter-Spell, as despite the latter being a second-year Charm it was useful to know when practicing magic on each-other rather than on objects. Not that they'd been _taught_ those spells, but they were in the text book despite Quirrel skipping over them. The Weasley Twins had stopped by to teach them a few prank jinxes, such as the Pumpkin-Head Jinx, the Trip Jinx and the Biting Jinx, the latter of which could only be used on objects, as well as the Revulsion Jinx which could be used to force the biting object to let go. The Pumpkin-Head Jinx had been very difficult to master but was both satisfying and harmless, as it did not _transform_ the victim's head but imposed the appearance of a pumpkin _around_ it. In return Dorea had introduced them to the Shoelace-Tying Charm, which when you reversed the wand movement knotted the victim's shoelaces together rather than tying them neatly. She'd also cautioned them against using it at the top of staircases, as they would get in trouble if anybody died. Dorea had also learned a lot more Charms from her other book, such as the Glass-Polishing Charm, the Bookmark Charm, the Plant Monitoring Charm –which told you if a plant was ill, drying out or getting too big for its pot– and the Flea-Killing Charm, which worked just as well to get rid of feather mites on owls. Moros may have been an Omen Owl and capable of slaying wizards if he so chose, but that didn't mean he could protect himself from more mundane owl problems.

_I've made lots of friends._ Hermione had spent most of ten days avoiding Dorea before approaching her after Potions on Friday to apologise, introduce herself properly and hesitantly ask if they could start over. Recognising how difficult saying such a thing had been for the proud Muggleborn girl Dorea had accepted graciously, so now in addition to her close friends Dee, Trey and Zee –as Blaise was happy to be called– she had Hermione and Padma as good acquaintances alongside Neville, Sally-Anne, Fey and Roger. Theo Nott could have been a good acquaintance if he'd actually approached them rather than keeping his distance, as could Millie Bulstrode, but that was their choice so Dorea left them to it. The rest of the lions preferred to keep their distance –Weasley in particular– tracking down the first-year badgers was nigh-on impossible due to how well-supervised they were by their house-mates and most of the other ravens were more interested in studying than making friends, Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein being the exceptions. Michael Corner had also been 'interested', but not in a good way as he stared, didn't talk much and refused to respect the girls' personal space so they had driven him off. Kevin Entwhistle was Hermione's friend but refused to join the larger study group, possibly due to being shy. Padma referred to him as 'very quiet indeed' and mentioned that he'd asked to borrow the etiquette books Dorea had given Hermione, so it was possible he was afraid of causing offense or being laughed at. Dorea wasn't sure if the Weasley twins counted as 'friends' –they were certainly friendly– or about Higgs and Pucey. Pucey probably didn't count, as the third-year tended to ignore her unless Avery wanted a message delivered, but Higgs greeted her when he saw her, offered help in the common room and had deflected a few of the more bigoted upper years who had held her father's actions during the Voldemort War against her.

_Could you please send me more warm vests, tights and socks?_ It wasn't even November yet and the castle was already getting bitterly cold at night, especially in the dungeons and when they had to go outside at midnight for Astronomy class despite the Astronomy Tower's Wards sheltering them from the wind. Dorea couldn't understand why there wasn't a temperature-sensitive building-wide Heating Ward, as there was no doubt Hogwarts could have done with one. The only time she took her socks off now was while showering! Warming Charms only lasted for so long!

_Professor Quirrell is making my forehead itch._ Dorea did not write this accusation lightly; it had taken her two months of cautious experimentation and sitting in different seats around the classroom –as well as a cautious visit after curfew to verify that it wasn't the room itself or an object causing the problem– to determine that there was something about the pale, stammering Defence Against The Dark Arts Professor and his purple turban that was setting off her Blood Ward. It wasn't anything dramatic, just a sense that the closer she was to Quirrell, the more alert and ready to lash out the Ward was. Sitting at the front of the class made her feel like her blood was running hot and the one time she'd done it Quirrell had sent her to Madam Pomphrey barely ten minutes into the lesson because her face had been so flushed she appeared feverish. Putting this together with the former Muggle Studies Professor's slightly inconsistent stutter, his unhealthy pallor and his recent trip to the forests of Albania, Dorea suspected her father would feel obliged to take steps. Hopefully before whatever was wrong got worse.

* * *

Dorea had not been at all pleased to find out that the Halloween feast would be a loud and cheerful affair lit by jack o' lanterns. At home they had never celebrated it like this, as the day held too many bitter memories for Papa. Instead they lit candles in every window, ate simple fare and Papa and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia would tell her stories about friends and family members who were no longer with them. This year, if she'd been home, her great-auntie and father probably would have shared stories about Grandpa. She was tempted to stay in the dorm and miss the meal altogether, but eventually allowed Dee and Trey to drag her out and sat quietly as all around her people celebrated.

She had been picking at her food when Professor Quirrell sprinted into the hall, his turban askew and gasped, "Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know," before collapsing in a dead faint. Dorea was less than impressed; he was supposed to be the Defence teacher!

The subsequent uproar was considerable as the younger years freaked out –with a few notable exceptions– and the older students all started throwing around accusations or loudly speculating how on earth such a thing had happened. Dorea wanted to know too: she hadn't been aware it was possible to get into the dungeons from the school grounds. The passage would be very large to have allowed entrance to a troll, but knowing where it was in case she wanted to sneak out would be useful. The chaos continued until Dumbledore fired several purple firecrackers from his wand to get everyone's attention.

"Prefects," he commanded, "lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

Dorea blinked at the utter _stupidity_ of such a command; both Slytherin and Hufflepuff were technically in the dungeons, although the Hufflepuff dormitory was on the uppermost dungeon level that was considered a basement or cellar rather than the dungeons proper. She leapt from her seat, evaded Gemma and grabbed Avery's elbow. The fifth year glared down at her.

"What _is_ it, Black?!"

"Our dorm's in the dungeons! What if we run into the troll?" Dorea gasped out quickly, not enjoying being at the centre of attention of the dozen upper-year students standing around Avery.

"Black's got a point," said the tall, lean, brown-haired girl with hooded hazel eyes and a prefect badge on the front of her robes. "Dumbledore's such a Gryffindor sometimes he forgets we don't all live in towers."

"I'll warn the 'puffs," said a short, swarthy boy with a hint of stubble on his upper lip before darting through the milling students to grab the arm of a muscular boy a head taller than he was.

"Back to your year-mates, Black," Avery said shortly, dragging her there himself then muscling onwards through the crowd towards Professor Snape, dragging Gemma Farley with him.

"What did you run off for, Rhea?" Daphne hissed sharply, her temper far more active than she usually allowed it to be.

"The troll is supposedly in the dungeons, but so are our dorms!" Dorea hissed back. "I promised Papa I wouldn't go running headlong into trouble and troll-hunting counts!"

"Ah." Blaise looked slightly green. "Good thinking." Draco, who had been panicking at the very _idea_ of a troll, whimpered at it dawned on him that they might have found themselves in the corridor _facing_ it.

"What was Dumbledore thinking?!" Daphne demanded to know, fists clenched and shaking. Dorea patted her friend's arm soothingly.

"Easy there Dee; he probably wasn't thinking. Most people don't. He was a lion at school so when he thinks of dorms he probably thinks of towers. Never mind that half the students sleep below ground level."

Tracy sniffed. "Moron."

"Do you hear me arguing with you Trey?" Dorea snarked lightly, setting off a round of sniggers.

"Right snakes, listen up," said Gemma, who had come back from conferring with Professor Snape, "we're staying in the Great Hall with the badgers until the professors come back from dealing with the troll, so sit back at the table and eat what you can. The doors will be closed, so nothing will be getting in here any time soon." Indeed, as she spoke the massive double doors at the near end of the hall were swinging closed. Professor Quirrell was no longer lying in a heap next to them either, so Dorea assumed he'd recovered and been dragged off to help with the troll problem.

Despite all the food looking very tempting, none of the younger Slytherins were really hungry. Dorea hadn't been hungry to begin with, but now that the people around her weren't laughing and stuffing their faces she felt her appetite return just enough for her to slowly finish what was on her plate. She was contemplating the dish full of roast parsnips in front of her when the doors silently swung open and Snape stalked in, frowning blackly.

"Professor?" the lean brown-haired girl asked, hurrying over. Dorea wondered if she was one of the seventh-year prefects, as she didn't recognise the older girl and the first-years mostly interacted with the fifth-year prefects. There was a bent sort of logic to the prefect system: the new fifth-year prefects looked out for the first-years, the more experienced sixth-year prefects for the second-years and the veteran seventh-year prefects for the third-years, who barely needed any supervision at all. Fourth-year students didn't have any prefects watching out for them specifically, but by then they didn't really need them.

The Potions Master spoke a few quiet words to the older girl then raised his voice to address all the students present.

"The troll has been found and dealt with; it was not in the dungeons at all but on the ground floor. The prefects will escort you back to your common rooms and dessert will be sent up afterwards." He turned and swept out of the hall again. Murmurs sprung up in his wake as the prefects got the lower years in order and the two houses went their separate ways.

"The dungeons are nowhere _near_ the ground floor," Tracy muttered incredulously. "How could a troll have possibly got that far in between Quirrell leaving it and the teachers finding it?"

"It's not like there are many staircases leading to the lower levels large enough for a troll to get up them either," Dorea agreed. "How did it get into the dungeons anyway? I didn't know there were any exits to the grounds."

"There will be ways in; Hogwarts is riddled with secret passages," said a third-year Dorea didn't recognise. "But most of those entrances aren't big enough to fit a troll through."

"The only doors I can think of big enough for a troll to casually wander inside are the ones on the ground floor," Blaise said. "I mean, trolls can be twelve feet tall!"

There was a brief silence as all the Slytherins within earshot pondered this while descending a flight of stairs.

"They _did_ find it on the ground floor," an unfamiliar second-year boy said slowly as they entered another narrow corridor, "and trolls are pretty slow and stupid. It won't have gone very far in the time between Quirrell finding it and the rest of the teachers catching up with it."

"Which means Quirrell was lying," Stephanie said bitingly, wand clenched tightly in her white-knuckled grip.

"His stutter is inconsistent," Dorea said quietly. She did not mention the reaction he got from her Blood Ward; that was not for public consumption. Nonetheless her comment got a reaction from the rest of her house: a stiffening of backs and setting of shoulders. There was a sense that henceforth not one of the snakes would trust their Defence Professor further than they could throw him without magic and would endeavour not to let him get behind them. That would be stupid and Slytherins were not stupid. How to arrange things so all backs would be watched while exiting the Defence classroom would have to be worked out later and would probably require teamwork.

"Another year of self-study," one of the fourth-years muttered bitterly, shoulders hunched.

"We could use one of the smaller duelling rooms for practice sessions," a seventh-year suggested. "I'll talk to Professor Snape about setting up a timetable for everyone who's got OWLs and NEWTs to study for and see if he can stop by once a week to tutor anyone having difficulties."

There was a murmur of agreement and gratitude as the column of students reached the common room and entered through the open section of wall. Slytherins looked out for themselves, Dorea realised, because nobody else would. The Headmaster certainly wasn't and Professor Snape really didn't have the time considering all his other work. What was going on with Hogwarts that a _troll_ had been able to get in? Didn't the school have Wards against this kind of thing happening?

Dorea realised then that she needed to add another section to her letter:

_A troll got into the school on Halloween._ She was sure her family would be delighted by the implications. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia might decide to use it to bring Dumbledore down a few pegs, or launch an inquiry into the state of the Wards. If Dorea's scrying really _was_ accurate and there was a Cerberus on the third floor quite a few Safety Wards had to have been deactivated to get it up there.


	17. Chapter 17

Beta'd by the queenly InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of well planned interventions **

Three weeks later, the night after the first Quidditch match of the school year –Gryffindor versus Slytherin; the snakes had won by well over a hundred points– Lucretia Prewett née Black landed her broom in Hogsmeade and calmly let herself into Honeydukes sweet shop, briefly unravelling the Security Wards with a few flicks of her wand then putting them up again once she was inside. Checking her bag she made her way into the cellar, down the trapdoor hidden there and hurried along the tunnel leading into Hogwarts.

In complete contrast to her usual sweeping silvery robes the greying witch had on sturdy boots, Muggle combat trousers and a ladies' riding jacket, clothing she had initially purchased for running through unstable tomb complexes in. Lucretia Prewett had been retired for almost a decade now but she still fitted into her old 'uniform'; something she was exceedingly proud of. In her bag and trouser pockets she had all the necessary tools to deal with Dorea's Defence teacher, who was either possessed or carting about a very Dark object. Ignatius was leaning towards the latter, but Lucretia was the expert on souls and she believed Quirinus Quirrell to be possessed. She also intended to investigate the out-of-bounds third floor corridor and had a music box in one pocket to ensure the Cerberus wouldn't be a problem. Honestly, who used Cerberi these days? Their weakness to music was known even to Muggles!

The passage was by no means straight, but that did not bother Lucretia: she'd used it dozens of times during her time at Hogwarts to get off school grounds at weekends and meet her father, who had been tutoring her in Curse-Breaking and Soul Magic since she was twelve. Her baby brother Orion hadn't shared their passion for the subject, having taken after his mother in his love of Potions and Herbology. Little Dorea shared Lucretia's late brother's passion for brewing, which was rather bittersweet as despite being a competent potioneer Sirius had no love for the subject. He was fonder of Transfiguration and Duelling, which came from Aunt Cassie's side of the family. It was ironic really: Sirius had clashed with his mother constantly yet he had so much in common with Walburga. Lucretia's cousin had never really been sane, but she had been much more bearable when they were at school together. Sadly however she had held a grudge against Lucretia for 'abandoning' her right after they had taken her OWLs and they hadn't actually seen each-other since. Lucretia had heard about her brother's marriage by owl, the birth of her two nephews likewise and hadn't really thought much about her family until receiving the letter telling her about her little brother's demise. That had shaken her, but not as much as discovering her younger nephew was dead when she visited her father a few months before the latest war ended.

The steeply sloping passage at the end of the tunnel was easy enough to climb, even for a witch of her years. Silently casting _Homenum Revelio_ before emerging –it would not do to run into Filch– Lucretia lifted herself out of the statue of the humpbacked witch Gunhilda of Gorsemoor on the third-floor corridor on the left-hand side of the school, closing it behind her. She then Disillusioned herself and quietly made her way to the Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom down the hall, from which the Defence Professor's office was accessible via a discreet staircase located at the far end of the classroom.

Once in the office, which smelled ever so slightly of garlic and sickness, Lucretia got to work. First she used her wand to draw a self-contained Exorcism Ward on the stone floor right in front of the disused cupboard in the corner, anchoring her work into the school's Ward scheme. The Ward would remain dormant until triggered by a possessed person stepping inside it, then after completing its purpose it would dissolve back into the Castle Wards, leaving no trace by which she could be identified as the caster. Unfortunately however Mr Quirrell was likely to die during the exorcism as Voldemort could only have taken up residence with his permission, so Lucretia needed to make it look like an accident. Hence why she had a Soul Trap containing a Boggart on her person.

"Expecto Patronum," she murmured, the silvery mongoose emerging from her wand and tilting its head at her quizzically. Keeping the spell active Lucretia opened the cupboard, placed the Soul Trap in front of it then snapped her fingers, breaking the Locking Enchantment keeping the Boggart imprisoned. Immediately the animated corpse of her husband lurched towards her and the patronus charged, knocking the Boggart into the cupboard. A flick of her wand slammed the cupboard door shut and locked, another swish ensured the door would only open once the Exorcism Ward activated. To anyone coming across the scene of Quirrell's demise it would appear as though the Boggart had frightened him to death.

Satisfied with her set-up, Lucretia –still Disillusioned– climbed the staircase back to the Defence classroom and let herself out onto the third floor corridor, heading around towards the Grand Staircase so she could cross to the corridor on the other side of the building. Getting across the Grand Staircase was easy despite the moving flights: she leapt from banister to banister assisted by the Feather-Light Charm, something she'd also done as a schoolgirl when out after curfew. Upon landing Lucretia removed the music box from her pocket, opened it then unlocked the door leading to the banned corridor.

There was indeed a Cerberus there; an immature one but still appreciably large. It was nodding off even as its eyes wandered about looking for her, growling sleepily as it settled itself in the limited space. Closing the door behind her, silently re-locking it and then casting the Imperturbable Charm so nobody would hear the music, Lucretia walked past the sleeping canine to investigate the trapdoor behind it.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Lucretia was removing the Charm on the door, unlocking it and letting herself out, music box floating above her shoulder and a red, egg-shaped stone in her pocket. The Devil's Snare had taken her seconds to escape from, the Charmed door in the key room had not possessed Charmed hinges, the chess set had been easily flown over thanks to the brooms in the key room, the troll had been sleeping and the setup with the fiery doorways had been easily bypassed by a quick bit of rudimentary Runework. The stone had been sitting innocently on a pedestal in the next room so Lucretia had quickly transfigured a pebble in her pocket into a replica, Enchanted it to copy the original's odd magical signature then swapped the real and the fake around before retracing her steps. She wasn't sure what the pretty red rock was, but finding out would be an amusing way to pass the time until Dorea came home for Christmas.

Having locked the door behind her Lucretia crossed the Grand Staircase once more and left the castle the same way she had entered it, having remained Disillusioned the entire time and escaped the notice of anyone or anything that might have betrayed her presence to the Headmaster. Not the Lucretia had anything against Dumbledore as a Transfiguration Master –his skills were formidable– but while he had been a capable educator he was a poor role model and utterly lacked any concept of discipline. He'd taught her Transfiguration when she'd been a girl and all the students had known that misbehaving in his class would get you a disappointed talking-to and maybe points lost, but no more than that. Punishment for getting caught after curfew could be wriggled out of too, so long as you acted contrite and made up an excuse that portrayed you as unhappy, struggling or led astray. The silly fool was so blinded by his desire to believe the best in everyone that he could be led into overlooking all manner of mischief. Serious disrespect Dumbledore had responded to by sending the culprit to Headmaster Dippet's office; as Dippet took any perceived challenges to his authority very seriously and did not hesitate to hand out severe punishments or send letters home to a miscreant's parents this ensured order in the classroom, but meant that no student of Dumbledore's had ever respected him. He was well-liked certainly, as he was perfectly affable, but Lucretia's more perceptive peers had deemed him ineffectual.

As a Headmaster his inability to hand out harsh punishments in response to severe misdemeanours was likely why Voldemort had not had any problem recruiting from the school in more recent decades, how bullying and prejudice had become rampant and why so many of the younger generation had no concept of responsible behaviour. And by 'younger generation' she meant her nephew Sirius's; some of his 'Marauder stories' would have gotten him rightfully caned under Dippet! Dumbledore was ruining their world's future with his ridiculous permissiveness and Lucretia was right behind her aunt in wanting him brought down from his positions of influence both in Hogwarts and in the government.

Leaving Hogsmeade village behind Lucretia collected her broom and summoned Filly, her house-elf, to take her home for a steaming bath and a mug of hot chocolate. She would get a nice long lie-in tomorrow morning, but with a bit of luck teatime would bring a letter from Dorea informing them all of Quirinus Quirrell's demise and the disappearance from Hogwarts of the wraith of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

* * *

On her way to lunch on the morning after the Quidditch match Dorea was informed by the breathless Weasley Twins that Defence against the Dark Arts had been cancelled indefinitely due to Professor Quirrell having died suddenly after breakfast. According to the sixth-year Gryffindors who had gone looking for him he had expired after discovering a Boggart in his office cupboard. The sixth-years had encountered the Boggart before stumbling over the body and the combined experience had resulted in five students being taken to the hospital wing due to shock and hysteria. Fred seemed rather gleeful that something as pathetic as a Boggart had given the timid professor a heart attack while George seemed disgusted that someone so cowardly had been permitted to teach at all.

Dorea found the whole thing something of a farce, but kept a politely straight face when Professor Dumbledore announced the 'tragic accident' over lunch and made use of the cancelled lesson to write to her family that Quirrell was no longer an issue so they didn't need to worry about her anymore. She was slightly disappointed that he had succumbed to ill-health before Papa or Great-Aunt Cassiopeia could do away with him, but she had learned a long time ago that real life was rarely as exciting or dramatic as story books were, so she did not complain. She did however strongly suspect that for the rest of the year Defence would involve a lot of self-study, with occasional spell-casting sessions overseen by one of the other professors' apprentices. Dumbledore was unlikely to be able to employ a teacher at such short notice, especially for a position which had not had any incumbent last more than a year since nineteen fifty-eight.

Somewhat ironically Quirrell's abrupt demise was still being talked about in mid-December, a week before the Christmas Holidays began, because nothing more interesting had happened in that time. Professor Dumbledore was looking somewhat stressed and had supervised a few Defence Lessons, but his overly familiar and jovial mask had not made him any friends in Slytherin and rather alienated Dorea's friends in other houses due to his utter disregard of proper manners. Hermione, who after reading all the etiquette books at least four times had taken to the system like a duck to water, was one of those more upset by how inappropriate the aged professor was being and even Nott had been interested by her description of what would happen to a Muggle teacher acting like that. Dorea felt that the Wizarding World could do with a few of those 'child protection laws', not to mention an official curriculum. It would make so many things so much simpler!

At least everything else was going well though: she had plenty of friends, was almost at the end of _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_, was getting much better at scrying –yes it really _was_ a Cerberus on the third floor, the poor trapped beastie– and her swordplay was apparently 'good enough' that Avery was now teaching her new moves every third week or so. Dorea intended to bring the next of Goshawk's basic textbooks to Hogwarts after the Christmas Holidays so they could get ahead and was enjoying the process of learning various jinxes and hexes from the Weasley Twins. Both older boys had a massive repertoire and a knack for creating new and unusual spells, something Dorea whole-heartedly admired. She had encouraged them to show off their creations to their uncle Ignatius Prewett, as Dorea knew her Aunt Lucretia's husband would find them tremendously amusing and offer a wealth of new ideas. Fred seemed thrilled but George had suggested they write first, just to make sure he wouldn't tell their mother. Dorea was getting better at telling the difference between the twins based on their behaviour, way of moving and appearance, but their voices were still ridiculously alike. Hopefully that would change in time.

In fact, the only blot on Dorea's week was Neville nervously informing Dorea that Weasley and his pals was convinced that Professor Snape was after whatever it was that was in the off-limits corridor and that the 'whatever it was' was connected to Nicholas Flamel. Being a well-educated girl, hearing 'Flamel' made Dorea think 'Alchemy', so she privately concluded that the item was meant to be the famed Philosopher's Stone. However she seriously doubted the _real_ Stone was down there, as she was pretty sure the only way to take it away from Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel was to pry it out of their cold, dead fingers. The Flamels predated the Statute of Secrecy by several centuries and had a house somewhere in Devon as their official British residence, but according to Great-Aunt Cassiopeia they actually spent most of the year in a modest French chateau near the Swiss border. Both were perfectly content with their lives and were sufficiently experienced to be able to see off anyone after their accumulated treasures.

This meant that Dumbledore was using a fake as bait in this farce and he was deliberately endangering the students in an attempt to draw out dark wizards and possibly even Voldemort himself, if her reaction to Quirrell had been any indication. Voldemort was no longer a problem –her forehead hadn't prickled since the Quidditch match– but there was no telling how many other power-hungry wizards might come calling. It was therefore with a pensive frown on her face that Dorea boarded the Hogwarts Express to go home for Christmas.

* * *

Papa was waiting to greet her at the station and ran forward to swing her off her feet into a bear hug as soon as he saw her. Dorea hugged him back, tears prickling in her eyes as how much she'd missed him hit her all at once. How could she ever go back to Hogwarts after Christmas? But she had to and she was enjoying school _really_, so Dorea pushed the emotions away and demanded to be set back on her feet so she could introduce her new friends. Papa was very kind and friendly to Blaise, Hermione and Padma, and insisted on being introduced to their parents. Madame Zabini was very beautiful with very dark brown ringlets, fair skin with an olivine tinge to it, long-lashed hazel eyes and an incredible sense of presence that Blaise could have when he chose to. Most of the time Blaise preferred to fade into the background though, which he was remarkably good at for someone as pretty as he was; when Blaise grew up he might be handsome, but at the moment he was just adorable in a way that didn't feel quite normal. Dorea had suspected Veela heritage and seeing Madame Zabini confirmed it. Blaise's mother looked the same age as Papa and she was delighted to be invited to Black Manor for New Year: she had declined to visit sooner due to her and Blaise spending Christmas itself with her father in France.

Padma and Parvarti's parents were delighted to be approached by Lord Black and to hear that their younger daughter was part of said Lord's daughter's social circle; they instantly agreed that they would be delighted to allow Padma to visit Black Manor at any point during the holidays. The Patils were Hindu and did not celebrate either Winter Solstice or Christmas, though they participated in the exchange of gifts that had become a universal staple of the season. Papa insisted they celebrate Christmas in a vaguely religious manner at home because Dorea's mother had been a Christian and had considered her magic a divine gift rather than a reason to abandon her faith, so Dorea was somewhat familiar with Christianity and what it entailed. Reconciling magic and faith was rather tricky, but the witches mentioned in the bible as 'unGodly' had been doing things like necromancy and divination, so Dorea resolved to avoid both as that was what was clearly proscribed against. She could have faith that God would take care of her future and not go poking her nose into things human beings weren't meant to get involved with. Arithmancy did have a Divination component, but Dorea was more interested in its use in spell creation, rituals and how it related to astronomical cycles. Predicting when the weather would change was more science than magic and most of Arithmancy was patterns and probability. She just had to remember that where people were concerned numbers were not reliable, because people had souls and souls made them special.

Hermione's parents were a pair of comfortably middle-class dentists and Papa immediately ingratiated himself to them by providing them with the address of his Muggle PO box and telling them he would be delighted to reply to any queries they had concerning magic, Hogwarts or the society their daughter was joining. Hemera was the Omen Owl responsible for collecting the post from the PO box, which she did with an uncanny understanding of when there was post to be collected. When Papa then asked if Hermione would be allowed to visit during the holidays her parents agreed at once and were even more delighted when he invited them along too so they could see more of the Magical world.

Papa already knew Dee and Trey's parents and had arranged for them to visit over Christmas as well. Dorea was looking forward to having friends over and just having fun with them.


	18. Chapter 18

Beta'd by the redoubtable InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of gifts and moving forwards**

Dorea spent the first day of her Christmas holidays riding Lark around the estate, delighting in the thrill of being airborne and showing her Aethonian that her time away had not diminished her riding skills in the slightest. On the second day of the holidays she wrote a list of all her friends and relatives by category of how close they were and assigning them gifts they would like. As Papa had approved of her idea of bringing Hermione's family under the wing of the Blacks, Dorea felt she should give them a family gift in addition to a personal one for Hermione. The best possible gift would be an owl, as without one the Grangers were completely isolated from the Wizarding World. However any owl would have to be acceptable to the Omen Owls, which meant taking Moros with her to Eelops Owl Emporium, which could go very badly indeed. Moros could easily take offense at her purchasing a bird for any number of reasons, so she'd have to explain things to him first. Bribery might be required.

Getting Hermione a book for Christmas would be a cop-out, so Dorea was going to buy something the other girl would never buy for herself and likely didn't even realise existed; Hermione was very new to Magical Culture after all. Picking out something suitable would be tricky but fun and Dorea liked shopping. Zee would also be tricky to buy for as he was now a close friend, Dee and Trey she knew very well so would be easier, Neville would get a copy of the animal ingredients textbook Dorea found so useful, Padma would get something pretty and Sally-Anne, Pavarti, Roger and her other acquaintances would get sweets or trivialities. The Weasley Twins deserved something fun, but Higgs and Avery would each get something simple but classy that conveyed her appreciation of everything they did for her. Her cousins had all intimated to her what they would like –in general terms– several weeks ago, so they were easy to shop for. Dorea liked buying people things they either wanted very much, or didn't know about and would love as soon as they saw. Surprising people with thoughtful gifts was one of her chief pleasures and she intended to know everybody's birthday by the end of the school year so they'd all get gifts from her in second year.

On the third day of the Christmas holidays Dorea dressed appropriately, convinced her father that he could spend the time she was shopping sitting in Theodosia's tea shop with his urgent paperwork just as easily as he could sit at home, made sure she had her lists and set out on her shopping expedition, amused parent in tow. For a Magical child being eleven was the first step to adulthood, marking the age you were old enough for a wand. The next step was thirteen, when you could shop and visit friends without an adult present, hence why Hogsmeade trips were only allowed starting in third year as before that children were not considered responsible enough to exercise sense and restraint while shopping. Next was fifteen, when you could marry, followed by seventeen, when you were old enough to work. Ironically a married witch or wizard was considered adult regardless of actual age, which was why those witches who married right after taking their OWLs rarely returned to Hogwarts. After all, they didn't really need to and after OWLs you were recognised as a competent witch. Papa being at the tea shop meant he was technically chaperoning her even though she would be buying without him being present.

Dorea's first stop in Diagon was Fairbourne's, which sold quality jewellery. There was another jewellers that sold fashion and costume jewellery, but Dorea despised Madam Belinda's Boutique as everything in it looked cheap. Some of it was the height of fashion and featured in _Witch Weekly_, but that didn't make it look any less tasteless. The selection in Madam Belinda's front window proved that fashion and class were two completely different things. Fairbourne's may have been the kind of jewellers where nothing was priced because if you had to ask you couldn't afford it, but most of its pieces were tasteful, classic designs which could be worn forever and never be out of place. It did have a limited fashion selection as well, but most of the business's money came from custom work for the discerning wizard, either by making unique pieces or by Enchanting existing pieces to personal specifications. Dorea estimated that a good half of her late great-grandmother's jewellery had come from Fairbourne's, which had been established in Diagon since the early seventeenth century. The family had been making jewellery long before then, since the Middle Ages in fact, but in Hatton Garden, London's jewellery district.

It took Dorea well over an hour to come to a few tentative decisions, but eventually settled for asking Mr L. Fairbourne to set a few pieces aside for her while she shopped elsewhere, which he was happy to do. With the jewellery in mind, Dorea then moved on to Devine Specialties, a shop which sold just about everything that wasn't sold anywhere else in the alley. From obscure items like map cases to everyday but strictly licensed ones like Floo Powder, Devine's had it. It was on two storeys, with the more common items downstairs and the upstairs being dedicated to unusual stock, a lot of which was of foreign origin. Dorea loved shopping there as she was guaranteed to find something unusual and Mr Devine was always very helpful and forthcoming about everything he had in stock. Dorea ended up buying a pair of Enchanted spectacles than enabled her to see invisible objects –she could finally read _The Invisible Book of Invisibility_– a reading light which only gave light to the owner –some Ravenclaw had managed to replicate the innate magic of a Hand of Glory without the gory illegality of an actual severed hand– a book titled _The Power of Water_ which contained both the original Latin text and its English translation side-by-side, a memory bottle, a set of Creature miniatures which could be set to guard small items from theft, a large box of feather charms which would absorb curses when worn and three dream catchers. All this fitted easily in her bag considering its enchantments, so Dorea went right on to Quality Quidditch Supplies where she bought a few golden snitches –Omen Owls _loved_ snitches– and two slightly different sets of professional quality Beater's gauntlets for the Twins.

Now that Dorea had on hand a suitable bribe for Moros she moved out of the main thoroughfare and thought hard about needing the owl that had chosen to deliver her post. She'd barely been doing so for ten seconds when a demanding hoot from above alerted her to his presence; if she'd had any doubts about Omen Owl prescience they would have been silenced. Dorea let him perch on her shoulder and explained her situation to him as she made her way towards Eelops.

"As the Family is supporting Hermione I need to buy her family a present to cement the relationship," she said softly, "which means I have to buy them something that will make their daughter's integration into Magical society easier. The best gift would be an owl, but as she's going to be writing to me a lot of the time it has to be an owl that you and the others won't savage on principle. Therefore I need to buy the Grangers a _superior_ owl, which I need your help for."

Moros fluffed his feathers self-importantly, which suggested he'd been persuaded. Dorea was relieved that bribery had proved unnecessary and cautiously raised a hand to cover the owl's claws as she entered the Emporium, her eyes dancing around at all the caged birds present. There were owls of all breeds and sizes, mostly European types but a few more exotic birds here and there, like the barking owl behind the counter and the morepork sleeping up in the rafters. Moros made a deep, hooting sound of evident disapproval at how loud the place was, which had the happy effect of silencing every last bird in the place for several seconds. The silence attracted the attention of the proprietor who, when Dorea explained what she was after, was happy to point out his 'pickier owls' for her to choose from. She and Moros eventually settled for a snowy owl with a touch of the black scalloping on the feathers common to the females of that breed. While a very showy bird, the owl had a glint of genuine intelligence in her eyes that was what Dorea had been hoping for. Paying for the owl and buying the necessary basic supplies for her care and upkeep, Dorea set off back to Theodosia's where she'd left Papa, as there was no way she could put an owl in her Expanded bag. For one it would be rude.

After a tea break and elevensies Dorea set out again, Moros having been left behind at the tea shop since Papa wanted to send some letters and the owl had volunteered himself. She went next to the shoemakers, having decided that the best present for Hermione would be a pair of high quality black leather ankle boots for her to wear around Hogwarts. Wizarding footwear was much more comfortable that the Muggle equivalent, as they came with Fitting Charms that conformed the inside of the shoe to the shape of the foot. The fitting Charms also allowed for a little growth, so Hermione probably wouldn't need new ones for well over a year. Dorea intended to order Ever-Shine Enchantments as well, so the boots would always look pristine. The best Wizarding shoes and ankle boots were fastened with buckles, which could be bought and enchanted separately and came in only three sizes, so even if your feet were growing you could keep the same buckles for many years. There were Baby Buckles, which went on children's shoes and could also be used as side buckles on taller boots, Lady Buckles which went on all girls' shoes more than eight inches long and Gentle Buckles which went on men's shoes more than nine inches long. Muggle lace-up shoes were gradually gaining popularity –as the Shoelace-Tying Charm showed– but buckled shoes and boots were still the most fashionable option for the wealthy. Dorea intended to buy the simplest possible buckles, which would give Hermione the opportunity to buy others at a later date if she so desired. What with how focused her new friend was on books, Dorea rather doubted she'd realised yet that wearing stylish clothing had a charm all of its own.

Shoes ordered, Dorea moved on to Prettybone Stationers to order personalised high-quality parchment and envelopes for her own correspondence, a few different sets of the less expensive but more appealing decorated stationary, a selection of the more cheerful ink colours and six very pretty macaw feather quills. She then stopped by the apothecary for the ingredients of the potions she intended to brew over the holidays –only two of which were intended as gifts– dropped into Madam Primpernelle's for more soap and hair-care products then returned to Fairbourne's to make her final choice on jewellery. Once each piece had been carefully boxed and wrapped Dorea used her vault key to authorise the cheque then returned to the tea shop, hungry but triumphant. She had gifts for everyone! Well, she hadn't bought sweets yet but those were better owl-ordered, as that way they came boxed. She would do that tomorrow, so she would have time to wrap them before they needed to be delivered.

Upon seeing her Papa shook his head in amusement and informed her that they were going home for lunch, as Great-Aunt Cassiopeia wanted to talk to her about her progress in scrying. That reminded Dorea of the Cerberus in the school and she resolved to ask her great-aunt if there was anything that could be done about it. Dogs needed taking for walks, after all; Papa liked walks too, if only for the opportunity to be silly without anybody judging him.

* * *

Dorea spent Christmas in cheerfully riotous celebration with her British cousins, who all –except for Draco– descended on Black Manor on the twenty-third of December and departed on the twenty-seventh. Richard and Dora got teased by everyone over their continued dating, though Dora quietly told Dorea on Christmas Eve that they probably wouldn't so on seeing each-other for much longer.

"He's really nice," the older girl explained, "but he's family and we think of each-other as family more than we do as being girlfriend and boyfriend."

Dorea then teased her eldest girl cousin about breaking poor Richard's heart until Dora hit her around the head with a pillow.

Christmas Day may have been a time of opening presents, eating fabulous food and messing about under Papa's benevolent eye, but Boxing Day was ruled by Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and the writing of thank-you letters. Dorea found it a chore, but it was less tedious than writing thank-you letters after her birthday so she tended to hurry through it before lunchtime. Her birthdays were rather more public affairs and some families considered the gift-giving to be a contest for her favour, which required very careful handling to prevent misunderstandings. Boxing Day letters were far easier. Her boy cousins however moaned and procrastinated, so they often found themselves banned from eating Tansy's magnificent Christmas cake until they had completed their correspondence to their great-aunt's satisfaction.

Dorea got a tiny pair of ruby and sterling silver stud earrings from Hermione, proving that the Muggleborn girl really _had_ memorised that rather complicated book of Wizarding etiquette she had read after the 'acclimatisation books' Tracy had recommended, a silk scarf from Tracy herself, a charm bracelet from Daphne, a book of Italian spells from Blaise, gold hoop earrings from Padma, a book of Greenhouse Wards from Neville, sweets or chocolate from her other Hogwarts friends and a selection of books, concert tickets and hairclips from her cousins. The hairclips were almost a gag gift, except that Dorea's vigorous curls resisted them at every opportunity and shed them whenever possible, despite Dorea religiously washing her hair with Madam Primpernelle's Curl-Taming Shampoo and Conditioner twice a week. As a result Dorea was always short of hairclips and always asked for them, preferably in complementary colours and sets of four or six so it wouldn't matter if she lost some. Being a partial Metamorphagus didn't help Dorea there, as her hair curled in response to her mood and was more incorrigibly curly the more content she was.

However her absolute favourite present was from Papa who gave her a bright green boomslang as a pet, informing her cheerily that it had taken him this long to get the Board of Governors to issue a licence for her as poisonous snakes were classed as an 'exotic' pet. Dorea had been delighted with her new pet and had promptly named him Ophis, which the quiet and indolent serpent expressed a liking for. It was very challenging for Dorea to avoid speaking parsletongue in public when she had an amusingly astute snake commenting occasionally from where he was curled around her shoulders. Ophis knew she understood him too, which made him worse. Papa also taught her to renew the Warming Ward he had placed on Ophis so the snake wouldn't freeze to death in a Scottish castle during winter. Warming Charms didn't last very long but the Ward would last for days at a time, so she might be able to cast it on her bed to keep the covers warm. A Warming Ward wouldn't work on the room itself, as they were only effective on living tissue and fabrics. To raise the temperature of stone a Heating Ward was necessary and those were both considerably more powerful and more prone to misfiring if improperly drawn.

In the time between Christmas and New Year Dorea received thank-you letters from her own friends, followed by a spate of visits. Hermione's parents had visited with her, first in an attempt to return the owl –whom Hermione had named Hedwig, after a witch in her history book– then to chat with Dorea's father and learn about Wizarding society and culture. Dorea had been able to introduce Hermione to the Aethonians, which Hermione had enjoyed riding only slightly more than she did brooms. The Muggleborn girl did admit that flying on a properly tacked up winged horse did feel much safer than a broom though, so Dorea was hopeful. Padma also visited with her mother, which had been a fun day because quiet as she was Padma was nowhere near as bookishly oblivious as Hermione. They'd spent the day trying on old-fashioned robes they had found in various far-flung wardrobes about the Manor, doing each-other's hair and finding out how to wear the contents of Dorea's jewellery box. Lots of pictures were taken of their exploits, which was part of the fun really.

Blaise, Daphne and Tracy all visited at the same time, which since Papa had messed with the Estate's enchantments to make it snow resulted in a massive three-way snowball fight involving her friends' parents, her Papa, her, her friends and several of the younger Stewarts. All in all, Dorea was a little sad to be going back to school but was still looking forward to it. Part of her anticipation was a rather cruel curiosity concerning the Headmaster, as over Christmas Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had launched her attack and informed the School Governors that there was currently a Cerberus _inside_ the castle, separated from the students by a single door that could easily be opened using the Unlocking Charm, which was actually _taught_ in first year. The fallout had been fairly dramatic as the whole troll business had also been made public and Rita Skeeter had clearly had a field day, but Dumbledore had managed to remain in charge of Hogwarts. The Cerberus had apparently been relocated over New Year to a more suitable location and the third-floor corridor reopened, with many assurances that the Wards had been examined and no more dangerous beasts would be getting into the Castle. Dorea privately didn't believe a word of it, but one could hope. The Cerberus certainly hadn't been there by chance and had been well-cared for during its stay, so it had definitely been there for a reason. Possibly it had been guarding a fake Philosopher's Stone, if her guesses were correct.

* * *

After his daughter had gone back to school Sirius sat down with Remus, Ted Tonks and his aunt and uncle and together they downed several bottles of Firewhiskey in celebration of the exorcism of Voldemort and to suppress their collective horror at how terrifyingly careless Dumbledore was of the lives in his care. Seriously, possessed teachers, three-headed dogs and bogus magical artefacts? Had the man gone senile? Lucretia didn't think so and her slightly tipsy explanation still made sense the next morning, so Sirius was inclined to give the old codger the benefit of the doubt. According to Auntie Lulu, Dumbledore had spent so long having everyone treat his opinions as sovereign truth he had come to think of himself as the ultimate authority in everything, so when faced with things he _didn't_ know how to deal with rather than ask for help or seek other people's opinions he tried to come up with a plan by himself. This resulted in really stupid decisions that were allowed to stand because everyone else was so sure Dumbledore had to be right that they never challenged them. It was therefore, Uncle Iggy had proclaimed loudly, their _duty_ to loudly and publicly question the old fool's decisions when they were obviously rotten. If Dumbledore then couldn't or wouldn't defend his choices they had to act against him, because if he wouldn't tell them the truth then the truth _really_ needed uncovering.

This appealed to Sirius' inner Marauder, though said Marauder had mostly retired now as parenting was wearing it down. Parenting was _hard_, and not just because raising a little girl had highlighted to him over a thousand times what a prejudiced, cowardly, bullying git he'd been as a kid. He really didn't want his daughter getting up to the kinds of things he'd done as a student: she might get hurt! Remus found his internal conflict highly amusing and was constantly pointing out that Dorea was far calmer, smarter and better educated than Sirius had been at that age, so why was he so worried? Sirius firmly maintained that the good behaviour was all a front: his Dorry-Rose was going to surpass him in mayhem and nobody –except him– was ever going to see it coming.

Hopefully not this year or any time soon, but his Dorry-Rose took far too much after Great-Aunt Cassie and Auntie Lulu for there _not_ to be large-scale mayhem somewhere down the line.


	19. Chapter 19

Beta'd by the superb InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of constantly adjusting to change**

Less than a week after returning to Hogwarts Dorea's new pet had been re-christened 'Fizz', which while far less dignified than the boomslang's original name was the one he had decided he would respond to exclusively. Dorea adapted, used her Christmas present from the Weasley twins to prank Tracy for coming up with the silly moniker and reassured her shy, height-loving snake that she didn't mind the change that much. Fizz didn't like large groups of people and preferred to curl himself up well out of sight and reach of noisy humans, which led to him claiming as his own the tops of bookshelves, heads of statues and similar decorative features. He also liked wrapping himself around Dorea's shoulders under her robes, as he was warm and safe there.

Owning a snake meant Dorea spoke a lot more parseltongue than she had in her first term and that she noticed when the voices she was hearing from paintings in the hallways were hissing rather than talking normally. She took note of which paintings these were and their location –there were considerably more of them in the dungeons– and resolved to learn a Privacy Charm so she could investigate them more closely without being overheard and giving her ability away. That took her most of a fortnight, by which point she'd located a lot of paintings of snakes, several serpentine statues and tapestries that responded to parseltongue and a portrait in one of the larger unused dungeon classrooms that claimed to be of Salazar Slytherin. Finding that last one was a bit of a shock –Wizarding portraiture hadn't really become widespread until the fifteenth century– but oil painting had been known in Europe as early as the eleventh century, so it was possible that Slytherin had managed to either discover for himself –or meet a wizard who knew– how to animate paintings and had his likeness made. The wrinkled features and long white beard suggested he'd sat for the painting late in life, after he was supposed to have left the school, so the presence of the portrait was anachronistic unless he'd snuck back in years later and hung it there to spite the other founders.

After learning a simple Privacy Charm Dorea began investigating the snake paintings –some of which were incredibly subtle as the snakes were often hidden in apparent still-life compositions– and discovered that they hid a network of hidden passages and listening posts only accessible to parselmouths. Actually exploring these was trickier, as Dorea didn't want to give her secret away to her friends –at least not yet– so she had to arrange times when said friends were busy or sleeping. Her invisibility cloak helped her there, though she had to be careful to scan herself for spells beforehand. The cloak had an odd magic to it that prevented any kind of spell from sticking to her if it was cast at her while she was under it but pre-existing spells remained, Tracking Charms included. This explained how Papa had managed to avoid several of her Christmas pranks this year, which was irritating but educational. Dorea learned that it was very easy to move a Tracking Charm to one of the feather curse-catchers she'd bought before Christmas –she'd only given some of them away– and took to wearing a few in her hair at all times to prevent other unwanted spells being cast on her person. Spells stuck to the curse-catchers preferentially, as that was how the charms were designed, making them highly useful little accessories no matter how oddly people looked at her for wearing feathers in her hair.

Invisibly exploring the secret parsel-passages gave Dorea a much better idea of the school's layout and how it was divided up, as well as enabling her to overhear a lot more than she probably should have done. She suspected Slytherin had created these hidden corridors and spy-holes after returning to the school long after his argument. He might even have remained in the school until he died, hidden by the language-locked magic that would have prevented the other founders from so much as realising his additions existed. Maybe there was some truth to the stories of the Chamber of Secrets after all…

* * *

By early February Dorea had started to be aware of her own progress in the art of Swordsmanship, or would that be 'Swordswomanship'? Whichever it was she was improving, which was a relief considering she'd been learning for over a year now. She spent two nights a week in the Little Hall practicing stances in front of a mirror alongside Theo Nott, who was the only other swordsman in her year, and Saturday mornings sparring against Avery. The latter always left her black and blue despite her practice armour and the older boy was merciless in hammering home the importance of complete control and effortless perfection when wielding a blade, live or not. The Bloody Baron occasionally drifted over to critique their respective performances, which was how Dorea had found out that Avery's current challenge on the road to Mastery was teaching: his manner with her was as heavily scrutinised as her own progress. Thankfully his success was in no way dependent on her, but it made Dorea realise that Mr Rookwood really had been doing Avery a favour when he introduced her to the older boy. Without the opportunity Mr Rookwood had provided Avery could not have hoped to advance beyond simply being a swordsman, as Mastery required so much more than mere proficiency.

Dorea was benefitting also, as without a tutor she could not have kept up her lessons in the art of the sword through the school year and she was inordinately grateful that she had been sorted into Slytherin: without access to the private duelling halls she and Avery would have been forced to make use of Hogwarts' armoury like the other non-Slytherin combat students. The Armoury was not remotely private and carried the risk of discovery by the Headmaster, who would severely disapprove if he had known that a subject that had not been on the official school curriculum for over two centuries was still being taught.

Swordsmanship was not the only subject to have survived this way: several of the other school ghosts continued various classes for the students of their former houses. Hufflepuff's Fat Friar taught Healing to those badgers who were interested, Sir Nicholas of Gryffindor taught European languages –Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and German– though so few of his house were interested in extracurricular classes that most of his pupils were ravens and the Grey Lady taught those of her house –_only_ those of her house– about dowsing, scrying and other specialised kinds of magic useful for finding things. Dorea only knew about these lessons' existence because of her family connections in both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, though it had been interesting to learn that Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had learned to scry from her mother Violetta Bulstrode, who had been in Ravenclaw and had studied under the Grey Lady.

Dorea's current schedule was too full for her to attend the language classes, she could not attend the Grey Lady's due to being sorted into the 'wrong' house and while the cousin of a former Hufflepuff, she wasn't particularly close to any current badger, so learning about Healing would have to wait. Dorea was in this instance perfectly happy to wait: learning to use a sword was by far the most challenging thing she was doing at Hogwarts and she wanted to have a solid grasp of it before she attempted to expand her after-hours activities any further.

* * *

On the second of April Dorea was cornered by the Weasley Twins.

"Dorea dearest," Fred started, him tone suggesting that she would need to tread _very_ carefully to get out of the trap being laid, "you have slighted us!"

"Wounded us cruelly with your callous indifference!" George went on dramatically.

"How could we possibly have deserved–"

"–such a blow?"

"What exactly is it that I am supposed to have done?" the eleven-year-old asked warily, Fizz stirring uneasily within the high collar of her uniform robes.

"You forgot our birthday!" the twins chorused.

"Neither of you told me when it was," Dorea responded cautiously, "nor am I close enough to any of your immediate family for them to volunteer the information to me. Upon my own birthday I sent you an invitation to my party a good six weeks in advance; you have only yourselves to blame for my ignorance." She steeled herself for any possible reaction, wand hidden in her sleeve in case things turned nasty.

George sagged. "I didn't think you'd fall for it," he admitted candidly, "and the party was in the Gryffindor Common Room after curfew, so you wouldn't have attended anyway."

"An invitation would still have been polite if you had actually _wanted_ me to attend," Dorea insisted coolly, "so that I could refuse in person. You know this. _Why_ were you trying to trick me?"

Fred shifted uneasily. Dorea stared at him evenly until the shifting turned into all-out squirming. Fred was the one who had the nastier prank ideas and was slightly crueller than his twin; George was actually a moderating influence. She had no idea how most people could completely fail to tell the two boys apart; they weren't truly identical physically and their personalities were genuinely distinct.

"Sorry?" Fred eventually managed with an apologetic grimace. "We wanted your help with a prank on the older snakes."

"You could have asked," Dorea pointed out neutrally.

The way the twins exchanged glances indicated that they knew she wouldn't have agreed of her own free will, suggesting that the planned prank was more mean than amusing. She decided to change the subject:

"Why have your birthday party in the Gryffindor Common Room when there are so many empty classrooms available? You could have invited loads of people from other houses and made a real event of it."

The disconcertingly similar-looking redhead blinked at her, then turned slowly to stare at each-other. "Why did we never–" George asked plaintively.

"–think of that?" Fred finished, caught between disgruntlement and awe. "Darling Dorea, you are entirely forgiven: _that_ is the best birthday present _ever_."

"Please don't suggest it to anyone else until after our next party? We'll send you an invite and everything," George cajoled her, clasping his hands in front of his chest as though in prayer.

"I promise, so long as your next party is within the year," Dorea agreed. "You know, if enough people come to your party there will be too many of you for the teachers to supervise detention for if you get caught. So it would just be points lost and if you get about equal numbers of guests from each house that wouldn't really matter in the long run." She'd put quite a bit of thought into this, wanting to set up shared parties on special occasions with all of her friends regardless of house at some point in the future.

The twins exchanged delightedly evil grins. "Best birthday present ever," they repeated in chorus, then swooped in and hugged her fiercely before dashing off down the corridor.

Dorea stared after them in mild confusion. Gryffindors were _strange_.

* * *

By mid-May Dorea and her coterie –a new word provided by Cousin Patricia– were halfway through _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade Two)_ and Hermione had discovered the existence of _Transfiguration Expanded_, which had nearly caused a major upset. Ruffled feathers had successfully been smoothed though and their little group was now practicing Transfiguration as well as Charms in preparation for the end-of-year exams. Dorea didn't actually think they needed to study for the tests, but Hermione was all in a tizzy and working with the over-achieving Muggleborn girl gave them more opportunities to curb her excesses. As it was Dorea was keeping her history, runes and scrying texts well out of sight, so as not to provoke another meltdown. While the various stories that had run in the _Daily Prophet_ had severely shaken Hermione's faith in the Headmaster's worthiness as an authority figure, she still took her school work far too seriously.

Neville was still not doing all that well at learning spells, but the book Dorea had given him for Christmas had helped him immensely in Potions and his now established habit of meticulous note-taking was improving his performance in his other studies. His confidence was improving too and he was starting to come out of his shell and assert his own opinions rather than just go with what Roger decided. His fellow Gryffindor seemed quite delighted by the change and was always happy to change plans accordingly. Sally-Anne and her friend Fay drifted in and out of the study group, spending half their time with the other Gryffindor girls instead of Dorea's circle, but they didn't seem to mind not knowing as many spells or being as good as the others. Dorea guessed they weren't motivated, which she didn't understand personally but recognised was a problem for some people.

None of the Ravenclaws lacked motivation, the pursuit of knowledge being its own reward for them, and aimless Slytherins were few and far between. Dorea's friends may have rolled their eyes at Hermione's obsessiveness but they'd picked up a strong work ethic simply by proximity and would all do very well come exam time. Dorea herself had actually stopped revising the previous week, having grown bored of it, and was mostly doing recreational reading. The _Invisible Book of Invisibility_ had lasted her all through February, March and April, but by the beginning of May she had achieved all the spells she currently had the background for and had been forced to temporarily set it aside. She was now alternating between reading _Warding as Language_,the new Rune book Aunt Lucretia had sent her and the fascinating and slightly disturbing little volume that had come with a letter from Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, titled _The Darkness Within_. The former was several inches thick but very readable, while the latter was thin but very hard to progress through due to the difficulty of the concepts involved. Dorea was certain she could never have got past the first page of _The Darkness Within_ without the strong degree of self-awareness imparted by a thorough grounding in Occlumency and suspected that understanding this little book was absolutely vital to being Heiress Black. Papa did his best, but he had admitted that he could only go so far with the Family Grimoires due to his fraught upbringing and experiences in Azkaban. Dorea on the other hand was being properly groomed as future Lady Black so she could raise her sons-to-be accordingly.

In truth, Papa was more of a Potter than he was a Black, at least in Magical matters. He had less trouble with the Potter Grimoires, could explain and demonstrate their contents and was able to supervise Dorea's practical sessions without turning a hair. However when it came to actually practicing Black Family magic he preferred to leave his daughter to Great-Aunt Cassiopeia or Aunt Lucretia, claiming that he didn't want his unfamiliarity with the subject matter to affect Dorea's education. It was in those moments that Dorea missed Grandpa the most, as he had been the one who had started teaching her Family magic, not that she'd realised that was what it was until after he died. All those debates, the wand-movements for various silent spells, the books on wandless magic… it was her heritage, her inheritance and her future. Papa knew it, but he couldn't really _do_ it. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia could do it, but she was old and frail and so not as strong as she had been even a few years ago. Aunt Lucretia had been less interested in power and more focused on ritual, so her knowledge was different to what Dorea had been learning. No less interesting, but not something she had the experience or the strength to use just yet.

Dorea was starting to get tired of 'not yet' and sincerely hoped it wouldn't last much longer. She was going to be twelve soon and had grown over one and a half inches taller since her eleventh birthday; even with the Hogwarts house-elves letting down the hems of her uniform robes and the in-built Fitting Charms she was going to need new uniforms in the coming autumn. She'd also gone up two whole shoe sizes in less than twelve months, which was somewhat alarming really. None of the shoes in her wardrobe at home would fit anymore! Admittedly the prospect of new shoes was a very attractive one, but Dorea was rightfully concerned that this was only the beginning of her growth spurt. Papa was rather tall, not exceptionally so, but still tall. Her mother had been about average in height but most of the female Blacks were significantly _above_ average, with Aunt Lucretia being five foot eight and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia having been five foot ten in her youth, though she was shorter than Aunt Lucretia now due to having shrunk with age. Dorea was pretty sure she was doomed to unnatural altitude and was somewhat wistfully hoping for a nice _tall_ wizard she could marry once she was old enough: she wanted a husband she could look up to!

* * *

Sitting on the train as it sped down the track on its way to London, Dorea idly stroked Fizz –who had grown a good eight inches since Christmas– and immersed herself in her Runes book. She was rather looking forward to the summer holidays despite the homework they'd been given, particularly since Hermione would be going to France with her parents and Dorea herself had been invited to visit Uncle Eduard in Bordeaux. Then there was Daphne wanting to learn duelling, Tracy's developing interest in Healing and Blaise's insistence that they all let him visit them for as long as possible, given his mother's recent engagement to a German wizard their friend hadn't even met yet. Padma would be visiting family in India and had promised to write and bring back gifts, Neville had promised to join Dorea on a trip to Kew Gardens and the Weasley twins had somehow persuaded their mother to let them stay with Uncle Ignatius for a month over the summer, which would probably be very exciting so long as you weren't caught in the crossfire.

All in all, Dorea had rather enjoyed her first year at Hogwarts once the whole Quirrell mess had been sorted out.


	20. Chapter 20

Beta'd by the tenacious InsaneScriptist.

After this chapter I will no longer be updating on Sundays, so in future I will get a day off.

* * *

**Of fun and funerals**

Dorea's summer had been incredibly varied and rather wonderful, so much so that part of her was reluctant to so much as go to Diagon Alley to buy new books and school uniforms, for fear of ruining it all. But most of her recognised that enjoying the coming school year wouldn't make most of the past one-and-a-half months of holiday any less incredibly enjoyable.

Barely two days after returning home from Hogwarts Dorea had been whisked off to France by Papa and Uncle Remus, where she had spent a week in Bordeaux with Uncle Eduard and Aunt Antoinette. One of those days had been spent exploring Chateau Blac, which was a magnificent castle surrounded by immense grounds and some of the finest vineyards in Aquitaine, all Unplottable and heavily Warded to keep 'undesirables' out. This was where the House of Black had originally come from, having moved to England at the time of Henry II to expand their influence. When the Hundred Years' War had made England's hold on Aquitaine precarious, the Blacks had simply warded their French estate so viciously that no-one save the Lord Black could ever find it, much less attempt to attack. It was French wine from Chateau Blac that the family's wealth had been founded upon, that and the ruthless martial and magical skill of many successive generations of Blacks in the service of the Dukes of Aquitaine and later the Kings of England, up until Richard the third's death had brought Henry Tudor to the throne. The Blacks had then retired quietly from court politics and turned their eyes wholly to the Wizarding world, investing their wealth and reaping the benefits of their battle prowess on a less open stage.

The Blacks owned a lot of Unplottable land in Britain rented out to Herbology greenhouses, Creature farms, mines and other Wizarding businesses, as well as almost half of the buildings on Diagon Alley and the neighbouring Horizont Alley as well as about two-thirds of Knockturn. Then there were the holdings abroad: the French Castle, a massive chunk of African savannah that was the native habitat of a breeding population of Nundu, an Indian tea plantation, houses in just about every major magical settlement on the planet, a large area of Australian outback that the Aborigines outright avoided and an entire Caribbean island, all under the most violently paranoid wards known to Black. Papa spent quite a bit of his time writing to the managers of the various estates and visiting them on an irregular basis to keep everyone on their toes, following the sentiment that 'trust was good; control was better'. Most of the larger Estates were actually accessible to the public, the African Estate in particular as it was the home of a lot of dangerous magical wildlife and was therefore open to tourist safaris. The Creature populations were carefully managed and regularly culled for potion ingredients, though there was an occasional poacher problem. Those however were always swiftly resolved: the Black Wards may have been as lax as was possible for them to get, but that didn't mean that thieves would be permitted to escape alive, or even be identifiable afterwards. Often identification wasn't possible due to the wildlife getting to the body first.

After visiting Bordeaux and Chateau Blac Dorea then spent a week in Paris, exploring the arrondissement magique's clothing boutiques, jewellery stores, bookshops and cafes. Dorea also met Hermione there, as her parents were taking her all around the country over the summer. It was nice to spend time with a school-friend outside Hogwarts, but she kept having to drag the older girl out of bookshops and they had a serious argument over the essays assigned as holiday homework on their third day together which upset Hermione to the point that Dorea didn't get to see her again before returning to England.

The essay argument had rather exemplified the fundamental differences between the two girls: Hermione felt that an essay should contain _all_ the information she could dig up on the subject, while Dorea insisted that, since their teachers had specified what length they wanted the essay to be, that count should not be exceeded. Hermione had been outraged at the prospect of Leaving Things Out –how would the teacher know you'd studied _properly_ if you didn't mention everything? – while Dorea had countered that the teachers had to mark _all_ the essays of all the year groups after they returned to Hogwarts, so going over the length count would only irritate the marker and carry the risk of the teacher scouring a line across the essay at the cut-off point and ignoring everything underneath it. That was, after all, what Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had done if she wrote too much on her history assignments before going to Hogwarts. The idea of such a thing had offended Hermione to the very core of her being and she and Dorea had been forced to separate before the matter came to blows; Papa and Hermione's parents didn't take the argument very seriously but had decided that it would be better for both girls to get a chance to cool down and consider the matter before meeting up again. Both Hermione and Dorea had been first made to apologise for any rudeness and offence they may have caused the other though. Uncle Remus had listened patiently to her rant about how Hermione was being silly and then informed her gently that they could still be friends despite having 'irreconcilable differences': they just had to agree to disagree. Dorea however didn't want to do that: she knew she was right!

Unfortunately being right was a rather cold comfort in the absence of friends, so Dorea was not too sad when the week came to an end and she had to return to Black Manor for the fortnight leading up to her birthday. Those two weeks were spent getting her homework out of the way, riding Lark, practicing her swordplay –Avery visited three times a week– trawling the libraries in search of new and interesting books she now had sufficient magical grounding to understand and mucking about with Zee, who had tumbled through the Floo on the second morning after her return from France and begged sanctuary away from his mother's wedding mania and rather sinister giddiness at her upcoming honeymoon. Papa had obliged on the condition that Blaise write a letter to his mother telling her where he was, and that he _would_ be going home for the wedding itself. The dark, curly-headed boy had agreed at once and scribbled off a letter that had been delivered by Ker, a female Omen Owl of indeterminate ancestry who had arrived in the owlery two years previously and never left.

Madam Zabini's reply indicated she was perfectly happy with her son's choice, so Papa had sent Wispy to collect Zee's trunk so he could get his homework done and have enough changes of clothes. The twelve-year-old had been delighted and Dorea had been just as pleased to have someone to spend time with in the run-up to her birthday. Having been raised in Italy and France despite being born in England, Blaise had never attended her birthday parties before and was rather curious about the whole song-and-dance that went along with them. He also managed to charm Great-Aunt Cassiopeia into letting him join in Dorea's weekly scrying lessons and became an eager student of politics, social engineering and the mind arts. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was now very thin indeed and slightly stooped, but her eyes were as sharp as ever despite her tongue having lost its razor edge in recent years. Dorea could feel somehow that her great-auntie was unlikely to live for much more than a year and was trying to spend as much time as possible with her, but it was difficult when she had so many other things to do and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia couldn't join in with her great-niece anymore.

The only activities that Great-Aunt Cassiopeia resolutely continued in the face of gradually declining heath were her Thursday afternoon tea and gossip sessions, which Dorea had attended religiously throughout the summer holidays despite having to be escorted back and forth by a house-elf while she was in France. Zee only attended one of those –out of slightly morbid curiosity he later admitted– and was besieged from all sides by curious girls, disapproving matrons and shameless old ladies. He acquitted himself well but refused to repeat the experience, stating he was 'insufficiently prepared for a long campaign' which had greatly amused Great-Aunt Cassiopeia.

* * *

Dorea's birthday was once again a sad crush with the who's who of the old blood of Wizarding Britain in attendance. Unfortunately however the event was marred by the arrival of a house-elf at two o'clock in the afternoon, bringing Papa the news that her Uncle Cygnus, whom she had never met, was dying and wanted to meet the family Heir before passing on. Dorea had then been rushed off to Black Court in her new French dress robes and low-heeled shoes alongside Aunt Narcissa, who was genuinely upset by the news. Papa kept a firm hold of Dorea's hand and his face had been smoothed into the cool mask of upper-class superiority that told her how much he wasn't enjoying being at this particular deathbed. Being Lord Black, Papa was expected to see Uncle Cygnus first, so Dorea had to sit in the small upstairs parlour with Aunt Narcissa, who was wringing her handkerchief in a way that suggested she was very, very unhappy. Uncle Cygnus was Aunt Narcissa's father though, so that was sort-of expected. The other person in the parlour was Aunt Druella, Uncle Cygnus' wife, who seemed very calm about her husband's imminent demise.

Druella Black née Rosier was a tall, thin woman, with faded blue eyes and straight, mouse brown hair liberally streaked with silver pulled back in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a stiff, Victorian robe of black velvet, satin and silk with a high neckline and long sleeves, frilled collar and cuffs, and a fitted corseted bodice above a loose, frilled skirt. All that black made her look sallow and faded as she perched on the armchair opposite the settee Dorea and Aunt Narcissa were sitting on, the faded purple upholstery adding to her appearance of sickliness. Aunt Druella's skin was slightly loose over sharp cheekbones, her cheeks were hollowed out and her eyes were deeply hooded, making her look as though her face was gradually sliding off her skull. Her hands were thin and her knuckles swollen, twisting her fingers into claws.

Aunt Druella was Aunt Narcissa's mother, but they weren't talking to each-other. Aunt Druella was calmly embroidering a fine linen handkerchief as though her husband wasn't gasping his last breaths in the next room and Aunt Narcissa was staring into space, her own handkerchief twisted between her fingers. Dorea felt awkward and out-of-place in her fashionable champagne-coloured robe with its low neckline, short puff sleeves, high waist and finely pleated skirts. Aunt Narcissa looked only slightly less obtrusive in an ice-blue robe with a V-shaped neckline that was closely fitted from shoulder to knee and then flared gently to her ankles. The silence in the parlour was oppressive, made weightier by the watchful eyes of the portraits hanging on the walls.

The door opened, revealing Papa in his red party robes.

"Narcissa, your father would like a moment before he sees Dorea," he said quietly, voice formal and stilted with the crisp, sharp accent that meant this was a formal situation he would rather have avoided. Aunt Narcissa rose to her feet at once and swept out of the room, high-heeled boots loud on the polished wood of the hallway. Papa let her pass him then took her place on the settee next to Dorea. "Aunt Druella."

"Sirius." It was the first thing Dorea had heard Aunt Druella say and it startled her, as the elderly lady's voice was deep and resonant quite unlike Aunt Narcissa's cool alto or Auntie Andy's friendly mezzo soprano. After the brief exchange of words the silence felt even more unpleasant and Dorea had to resolutely quash the urge to fidget. She instead set herself the task of mentally listing all the Chinese Seal Script characters she knew, their pronunciations depending on their context and their meanings. She'd gone through one hundred and three characters by the time the door opened again and Aunt Narcissa stepped through, head high and eyes dry if a little red.

Dorea rose to her feet alongside Papa and let him lead her out of the room, along the corridor and into the dim bedroom that smelt stale and slightly of red wine. She let herself be taken along the side of a four-poster bed draped in worn Tyrian red velvet and sat on the Fiddleback chair positioned right by the head of the bed. Once seated, she looked across and slightly up at the man lying on the bed, propped up on the cushions and half-hidden in the gloom.

The years had not been kind to her uncle; despite being barely fifty four his hair was white with sparse black streaks and hung in lank curls around his face, which was waxy-skinned and heavily wrinkled, giving him a permanent expression of severe disapproval. Beady black eyes with yellowing sclera peered at her from under thick, untidy grey brows and he had the general air of a large, solidly-built man who had lost a great deal of weight very recently. He wore a bed jacket in stained purple fine-woven wool with the lacy trimming of his nightshirt protruding untidily from the sleeves and collar.

"Uncle Cygnus, my daughter and heir, Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter," Papa said quietly and formally; "Dorea, your maternal great-uncle, Cygnus Nigellus Black." The man on the bed snorted as Dorea bowed her head semi-politely, eyes never leaving the ones trying to bore holes in her face.

The dying man snorted again, this time with more energy. "Leave us," he growled. Papa inclined his head barely enough to be considered respectful, briefly gripped Dorea's shoulder then left the room.

"So, you're Sirius' girl," Uncle Cygnus grunted. "Who was your mother then? Tell me!"

"My mother was Lillian Potter," Dorea said calmly, "distant cousin to James Potter. She was a witch, a half-blood and died during the last war. Through her I will inherit House Potter upon my majority." It was only slightly untrue, her mother's name having a bit of creative licence applied to it.

Cygnus Black made a rude sound in his throat. "Self-possessed little thing aren't you?"

Dorea raised an eyebrow coolly: this man may have been family but he was also a cruel, ignorant bigot and dying; she wasn't afraid of him. "I am to be Lady Black, Uncle," she said, tone and manners impeccably formal.

The man on the bed made a sound like a coughing wheeze that lasted for several seconds; it took Dorea a moment to realise he was laughing. "I can tell Aunt Cassie raised you: you've got her spine. Good. Maybe House Black won't go to rack and ruin after all; you're no blundering fool like my idiot nephew hanging on to Dumbledore's coattails or a weak mudblood-lover like my second child. You're smart enough not to get caught too, not like my dear Bella. Takes after my wife, does Bella: too passionate by half." He coughed again, deep and rattling.

Dorea was very grateful for the Occlumency training that enabled her to keep a straight face and remain calm in the face of the horrendous and inaccurate slurs against her father and aunt and the deeply dubious compliment he'd just paid her.

"You don't like me one little bit, do you?" Cygnus rasped. "No, don't answer; I can see it in that perfect little princess face you're wearing. You think I'm a rude old bastard ruining your birthday by dying."

"I don't think you're being rude by dying today," Dorea said, not denying any of the rest. Cygnus laughed again, his chuckles soon subsiding into more coughs.

"You'll do just fine; Leech!" That last rasped command summoned a house-elf that bore a distinct resemblance to Kreacher and wearing a tea towel with the Black crest like a toga.

"Master called?" it croaked.

"Go fetch my writing desk for me, then get my daughter and nephew in here," the old man croaked. Dorea didn't move as the elf popped out then back again with a battered writing case, which it placed on Cygnus' lap before leaving the room again. Her uncle ignored her as he slowly fumbled through the box's contents, pulling out a fresh sheet of parchment and the quill he'd been looking for.

"I, Cygnus Nigellus Black, being of sound mind and acting of my own volition, do declare this my last Will and Testament and that all previous wills and codicils are revoked," he said clearly, the quill standing upright and quickly scribbling down his words; it was clearly a Dicta-Quill. "To my wife Druella I leave usage of Black Court until her death, at Lord Black's sufferance, after which it will pass back into the possession of Lord Black. To my grandson Draco Malfoy I leave ten thousand Galleons, to be accessible upon his reaching his majority. All other personal property, funds and entailments I leave to my great-niece, Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, to be accessed upon completion of her OWLs on the condition that she supports my wife from it with the traditional widow's pension until said lady's death."

Dorea sat very still as the quill scratched across the paper and she heard her Aunt's sharp intake of breath at her father's words. Cygnus then took the quill and signed his name at the bottom before waving the parchment at his daughter and nephew.

"Get over here and sign, both of you," he croaked. "I'm leaving what's mine in the best possible hands; this way you won't squander it, fool boy. Cissa, I'm leaving some money to your son but most of it needs to stay in the Family. You understand."

"Yes father," Aunt Narcissa said huskily, taking the parchment and glancing over it before signing. Papa didn't say anything at all, taking the proffered document from his cousin and signing his name at the bottom before handing it back.

"Leech, take this to the Wills Department," Cygnus said after quickly checking the parchment over, "and tell them it's my last."

"Yes Master Cygnus," the house-elf croaked before vanishing with a crack. The elderly man then seemed to sag back into the cushions.

"All done then," he rasped, leaning back. "Finally got to meet the Heir, fixed my will, seen the only daughter who hasn't disgraced the family in one way or another." His eyes fluttered closed and he seemed to deflate without ever moving, a sighing rattle emerging from his lips as his hands slipped away from the writing case.

He had died, Dorea realised detachedly, died right before her eyes when only seconds previously he had been insulting her father. How dare he die before apologising!

Then Aunt Narcissa burst into tears and Dorea had to help Papa comfort her. Despite not having actually left her anything and being a bigoted old meanie, Cygnus had still been Aunt Narcissa's father.

* * *

Dorea did not really mourn for Uncle Cygnus, due to not having known him at all, but his having died in front of her left an indelible impression. She also had to grudgingly recognise that narrow-minded, bigoted, traditionalist grump he may have been but he did care about the Family. It took her a while to forgive him for his casual rudeness though.

What with her Uncle dying on her birthday the party at Black Manor was unceremoniously cut short, all the guests packing off home to write polite letters of condolence. Papa however caught the parents of her actual friends before they left and asked that their children be allowed to visit in the upcoming weeks, since he had a funeral to arrange and didn't want Dorea to brood. Dorea had no intention of brooding, but it came upon her anyway at odd moments and having her friends around –as well as Fizz to talk to– really did help. Dee and Trey spent the night at Black Manor several times in the following fortnight, both before and after the funeral, and Zee persuaded Moppet that the best thing for Dorea would be to be dragged out of bed every morning. Dorea did _not_ appreciate this and dyed his hair straw yellow in retaliation as well as using a potion in his morning coffee to give him hiccups. Straw-yellow hair was not a good look for Zee, especially coupled with his wet-cat look at the indignity of having hiccups.

Their booklists for second year came on the eleventh of August, two days after the funeral, when coincidentally all of Dorea's friends were staying with her. After ripping open the envelopes Trey squeaked, Dee raised an eyebrow in a way that suggested that something very fishy was afoot, Zee groaned and Dorea sighed heavily.

"Papa," she said flatly, "some moron wants me to buy the entire _set_ of those Lockhart books."

Papa lowered his paper. "The ones Great-Aunt Cassie calls highly suspicious since she's pretty sure it was a witch that dealt with that banshee and the werewolf mentioned in his book was defeated before he ever left England?"

"Those ones," Dorea confirmed grimly.

Papa folded up his newspaper and set it aside. Great-Aunt Cassiopeia wasn't at breakfast, having got up over an hour earlier and eaten then, but both parent and daughter remembered her scathing reviews of Lockhart's purported adventures as they had been published. She may not have left Britain since the Grindelwald War, but that didn't mean Great-Aunt Cassiopeia didn't know what was going on: the contacts she'd made then all wrote to her with local news and all manner of rumours on a regular basis, information which Papa used to the benefit of his various estates.

"I believe it may be time to launch an official inquiry then," Lord Black said calmly, a small, sharp smile briefly twisting his lips. "It will fill the time I have to wait for the goblins to get their act together over recovering Bellatrix' dowry and other personal assets now I've finally been able to disown her, as well as give Dora something to do." Cousin Dora had recently joined a small firm of private investigators that did contract work for the Department of Testament and Estate Law as well as the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so this kind of work would be right up her street. It also had the potential to be newsworthy, which was the kind of thing Great-Aunt Cassiopeia enjoyed twisting to Dumbledore's detriment.

"You don't like Lockhart, Rhea?" Trey asked, sounding puzzled and slightly hurt.

"I was at school the same time as Lockhart, Tracy," Papa said wryly, "though he was several years below me. He was a slacker and a narcissist; I've heard about several of his exploits through Minnie McGonagall since then and I seriously doubt he's anywhere near as capable in a tight spot as his books paint him."

"Oh." Dorea was slightly disturbed by how disappointed her friend sounded. Papa grinned evilly.

"He _is_ very pretty to look at though, I'll give you that," he teased roguishly, making Tracy squeak in embarrassment and hide her face behind her booklist.


	21. Chapter 21

Beta'd by the unique InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of destruction and distraction**

Dorea and her friends went shopping the day after receiving their Hogwarts letters, wanting to get in ahead of the rush. Dorea spent that day attacking the libraries in search of more useful books, occasionally asking Great-Aunt Cassiopeia or Aunt Lucretia for recommendations. As she'd been doing this for well over a week now, she had a tentative list ready as well as the _very_ helpful list of OWL requirements Uncle Septimus had sent her with her birthday present. Said list suggested that Dorea could take her History and Astronomy OWLs now and pass them, which was tempting because doing so would grant her unlimited access to Uncle Cygnus' vaults, which included all of Grandad Pollux' books that he had inherited from his and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's father. Great-Grandpa Cygnus had been a strictly traditional but somewhat kind man from what Great-Uncle Marius and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia said about him, so he probably had good books. It would also give her free time to study in that wasn't marred by the monotonous droning of an out-of-date ghost and save her from further late-night star-gazing sessions in the Scottish winter when she already knew everything on the curriculum. She hadn't found the Planetarium last year, having been rather absorbed in exploring the parseltongue passages, but she had managed to confirm that one _had_ been included when the school was built. It had in fact been one of Rowena Ravenclaw's pet projects.

Papa was against her taking any OWLs early, but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was all for it. This discussion had been running back and forth even before the funeral and neither party was willing to concede an inch. In the meantime however Dorea had set aside a small pile of books to take to Hogwarts, as she had every intention of advancing her education as far as possible. Her cousin Anthony would be coming to Hogwarts this year too, so she had to look out for him like her older cousins looked out for her. Deborah and Dawn couldn't really do it as they both had _their_ OWLs this year, which left Patricia –now in sixth year– Stephanie, Gregory and herself. Gregory was amusingly blind to everything other than Quidditch and History, so despite Anthony being his little brother he wouldn't be much help. Patricia would be working hard preparing for her NEWTs next year, so it would mostly be Stephanie and Dorea watching out for the youngest Black. Well, youngest _British_ Black: her cousin Martin and his pretty wife Leonie had a baby daughter now, whom they'd called Phoebe. She would eventually be attending Beauxbatons though, not Hogwarts.

* * *

However a week after Dorea and her friends had spent the day in Diagon Alley, ordered new uniforms, replenished their supply of parchment, quills and potion supplies, bought their new textbooks –including just one copy of Lockhart's works between them– and trawled the other shops for interesting bits and bobs, the goblins finally came through and transferred over to the Black Vault Bellatrix's dowry and a few additional personal deposits she had made. Aunt Lucretia had been summoned by Papa to examine them and had brought to Black Manor the next day a shallow cup made of gold with two handles and a badger engraved on the side. Dorea had been curious, but upon seeing it Papa had gone white and locked himself, Aunt Lucretia and Great-Aunt Cassiopeia in the study with it. Judging by how the door was Warded they were probably arguing, so Dorea left them to it. However her preliminary packing was interrupted an hour later when Papa came looking for her, his face rather grey, and quietly asked her to come downstairs so they could talk to her.

Dorea then learned that Tom Marvolo Riddle had mutilated his soul and there was a bit of it in Hufflepuff's cup, but that removing it was going to tire Great-Aunt Cassiopeia so badly she might die. So Dorea had to stand behind her Great-Aunt in one of the Ritual rooms in the basement of Black Manor and listen to what was involved in deconstructing and exorcising Soul Jars, so that the knowledge wouldn't be lost. That Voldemort hadn't just stopped at one was a sickening thought and explained a lot about how anarchic his crusade for so-called pureblood supremacy had become before he fell afoul of her mother. Aunt Lucretia also showed her how to draw a secure Exorcism Ward and promised her books once she passed her Runes OWL, which was nice but Dorea mostly felt sick that her great-auntie who was the only mother she remembered was probably going to die and it was all Voldemort's fault for chopping up his soul in the first place.

Then the process began and Dorea wrapped her arms around her Great-Aunt's middle from behind and paid close attention to the spells and wand movements, because this was important and she _had_ to learn it. Her Blood Ward activated as the first spell hit the cup, shimmering visibly across her skin as her forehead burned, but Dorea did her best to look past it at what her family was doing. The Diagnostic Charms, the Shield Charms, the unravelling of the structure of the Enchantment, all as a dark cloud _howled_ at them from within the boundaries of the Exorcism Ward. Dorea wasn't afraid of the disembodied spirit –it couldn't touch her– but she was terrified for her relatives, especially when Great-Aunt Cassiopeia started leaning on her and Aunt Lucretia sunk down on one knee.

As abruptly as it began it was all over, the dark cloud collapsing in on itself and vanishing and the glowing ward drawn on the stones beneath their feet fading to nothing. Papa quickly caught Great-Aunt Cassiopeia before she fell and tipped a Strengthening Solution down her throat before carrying her away upstairs. Dorea was left behind to help Aunt Lucretia totter over to the potions rack for a Strengthening Solution of her own, then disconsolately follow her back up to the ground floor.

* * *

Great-Aunt Cassie spent the next four days in bed being waited on hand and foot by Kreacher, who was the only house-elf expressly informed on the subject of horcruxes. Sirius still didn't like seeing him but even he had to admit that Kreacher had a stake in Voldemort's downfall and he was very attentive to Cassie. However the fact remained that the wonderful and crotchety old lady had severely over-exerted herself, which not even the Healer they called in could do anything about. As Healer Duthridge said after examining her, she would either pull through or not.

Dorea was incredibly upset about the whole thing and was spending all the time she could with Great-Aunt Cassie, only coming out of the room when her combat tutor came over for her lessons or to use the bathroom and sleep. Even when Cassie was asleep –which was most of the time to be honest– his darling Dorry-Rose sat in her bedroom doing her embroidery or reading a book, regularly glancing over at the woman who raised her to make sure the elderly lady was still breathing. Sirius's heart ached for his baby girl, who'd seen far too much death already this month without losing Great-Aunt Cassie. He'd already decided that his daughter could take her OWLs if she wanted and that he wouldn't stop her from learning about the nastier and more dangerous Family magic that only a few days ago he'd been fiercely vetoing; his daughter looked up to Cassie as a role model and forbidding her from following in the elder lady's footsteps would only result in her defying him. Sirius didn't want Dorea to feel she had to choose between making him happy and following her heart; he didn't want to emulate his mother like that.

To keep himself from brooding Sirius threw himself into the Lockhart project, sending wizards all over the world in search of eyewitnesses to his supposedly heroic exploits. He visited Great-Aunt Cassie every day though, to tell her what had been achieved so far and get her advice when she was awake. Auntie Lulu was recovering well at home with Uncle Iggy, which was a relief, but Great-Aunt Cassie wasn't improving. Admittedly she wasn't getting worse either, but that wasn't all that comforting really.

Sirius reminded himself that Great-Aunt Cassie was seventy seven, which while not as old as Grandpa Arcturus had been when he died was still very old for a Black. They didn't live very long as a rule, possibly due to all that in-breeding or more likely because of their family magic being Dark and therefore corrosive to those not fully in control. Great-Aunt Cassie had been one of the few to be a true Dark Arts Mistress, but she was old, frail and really shouldn't have been dismantling a horcrux with only a Runes Mistress to back her up. Sirius knew very well that he may as well have not been there, as while he was a Transfiguration Master and had recently gained his Charms Mastery in preparation for the Curse-Breaking Mastery Uncle Iggy had promised to prepare him for, he had been no use at all to the ladies. It was a bitter admission, but it was the truth. Though seeing Dorea's Ward in action –as Aunt Lulu had promised it would be– had been breath-taking and humbling: he could hardly believe that he'd helped make that possible! Yellow fire dancing over her skin without burning her, the sowilo rune an angry red on her forehead… Sirius no longer feared for his daughter's safety, but that did not mean he wanted her to get more involved in horcrux-disposal than she already was.

* * *

When the first of September finally arrived Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was slightly better, but still spending most of every day either in bed or sitting in an armchair wrapped in a blanket, as she refused to miss any more Thursday teas than she had to. It was still an improvement though, so Dorea didn't feel too badly about going away to school for several months. She had lots of books packed, Papa had agreed to let her take two OWLs early –she'd be sitting them at the beginning of the Christmas holidays– and apparently the investigation into Lockhart was going well enough that Dora was sure they'd have enough evidence for it to be worth bringing the case before Amelia Bones by the New Year. Dorea hoped it would be sooner than that, as it had been in the Prophet last week that Lockhart would be Hogwarts' Defence teacher this year and she was dreading it. In fact, she was tempted to skive off entirely and go the self-study route; after all if he never saw her in class he wouldn't ever realise she was missing, would he?

It was with this hopeful thought in mind that Dorea boarded the Hogwarts Express, finding the compartment Daphne was sitting in with relative ease and settling in opposite her, Fizz wrapped around her shoulders. The boomslang hissed languidly about rats, sunshine and how he would miss climbing trees as Dorea opened _The Darkness Within_ and concentrated on the printed words before her; Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had answered a lot of her questions and explained various points to her over the holidays, so she'd made considerable progress through the thin volume. Her Occlumency had progressed also, but Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had warned her that she would not be able to progress to true mastery until after puberty, which meant she would not be able to start delving into black magic until she was fifteen at the very least and possibly not even until she was seventeen. Dorea had accepted this as being for her own sanity and was turning her academic efforts towards the Potter Grimoires in the meantime: they contained a lot on Wards and Transfiguration, so most of this year's extra reading was geared towards those subjects.

She had brought _Transfiguration Expanded_ again, both the first and second volumes this time, but also _Fluidity of Form_, a Greek text from the Library of Alexandria side-by-side with its English translation. The book dated from before the Statute of Secrecy so the translation was rather archaic, but Dorea had picked up quite a bit of Ancient Greek over the years alongside her Latin lessons and she was managing just fine so far. She also had a dictionary of Ancient Greek so she wouldn't get stuck as well as a grammar text; it wouldn't do to misunderstand something.

Her latest Rune book had been a gift from Aunt Lucretia, who agreed she was ready for practical projects. It was called _Three Hundred Seals_ and was in Chinese, but Dorea was perfectly fluent now so she wouldn't have a problem. The book was the standard starter text for using Seal Script in talismans, wards and rituals, so Dorea wasn't really worried about getting in over her head. Uncle Ignatius had given her a Russian book of weather and secrecy magic called _General Winter_ –or at least that was what it translated as– which contained numerous Charms that all had Ward equivalents. Dorea had leafed through it once already while sitting with Great-Aunt Cassiopeia and was hoping that the book would give her an idea of how to convert other Charms into Wards. Her attempts at keeping the dorm above freezing had so far all been Warming Wards rather than proper Heating Wards, and they had all failed rather quickly.

She'd also brought _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade Three) _because their little independent study group was well ahead, _Self-Defensive Spellwork_ because they'd need it what with Lockhart attempting to teach –he'd barely managed an 'Acceptable' on his Defence OWL– and _The Chatelaine's Complete Potions Compendium_, which was another antique text but gratifyingly wide-ranging in recipes and had its own associated notebook containing the editing, explanations and modifications of various past generations of Blacks. The notebook was nearly as thick as the original text after so many years of use and Dorea was hoping that brewing everything in the book would enable her to slim it down so that a revised edition of the original volume could be printed, privately of course, for ease of usage.

She was also taking _Refinements in Scrying_, which was a good follow-up text to _An Introduction to Scrying _that Blaise had borrowed and started learning from over the summer, so she could delve more into different scrying mediums and which ones worked best for her in which circumstances. Cards could be quite good for scrying with, for instance, especially in complex, social or abstract situations. Dorea was also taking a lot of sheet music, particularly Chopin. Playing helped her deal with stress and think things through, so she'd done quite a bit more practicing than had been strictly necessary last year. Dealing with Lockhart and his fans would probably send her running to the piano even more this year –the man was a lying fool but he was pretty to look at– so it would be wise to be prepared. Besides, Fizz liked feeling her play; he claimed it was almost as good as magic.

Doera was roused from her musing by Padma and Hermione entering the compartment. She hadn't seen Padma at all over the summer as her family had been in India, so she set her book aside and got up to hug her.

"Padma! You look very well. Have a good holiday?"

"I had a lovely time, thank-you," Padma said pleasantly; "My father was very pleased with my marks and bought me some very pretty jewellery; my sister was rather jealous and may join our study group this year. Oh, and I bought you this, but I thought I should give it to you in person rather than post it." She handed Dorea a parcel wrapped in elaborately decorated paper. "I found it in Delhi; it should have more information on parselmouths than I was able to give you."

Hermione made a strangled sound but did not interrupt as Dorea carefully opened the parcel. It contained a book titled _Children of the Naga_, which took her a great deal of self-control to not just sit down and read. Instead she set it down on top of _The Darkness Within_, thanked Padma profusely then turned to greet Hermione, who was fidgeting.

"Hello, Hermione."

Hermione's face set in resolve. "I talked to my parents," she announced, "and they said you had a point. So I'm going to try and write more concisely because not everyone is as interested in all the fine detail as I am." It was clearly not something she was happy about, so Dorea smiled delightedly and hugged the startled Muggleborn.

"I'm so glad. I was worried about you, you see: I wouldn't want you to lose marks over something that trivial."

Hermione hugged her back then pulled away. "They said that too; I know you do care Dorea, it's just… why can't people be _interested_?" She seemed genuinely outraged.

Dorea patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Think of it this way: if you can summarise it well enough that people can understand it and want to know more, they can ask you and you can add all the details in."

Hermione looked much happier at that prospect, no matter how unlikely Dorea knew it to be, and she and Padma sat down, leaving room for Blaise, who had not yet arrived. Given that Dorea had not yet gone into much detail on Family Magic with Hermione –it was not really something you were supposed to share– she slid _The Darkness Within_ out of sight and picked up _Children of the Naga_, eager to read a book on parselmagic that did not utterly vilify it without actually going into detail of what it entailed.

Blaise eventually hurried into the compartment barely five minutes before the train was due to leave, muttering mutinously in Italian about 'priorities' and 'idiot step-fathers'. Dorea patted him sympathetically on the leg as he set his trunk in the overhead rack and shifted sideways slightly so he could flop down next to her. Zee was her best friend; it was something she'd realised over the summer holidays. Dee she trusted to get things done for her, tell her what she needed to know and back her up and Trey was the best person to cheer her up, but when she just wanted to _be_ and not feel lonely, Blaise was who she looked for. He was calming and didn't judge her. It was almost like having a brother: Zee wasn't above teasing her over her foibles.

"_Excuse me for being so late, Rhea; my new step-father doesn't seem to realise that I need to be on time for the train,_" Blaise said in Italian as the whistle blew and the train started moving. "_I don't think I want to go home for Christmas this year, whether or not he's still there._" Her friend did love his mother dearly, but he found her tendency to run through husbands like most women did shoes to be highly disconcerting. Zee wasn't the only one to feel that way, but he actually had to live with his mother and the man she was currently married to.

"_You can stay at my house; my father won't mind and you'll enjoy it more than staying at school,_" Dorea replied in the same language. Zee usually spoke Italian to her whenever he could, as it was his mother tongue and while his English was fluent he liked Italian better.

Her friend's head slid across to rest on her shoulder. "_Thanks Rhea; I'd like that a lot. I read that book you gave me on Water Magic during the summer: it's really interesting and I'm pretty good at it. Want to see?_"

"_Certainly, but not now._" Dorea said absently. "_You seem tired._"

"_I am; I've barely had any sleep since the wedding last week,_" Zee grouched. "_Why couldn't Mum just go on her honeymoon right away and let me stay with you? It would have been less stressful. Jonas doesn't like me at all as it is without Mum giving him more reasons._"

"_Rest; I'll save you something to eat for later,_" Dorea said firmly. "_Don't make me hex you._"

Blaise chuckled, eyes closed. "_I adore you Rhea. Until later?_"

"_Goodnight._"

It took all of twenty minutes for her Italian friend's breathing to even out and his head to start to slip forward off her shoulder; Dorea set her book aside to lower his head and shoulders onto her lap and shift his legs around so he wouldn't be uncomfortable lying that way. Then she returned to her reading. The book Padma had given her was delightfully positive and marvellously detailed. She would be able to experiment!

"Dorea?" Dorea glanced up at Hermione.

"Yes?" she replied quietly, not wanting to disturb Blaise. Admittedly Blaise was a heavy sleeper where noise was concerned, but if she tensed he would be up in a split-second.

"Erm, I heard you mention parselmagic last year," the Muggleborn said tentatively, "so I tried to look it up. All the books I could find say parselmouths are evil."

"British and indeed most other European cultures vilify parselmouths," Dorea said calmly, "because several highly infamous wizards of a violently destructive and dangerous bent have had the gift. Herpo the Foul was the most infamous in antiquity, but the self-styled Lord Voldemort was the most recent. However being a parselmouth doesn't make you evil: it just means that you can speak to snakes. It's what people do with their gifts that defines them, not what those gifts are. Paracelsus was a parselmouth."

"In India parselmouths are revered," Padma volunteered. "There are many poisonous snakes and being able to communicate with them has saved many lives."

Hermione was wide-eyed, but didn't seem to be outraged at the idea of her precious books being biased; possibly there had been more than one talk with her parents this summer. "Could you tell me more?"

Dorea let her attention go back to her reading as Padma and Hermione's conversation continued, Tracy and Daphne both joining in after a little while. She'd heard most of what the raven was saying before and her new book was much more interesting.


	22. Chapter 22

Beta'd by the valuable InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of being alone in the crowd **

Dorea had been startled when, upon leaving Hogsmeade Station with the rest of the older students, she saw they were expected to travel to the castle in Thestral-drawn carriages. Not that she agreed with the Ministry that Thestrals were dangerous –compared to griffins they were perfectly easy to get along with– but they were very rare and domesticating them would probably be challenging. That Hogwarts had a herd tame enough to pull carriages was very surprising and probably something to do with Hagrid, who apparently loved large and dangerous beasts. The Cerberus from last year had been his.

The Thestrals were however an unwelcome reminder of Uncle Cygnus, as he was the reason she could see them at all. True, she'd been present at her mother's murder but she didn't really remember it and probably hadn't understood it at the time. She still didn't quite accept that Lily Potter was dead, as the Blood Ward was like a part of her mother that protected her still and said Ward was almost alive. Uncle Cygnus on the other hand was undeniably dead and she'd seen it happen. Hence, Thestrals. She patted the one hitched up to the carriage Blaise was climbing into before following him inside, smiling at the Italian boy's disgruntled mumbles about how hungry he was. Zee was nearly as tall as she was now, having shot up in the last few months of the previous school year and was still gaining height. He'd probably overtake her soon, considering he was almost a year older than she was and boys were usually taller than girls. With this abrupt growing spurt came a monster appetite, which Dorea knew all about due to Blaise staying with her over the holidays.

It was rather isolating to hear her friends talking about 'horseless carriages' though; Dorea had always felt slightly removed from her friends for one reason or another and this added more depth to the divide. She wouldn't wish enlightenment on anyone, but it still hurt.

Watching the sorting and listening to Zee's stomach growling was moderately amusing, but the only person she knew who was coming to Hogwarts this year was her cousin Anthony Black, who had been almost the first person called and promptly sorted into Hufflepuff. Dorea knew why: Anthony was not ambitious and despite being very smart wasn't bookish, but he was rather terrifyingly loyal to his extended family and would do anything for them. _Really_ anything; he wasn't incautious about it like a Gryffindor would be either. Her baby cousin was liable to grow up scary, which Dorea thoroughly approved of. His presence in Hufflepuff also gave her a way in to the badger's circles, which was fortuitous and to be exploited. Anthony adored her –she'd played with him a lot as a child– and was very outgoing, so he'd likely hunt _her_ down to talk about his new friends.

She didn't recognise any of the other new firsties, though a few familiar surnames surfaced: a Weasley in Gryffindor, a Gibbon and a Travers in Slytherin and a Lovegood in Ravenclaw. Dorea had never met any of the Lovegoods, but the late Pandora Lovegood had been a spell researcher and Dorea had been interested in her work on principle. Mr Lovegood's alternative newspaper 'The Quibbler' was also a hilarious read, provided you read between the lines and could decipher the code. Aunt Lucretia had introduced her to it as a way to practice her Norse Runes, as there was always a Rune code or small article written in them included in the publication.

Then came the feast, after which they were thankfully not required to sing the school song, followed by a slightly later curfew and bedtime. Dorea slept well, Fizz curled up next to her under the covers.

* * *

Dorea heard about Lockhart's lessons before getting to actually attend one: the first Defence lesson of the year was had by the second-year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. It was, according to a scuffed Neville and an irate Roger, a fiasco.

"He released a cageful of Cornish pixies on us after making us do a _ridiculous_ quiz that was all about _him_ rather than anything useful!" Roger raged to the rest of the study group that evening. "Neville ended up hanging from the chandelier!" Roger's thick streak of rashness manifested when his friends were threatened, which made him half-badger really. Dorea thoroughly approved: Roger was good for Neville.

"I used the Cushioning Charm on the floor so I could get down," Neville added quietly, patting his friend tentatively on the shoulder, "then we used the Freezing Charm on the pixies. Lockhart ran for it when the bell rang and the pixies tossed his wand out of the window well before that."

"So," Dorea said grimly, "he is utterly incompetent and isn't even going to _try_ and teach us."

"It's not like that!" Fay protested. "I'm sure he just had a bad day!"

Dorea exchanged glances with Dee and Zee; neither looked convinced. Neville and Roger both looked incredulous, Trey looked conflicted and Sally-Anne, Padma and even Hermione all seemed to be taking Fay's side on the matter. How ridiculous and irritating. Clearly Lockhart's appearance and fame had robbed them of sense, so she would have to be patient and sensible for them while keeping the peace.

"Look, let's agree _not_ to talk about Lockhart here, okay?" she said with a sigh. "We'll practice the spells in the second year Defence curriculum –I got my Uncle Remus to write them all down for me– so that if they come up in class you'll already know how to do them. That way we'll be ahead there as well as in Charms and Transfiguration."

Hermione was not the only girl looking elated at the chance of showing off in front of the shiny-smiled Defence teacher and Dorea suppressed a groan. What was _wrong_ with her friends? At least Dee's brains weren't turning to mush as well…

* * *

At the beginning of the second week of classes Dorea discovered something that made her moan in abject horror and throw herself face-down across one of the couches in the Slytherin Common Room. Terence Higgs, who had given her the news, blinked in consternation and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder as she whimpered.

"Rhea, are you alright?" Most of her school friends called her 'Rhea' now and Terence was definitely a friend.

"No," Dorea groaned into the leather upholstery. "Did Draco's father _really_ do that?"

"What, donate brand new brooms to the entire team on the condition that Draco made seeker?" Terence repeated bemusedly. "Yes, he did."

"He's going to be bleedin' _unbearable_ all year!" Dorea complained, shifting over onto her back so she could look at Rence properly. "Are you angry? I mean, seeker's _your_ spot on the team. Draco's a capable flier but really nothing special, so if this means Flint's not even going to hold a tryout to make sure Draco is actually better than you are-" The older boy reached down and pressed a finger to her lips.

"Rhea, it is fine, really. I'm in fourth year now and this way I can focus on my studies; I am taking three electives you know. I only ever joined the team as a favour to Adrian: he's the Quidditch nut. We've won the cup over seven years running and if we fail this year then I seriously doubt Draco will _ever_ manage to get back on the team, brooms or not." He grinned. "And there's no _way_ I'm playing next year when I have to take my OWLs."

Dorea processed this and giggled. "Rence, that's evil. I'm so proud to know you."

"Plus, this way I can drag you out to the game and make sure you actually _watch_ rather than staying in the castle and vanishing who-knows-where," Terence added, glancing at her piercingly. "Where is it you go when you do that? It's not the main library, you're not in here and if you were wandering the corridors someone would have spotted you by now."

Dorea looked away and didn't answer; she wasn't going to lie to him but she was putting off telling anybody she was a parselmouth for as long as she possibly could.

"Fine, keep your secrets Rhea," Terence sighed, "but consider this: if we don't know what's going on we can't supply a ready alibi if it gets you into trouble."

"It's partly a family thing, Rence," Dorea said quietly, not wanting him to be upset with her. She liked Terence: he didn't treat her like a child, helped her with her spell work and always had a smile on his face in the common room. He wasn't trying to be pretentious or superior and had on several occasions fended off older students who considered her surname to be a good reason to target her, not all of them Slytherins. The Black family had a terrible reputation and her being in Slytherin convinced most of those not among the snakes that she was just as evil as her aunt Bella, while the rest seemed to think she was as pro-Muggle as Dumbledore like her father had once been. That she was cultivating members of all the houses regardless of blood or status just further convinced the latter sort that they were right, never mind that she was doing it for more self-serving reasons.

"Well then, say no more," Terence said, face slipping back into his habitual small smile. "Just remember we're your friends, okay? You can tell us stuff."

"Thanks," Dorea said honestly, smiling back at him as she sat up and pushed a few loose curls back behind her ear. "I should go warn Blaise that our Quidditch-dodging days are numbered."

Terence laughed, hauling her to her feet and shaking his head. "You do that Rhea; see you later!"

Rhea darted out of the common room, still smiling as she hurried upstairs to the Great Hall and breakfast. While she didn't much like Quidditch, it probably wouldn't be so bad with Rence there to explain things and Zee providing a scathing commentary. Her Papa had tried to get her interested in Quidditch as a child and taken her to several professional matches, but Dorea just wasn't moved by the sport. She apparently took after her mother that way.

However as she made her way across the packed Entrance Hall Dorea's feet faltered and her stomach clenched in dread. Stiffening her spine, she took care not to walk faster as she walked through the doors of the Great Hall and made her way to the Slytherin table where Dee and Zee were waiting for her. Dorea tried to smile, but from the looks on their faces she had failed abjectly.

But why, _why_ had her forehead burned so urgently for a moment back in the Entrance Hall?

* * *

By the second week of October Dorea had come to several mostly unrelated conclusions:

Firstly, she loathed Lockhart and his narcissistic incompetence with every fibre of her being. His classes were a source of never-ending frustration as he never taught spells, never actually explained the useful, factual parts of his books so they could learn about the Creatures and Beings mention therein and seemed to think that they should all be delighted at the opportunity to spend an hour in his presence regardless. Sickeningly, most of the girls seemed to be smitten with him and Dorea really couldn't understand _why_. His hair was far too perfect and still to be natural, his wide and shiny smile was blandly insincere and his dress sense was far too showy. He reminded her of a peacock: all flash and no substance. Why couldn't her female friends see it? Daphne could, though her Dee was being far quieter than usual this year. Dorea had tried to find out why, but the older girl denied anything was the matter at all, saying she just had a lot on her mind. What with Dee vanishing inside her own head for hours on end and Trey blushing every time she saw Lockhart, the only person she could have a conversation with was Zee!

Secondly, the Hufflepuffs were either a cult or a Family that the members were adopted into upon proving their worth. There was no other explanation for the way _all_ the badgers knew her cousin Anthony and his fellow firsties by name within the month, or the way that there was always an older student in a yellow-and-black tie lurking within hearing when her cousin grabbed her in the corridors for a chat and to introduce her to whichever of his house-mates he was with today. So far there had been his year-mates Gabriel Tate, Melvin Catterick, Satinder Singh, Darrel Turner, Haruka Endoh, Benjamin McEwen, Trudy Galston, Thora Dinnet and Madeline Ormskirk, Dorea's fellow second-years Justin Finch-Fletchley, Megan Jones, Ernie Macmillan, Oliver Rivers, Lily Moon, Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones and Wayne Hopkins, third-years Tamsin Applebee, Herbert Fleet and Malcom Preece, fourth-year Cedric Diggory, fifth-years Anthony Rickett and Maxine O'Flaherty and sixth-year Gabriel Truman. Matching names to faces was a serious challenge but Dorea hadn't slipped up yet and the badgers seemed ever more voluble and inclined to make conversation with each encounter. Conversations were still superficial, but Dorea had a feeling she was getting somewhere with each remembered name, all the random titbits she was pulling out of past Thursday teas with her Great-Aunt and her own refusal to believe that Hufflepuffs were in any way inferior to the other three houses. Certainly Susan and Hannah were now making time to chat to her after Astronomy on Monday nights. Hopefully those conversations would continue after she took her Astronomy OWL, as even those budding friendships were not reason enough to put off the date beyond which she would no longer have to stay up late and freeze while watching the stars.

Thirdly, that several generations of parselmouths had built on what Salazar Slytherin had started in creating a network of private passages through the school, as there was no other explanation for the number of paintings with snakes in them and the passages they hid. Dorea had a feeling that a lot of the passages had once been accessible by everyone before the parselmouths 'closed' them with specially created paintings. The semi-animate statues guarding the network of dungeon passages were certainly Slytherin's work, but the paintings were long after his time. The passage hidden behind the Slytherin points' hourglass was Dorea's favourite, as it led up into the Founder's Tower –which was otherwise inaccessible– and across as far as the Hospital wing. She'd also located the Planetarium which had been parsel-locked at some point, possibly by a disgruntled past Astronomy teacher who'd been sacked.

There had likely been a number of discreet parselmouths teaching and learning at Hogwarts over the years, gradually modifying the school to suit them. She wasn't certain how difficult those spells would be, just that she would need to experiment a little first. Dorea now had a much better idea of how the school was put together due to being able to access areas that other people couldn't. Papa knew that it was possible to map Hogwarts as he claimed to have done it, so she really needed to weasel the required Charms out of him or Remus so she could do it herself. She could ask by letter, but Papa was the practical sort and wouldn't be able to explain the spell in writing very well. Calling him up on the mirror would work, but it wasn't really an emergency.

Fourthly and most upsettingly, one of her fellow students was possessed by Voldemort. Dorea had no proof of this beyond the erratic burning around the Rune on her forehead, but to her that was evidence enough. She wasn't about to cry werewolf just yet though, as it would do more harm than good. Instead she was trying to work out exactly which student was so unfortunately afflicted. It certainly wasn't any of the Slytherins, as she'd never felt so much as a twinge in the common room even when she got up stupidly early one Sunday and spent the entire day reading on the couch nearest the entrance. Similarly it wasn't any of the ravens or badgers in her year, as she shared classes with them and she'd had no trouble then. The times she encountered the most twinges were when Anthony caught her between classes, but it wasn't any of his fellow 'puff firsties because she'd clasped hands with all of them without a problem. However Anthony Leo Black was frequently in the company of the Gryffindor first-years as he shared most of his classes with them, so to Dorea it seemed plausible that the victim was one of the younger lions. Verifying that however was going to be a beast of a task since she had no reason to approach any of them. Dorea was currently working on finding excuses to be invited into the Gryffindor Common Room so she could experiment a bit, but most of her plans would have to involve the twins and their sister was among the suspects. Neville and Roger might help if she had a good enough reason, but she hadn't thought of one yet. She would have to narrow down her suspect pool then inform her family, so that something could be done. Great-Aunt Cedrella was very frail now but she was the Weasleys' grandmother, so Dorea would at least be able to cross little Ginevra off the list. It was most irritating.

Well, actually to tell the truth being stalled in her investigations of who was possessed was nerve-wracking and upsetting, but Dorea was trying not to go there. This added to the Lockhart issue was causing her to spend a lot of time soothing her nerves in the music rooms and asking for extra practice time in the duelling hall. Ric –Avery had finally decided that she'd earned the right to call him by his given name– had raised an eyebrow at her but agreed, since he was now a sixth-year and had less classes to attend anyway. As a result she now had a mid-week combat lesson as well as a Saturday one, which was exhausting but helped her sleep and not worry about things she couldn't change. Blaise had managed to join the 'sword school' as he called it during the summer holidays and was learning to wield a flame-bladed rapier or flamberge from Cassandra Wilkes, a quiet and intense fifth-year who had recently been permitted to start teaching. Wilkes had only been recognised as proficient back in May and had until then been under the tutorial of the recently-graduated Howard Yaxley, but Blaise seemed to be enjoying himself and was clearly talented despite grumbling about the level of physical fitness required. Zee didn't slack off at all, not in anything, but he did grumble about things he didn't enjoy. Generally in a humorous and sarcastic manner, which always lightened the atmosphere.

As Halloween drew ever closer Dorea was quietly hoping that this year the date would pass without any of the excitement that had marked last year's feast, but she wasn't holding her breath. October 31st had never been a good day for her, marking as it did her mother's death, and she was starting to suspect that the disembodied Tom Marvolo Riddle had a 'thing' about Halloween. Why else would he attack the Potters on that day, then ten years later let a troll into the school? Since he'd somehow gained entry to Hogwarts _again_ despite Dumbledore's assurances that the Castle Wards made it the safest place in Britain, Dorea was more wary than hopeful. Considering the way her luck was going and the wand that had matched her at Ollivander's, it seemed she had been selected by Magic for heroism despite her innate distaste for such things.

However Dorea had no intention of being pushed into rashness: fools rushed in but they tended not to rush out again afterwards. She would be cautious, thorough and determine the situation as precisely as she could before alerting her family and selecting an appropriate course of action. It was, after all, the Slytherin thing to do in such a situation.


	23. Chapter 23

Beta'd by the wonderful InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of new friends and recurring issues **

It was still two weeks before Halloween when Dorea had her first direct encounter with Luna Lovegood. She'd actually heard quite a lot about the younger girl from both Padma and Hermione: Hermione found her rather frustrating due to the various unknown magical creatures the first-year constantly referred to, while Padma clearly found Luna delightfully charming and refreshing. Neither had exchanged more than a few words with the eleven-year-old, but both had mentioned her eccentricity at length in their group study sessions.

Dorea had been on her way back to the Slytherin Common Room after two and a half hours spent communing with the grand piano in the third-left music room when she came across Luna Lovegood standing to one side of the right-hand fifth-floor corridor as two slightly taller girls in Ravenclaw colours tipped her bag across the floor, spilling quills, ink bottles, parchment and text books every-which-way. This was bullying and Dorea had a very low tolerance for such behaviour. Palming her elm wand, she quietly murmured the incantation for the Pumpkin-Head Jinx.

The effects were everything she'd hoped for: the head of the taller girl with the ugly sneer was instantly encased in a very solid-looking pumpkin, which distracted her plumper associate for the split-second it took Dorea to cast the spell again, thus ensuring neither girl caught sight of her. As the two bullies panicked and started screaming as they staggered into the walls, the second-year Slytherin calmly waved her wand over the scattered supplies, easily casting the wordless Re-Ordering Charm that sent them all back into Luna Lovegood's bag. She then picked up the bag, took the young raven by the hand and led her swiftly off away from her former attackers and down a passageway behind a suit of armour. Once the bullying twits had calmed down enough to think, they'd realise that the pumpkin could be dispelled pretty easily.

"You didn't need to do that, you know," the rather dishevelled-looking younger girl commented. "They'd have got tired of it eventually."

"I did it because I wanted to," Dorea said calmly, pausing halfway along the passage to get a good look at the unusually easygoing raven. Most Ravenclaws were highly competitive in academic matters and those few who were athletically inclined took their competitive spirit there as well. Luna Lovegood had silver-grey eyes that were slightly protuberant, making her appear disconcertingly innocent and mildly surprised. Her hair was long, untidy and dark blonde, her skin was remarkably fair and she was wearing a necklace with what looked like dirigible plums on it. She was in fact very pretty in a slightly ethereal way despite clearly not brushing her hair as much as she should.

"Really? That's very kind of you," Luna said earnestly, smiling slightly. "I'm not sure the pumpkins will work to protect Sophie and Felicity from Wrackspurts for much longer though, as they will probably try to get them removed."

Dorea giggled. She couldn't help it: Luna was utterly adorable in a way that was either charmingly naïve or utterly mischievous. "My name is Dorea Black and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance," she said, voice still slightly wobbly.

Luna beamed at her. "It's lovely to meet you Dorea; I'm Luna Lovegood, though some of the girls in my dorm call me Loony."

Dorea's smile vanished. "That's very mean of them: you are not loony at all. You're a really kind person and I'd really like you to be my friend." She was rather startled by her own forthrightness, but some instinct told her this was the best possible course of action.

Luna's smile became somehow even more radiant. "I'd love to be your friend, Dorea. I've never had friends before."

"Well that is going to change," Dorea said firmly, catching Luna's hand again and leading her off down the secret staircase towards the second floor classroom she was due to meet her friends in for Transfiguration practice, "because you are my friend now and I intend to introduce you to my other friends. Friends look after each-other after all and I really don't like how your dorm-mates are treating you."

Luna did not protest at all, but her eyes grew slightly brighter in a way that suggested she was holding back tears. Judging them to be happy tears, Dorea did not comment on them.

* * *

Befriending Luna proved hilarious: she considered Lockhart to be suffering from a Wrackspurt infestation and her explanation for this peculiar statement won over all Dorea's male friends within minutes. The girls were less impressed and even Daphne seemed more perturbed than pleased to have an ally against the forces of insanity, but upon hearing what had been going on when Dorea found her, they all agreed to look out for Luna. Padma in particular took the younger girl under her wing, which Hermione found by turns upsetting and embarrassing as Padma insisted Luna talk about whatever she wanted with them and what Luna wanted to talk about was vast, varied and sometimes a bit shocking. Blaise just seemed to be enjoying the show and was perfectly happy to listen to Luna natter on about the various peculiar creatures she believed in, though Dorea suspected he was doing it to see Hermione redden and twitch.

Luna proved to be quite brilliant and a quick study, easily learning the first-year spells Dorea had Neville teach her and making the shy twelve-year-old boy blush with her matter-of-fact compliments on his teaching skills. Dorea had suggested Neville as Luna's tutor because he was still having trouble with some of the spells and she'd hoped teaching would help him improve. It seemed to be paying off, as Luna was helping Neville as much as he was helping her and the younger girl's unusual conversation style was doing wonders for Neville's self-esteem. Luna was shamelessly blunt and honest, which made her almost impossible to ignore when she complimented you.

Oddly enough though, Dee became even more withdrawn after Luna joined the group. Dorea was starting to become seriously concerned for her friend. Was there something wrong? Were her family all well? Asking after her younger sister Astoria proved that no, her baby sister was just fine and looking forward to starting at Hogwarts the following year and that her parents were also well. Daphne quietly insisted that she simply had a lot on her mind of late and refused to go into further detail. Dorea however could see that something rather fundamental was bothering her first friend and decided that the situation was dire enough to warrant calling in reinforcements: her cousin Dawn.

Dawn Hydra Woodmore was nearly sixteen, highly social and quite devastatingly perceptive in emotional matters that were still rather beyond Dorea's comprehension. It had been Dawn who had explained about crushes and romance to the puzzled twelve-year-old who hadn't understood why Trey was blushing over Lockhart, who had added various useful details to 'The Talk' Dorea had been given by Great-Aunt Cassiopeia about a week before the start of school and who had dissected for the younger girl why people in general were so illogical in emotional matters. Dawn might have been a year younger that Cousin Trish, but she was far more perceptive and capable in dealing with people. Patricia Andromeda Black was a highly intelligent young woman with a genuine passion for Magical Creatures and Arithmancy, but while good at reading people's hidden feelings she couldn't unravel or explain them like Dawn could.

Dorea knew that Dawn would be able to set Dee straight no matter what was wrong, so she hunted down the fifth-year on the Saturday afternoon to earnestly beg a favour. Dawn obligingly listened, asked a few questions then smiled at her younger cousin and promised to do what she could, warning Dorea that whatever she and Daphne discussed would be confidential unless Dee wished it otherwise. Dorea didn't care that she might never know what the problem was: she just wanted her friend to be herself again!

* * *

Daphne had been aware that Rhea had noticed she was spending more time inside her own head of late, but she hadn't realised she had worried her friend to the point that said friend had decided to stage an intervention. Because Dawn Woodmore was respected and feared in the house of snakes for her ability to pull the truth out of thin air in a way that was far too much like mind-reading for anyone's comfort. It probably wasn't Legilimency, but it could easily be some kind of Seer talent which in some ways was worse: Legilimency could be defended from, but a person could no more thwart a Seer than they could stop the tide. The petite blonde Greengrass warily eyed the tall, willowy grey-eyed redhead who had cornered her in the common room and cast several Privacy Charms around their sofa before sitting down beside her.

"Rhea's worried about you," Woodmore said gently, reaching out to place a hand on Daphne's shoulder. "You were her first friend and she'd do just about anything for you, but you not telling her what's wrong is bothering her when she can tell the issue isn't going away. So I thought it might help to be able to air the problem privately. I promise not to repeat anything unless you expressly ask me to and nobody can hear us or focus on us right now."

Daphne's eyes dropped to her hands, which were clenched in her lap.

"Is it to do with your family?" Woodmore asked gently.

As a matter of fact, it was. Daphne's mother had recently become pregnant again, which had been a complete surprise to both her parents as they'd tried for a child for five years after Astoria was born before giving up. But her mother was expecting her third child now and the Healer had determined that the child was male. So Daphne, who had been groomed from childhood as Heir Greengrass, was already being pushed aside in favour of her unborn baby brother. If not for her friendship with Rhea her parents would already be considering advantageous alliances, but the Black connection meant that a great many families that would not usually be interested in allying themselves to the Greengrasses had to be considered, and Daphne remaining unattached gave her parents greater scope. As it was her mother had taken her aside before school started and asked her to consider which of the boys at Hogwarts she might be willing to marry at a later date, so that those connections could be cultivated in greater depth.

The problem was that currently Daphne wasn't interested in any of the boys in school, unlike Rhea who had a slight crush on Terence Higgs that she rather amusingly didn't even seem to be aware of yet. Instead Daphne considered the only person worth her time, attention and admiration to be Dorea herself. Which was problematic, because Daphne was well aware that Dorea really _had_ to marry a strapping pureblood male and produce a minimum of two sons to ensure the continuation of both her bloodlines and the other girl was not one to take her duties to family and eventual wedding vows lightly. Whatever Dorea did, she did it knowingly, willingly and wholeheartedly or not at all. It was why Daphne loved her so passionately. But Dorea would never return that passion, so Daphne would have to settle for honouring her Pledge, supporting her darling Rhea with all her heart, mind and strength and marrying someone who understood that, to Daphne, Dorea _always_ came first.

"So it's like that, hm?"

Daphne's head snapped upwards to meet Woodmore's sympathetic gaze. She _knew_. How did she do that?! It had to be Seer talent; Legilimency didn't work like that!

"She's something else, isn't she?" Woodmore said wryly, glancing across the room to where Rhea was helping first-year Richard Harper with his Charms homework. "I won't say a word; I promised not to, remember? But I do suggest you tell her enough to distract her from the real problem or else you're going to give yourself away." The older girl got to her feet and patted Daphne on the shoulder. "She'll probably never fall in love with you, but don't ever doubt that she loves you and would move mountains for you if she decided it was needed."

Daphne remained on the sofa, her thoughts whirling madly.

* * *

Talking to Dawn seemed to have helped Dee, as she confided in Dorea later that week that her parents were expecting a third child: a boy. By the time the summer holidays came around again Dee would no longer be Heir Greengrass and she was having trouble adjusting. Dorea could see how that would be upsetting and confusing to come to terms with: suddenly losing a large chunk of your purpose in life would make anyone quiet and withdrawn for weeks on end. So she hugged her friend, promised to be there if she ever wanted to talk then suggested Daphne think about what she wanted to do with her life now that she wouldn't be taking over the family title. Become a Healer maybe? Breed crups? Become an architect? Teach?

Dee had laughed off all her suggestions but Rhea didn't really mind. Her friend was talking to her properly again!

Unfortunately this improvement was followed by a disastrous act of verbal idiocy by Draco, who seemed to be bent on sabotaging Dorea's plan to expand the influence of Slytherin House to encompass the entire school. His joining the Slytherin Quidditch team had bolstered his ego in all the wrong ways and he seemed more certain than ever that his father was the ultimate authority in everything and to be emulated in every possible way. Sadly however Draco lacked Lucius Malfoy's keen sense of timing and cool appreciation of politics: instead he took after the Black side of the family in having a quick temper and being rather easily distracted like his Aunt Bellatrix and his Uncle Sirius, Dorea's own father. His efforts to emulate Uncle Lucius were therefore utterly doomed, as the blond twit had no sense of when to keep his mouth shut.

Hence his calling Hermione 'mudblood' as they waited outside the Greenhouses for Professor Sprout to arrive.

* * *

Blaise Gerard Zabini Kwar Nyireth had quite honestly not expected to enjoy himself at Hogwarts. He hadn't even expected to be invited; his father's people still followed the path of traditional Shamanism, where education was passed on from master to apprentice, while his mother had attended Beauxbatons. However his paternal grandmother had been a British Muggleborn who had wound up becoming his Reth grandfather's favourite wife after a string of unlikely adventures along the White Nile. Blaise's father had been born in Cambridge, which combined with his magical ability and royal heritage had resulted in a Hogwarts invitation. Gerard Ochollo Nyareth had been a Gryffindor; he'd married Angelique Zabini two years after graduating and they'd been, if his Nonno was to be believed, madly in love with one-another. However it hadn't lasted: barely three years into the marriage, in the confusion following the Voldemort War, Blaise's father had been murdered and the Ministry just hadn't been interested in hunting down the guilty parties. A lot of people had died in the chaos, so what was one more? Especially when that 'one more' was barely even a half blood by British Ministry standards; those in power didn't consider Shamanism to be proper magic.

His mother hadn't taken it well; she was a Zabini and the family hadn't got to where it was now by letting their enemies walk all over them. She'd moved back to Italy with her two-year-old son and begun her own campaign against the men who'd murdered her beloved, with the might and weight of the Zabini family behind her. Having been raised between the family home just outside Rieti –amongst a horde of second and third cousins– and his nonno's chateau in France, Blaise had expected to attend La Scuola Sabina or maybe Beauxbatons; the Hogwarts letter had been a surprise. However upon seeing it his mother had insisted he attend, as a way to become closer to his father. Blaise honestly didn't even remember his father; his mother's cousin Graziano Zabini had filled the role more than any of his stepfathers. However Blaise knew better than to cross his mother, so he accepted that he'd be attending school in Scotland and resigned himself to dark days, long nights, bitter cold, endless rain and really awful food.

He hadn't expected Dorea Black, but Blaise suspected that _nobody_ expected Dorea. It was part of her charm. She was utterly honest about her scheming tendencies, resolutely dedicated to expanding her knowledge and influence, genuinely attached to her friends and clearly believed that the unwritten rules of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry only applied to her when she allowed them to. The amusing thing was that she was right: her utter certainty that she had the right to make any connections she wanted regardless of house, heritage and social status had led just about everybody else to go along with her and the culture of the school was gradually changing in her wake. He'd befriended her just to see what would happen and been startled to realise, when summer came around, that he'd follow her anywhere. Rhea saw him for himself rather than as the son of Madam Zabini, the Black Widow, or as the heir to a pureblood family that predated the founding of Rome. To her he was Zee and that was more than enough.

This clear-sightedness had inspired Blaise's determination to help Dorea in any way she wished and had prompted him to pick up the rapier again; it also persuaded him to write to his grandfather in Africa –well, his grandmother since he had never got a chance to learn Chollo– to ask about learning the traditional magic of his heritage. He'd been invited to visit and learn over the summer, as he had actually inherited more of his father's dowsing and water manipulation skills than the traditional Zabini pyrokinesis, though he was still naturally fireproof. His commitment to his friendship with Dorea also led him to observe her closely and ensure her deep, well-trained temper didn't get her into trouble.

This was why, when while waiting outside the greenhouses for Professor Sprout Draco insulted Hermione, the first thing he did was grab Dorea's elbow so she didn't curse the idiot.

* * *

"Nobody asked your opinion, you filthy little mudbloo–"

Hermione was slowly and painfully coming to the conclusion that she was nowhere near as good at dealing with people as she had previously believed, not that she'd ever got very far with her peers in primary school. She'd thought that was their fault, but she was coming to realise that she was at least half of the problem and it wasn't a nice feeling. Coupled with this realisation was the uncomfortable little whisper in her mind that insisted she personally didn't _want_ to be good at getting along with people because most people were wilfully blind idiots and not worth her time. Padma was good at keeping the idiots at a distance or calming Hermione down when their stupidity irritated her, but having to deal with Dorea Black on a regular basis had taught Hermione that intelligent people could be irritating too. Especially when they were right or knew something you didn't. Interacting with Rhea had also taught Hermione a lot about Magical culture, most of it bigoted, backward or counter-intuitive. Insults had been included; Dorea had wanted Hermione to know when people were disparaging her so she could retaliate appropriately. 'Mudblood' was a term Dorea had referred to as 'crass, low-class and unimaginatively pureblood-supremacist' and informed her was a term of insult for Muggleborns, implying they were less than human. Hermione was not surprised Malfoy had spat the word out; what puzzled her was that he'd not managed to finish his sentence before suddenly choking and clutching at his throat.

Pansy immediately rushed to help, but it rapidly became apparent that Malfoy's inability to breathe was entirely malicious: he was choking on nothing at all. However no wands had been drawn, the Ravenclaws were all looking alarmed and the Slytherins…

Hermione's eye was drawn to Dorea, whose left arm was firmly caught in Blaise's grip and whose face wore an expression of genuinely disturbing apathy. Her eyebrows were faintly arched, her eyes slightly narrowed, her mouth pulled into a thoughtful moue as she contemplated her cousin as he clawed at his throat, face starting to shade into purple. A quick glance at Dorea's hands proved she hadn't drawn her wand, but Hermione could not shake the chilling feeling that the tall, green-eyed brunette was the source of Malfoy's distress.

Then Dorea finally turned in response to Daphne's murmured query, Malfoy collapsed to the ground gasping for breath and the moment passed, Professor Sprout arriving just in time to send the wheezing boy to the Hospital Wing. Hermione recognised that she knew very little about internal Slytherin politics, but she knew one of the cardinal rules was that snakes were not to get into arguments where any of the other houses could see them. That Dorea was capable of wordless, wandless magic seemed rather plausible, considering; that she had half-killed her own cousin in public for undermining her campaign to improve student relations was however rather extreme.

Hermione did her best to ignore the part of her that insisted that Malfoy had it coming and that Dorea had been remarkably restrained in enacting vengeance. That part of her would have had her curse Malfoy herself had Dorea not got there first.


	24. Chapter 24

Beta'd by the x-ceptional InsaneScriptist

* * *

**Of regrets and unfortunate events **

On the morning of Halloween Sirius unfolded his copy of the Daily Prophet to glance at the headlines before moving on to the more accurate articles contained in the higher-numbered internal pages and paused, teacup halfway to his mouth.

_Department Head Found Dead in Home!_

Setting his tea aside, the Lord Black perused the article in greater detail. Mr Crouch, technically Sirius' second cousin once removed via Callidora and Cedrella's late younger sister Charis, had been found dead in his home the previous morning. Healers called to the scene had determined the cause of death to be apoplexy, specifically a sudden and severe bleeding in the brain brought on by old age and high levels of stress. The Aurors had deemed the death not suspicious and were therefore not investigating. Mr Crouch had died at the dinner table and fallen face-first in his mashed potatoes; the reporter went on to list how many duties Crouch was currently undertaking, his past career and the level of scrutiny he had been subject to when it had come out that Sirius Black, sentenced to life in Azkaban while Crouch was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had been proven to not only be innocent but denied a trial at all. This had resulted in every single case Crouch had presided over being re-examined and Barty Crouch Junior being posthumously pardoned of any personal involvement in the torture of the Longbottoms, as it turned out he had simply been visiting the Lestranges when the Aurors broke down the door looking for their two kidnapped colleagues. Yes he'd been marked, but Riddle had wanted him for his father's ministry connections as a step towards taking over the government. He'd never so much as cursed a single Muggle.

It coming out that Crouch had sentenced not one but _two_ innocents to Azkaban, one of them his own son, had all but killed what was left of his career. He'd only just managed to stay in the Ministry at all and had been swiftly shunted into the Department of International Magical Cooperation, well out of the eye of the British Magical public. His knowledge of languages and law –not to mention his impeccable lineage– kept him in a job there, but Crouch had been firmly cut off from the position of Minister of Magic that he had so craved. The journalist –thankfully not Rita Skeeter– indicated that they were not at all surprised that he'd driven himself into an early grave; good riddance to him.

Sirius had felt sorry for Barty Crouch when the teenager had been manhandled into a cell not far from his own one. His terrible screaming, which had soon subsided into muffled sobbing and fevered mumbling, had been a sobering reminder that cruelty was not limited to Death Eaters. Finding out that the poor boy who'd barely lasted a year in the oppressive atmosphere of Azkaban had been as innocent as Sirius himself had been a bitter blow; Sirius had been cruelly reminded of Regulus. Regulus, who'd been Barty Crouch's year-mate and had shared a dormitory with him. Regulus who'd been led astray by Riddle's poisonous promises and died for it, his poor baby brother who'd had no-one to turn to and had died heroically trying to do the right thing. Barty Crouch Jr. had been his and Regulus' third cousin and Sirius bitterly regretted how he had naively allowed himself to be seduced into viewing the world in black and white when he knew very well that things were always more complicated than that. Dumbledore had made things sound so simple and the war had made suspicion and cruelty seem rational responses to the atmosphere, but Sirius knew better now. So many people had died for the blind ambition of two old men and that was something Sirius would do anything to keep from repeating itself.

That his family were supporting him in that very endeavour was both strange and wonderful, but Sirius' older relatives had always been much cannier than his mother's side of the family. Of Cygnus' children Cousin Andy had inherited all the available sanity, while Cissa had all the low cunning, leaving all the madness to Bella. Sirius could see that he wasn't much better than Bella had been in the matter of hot-temperedness and obsessions, but he controlled it better than she'd ever bothered to. The potions helped, as did having money to manage, dependents to care for and a child to raise. He'd gone and become respectable, damnit. Well, semi-respectable: Blacks were too mired in the darker side of business and the sane ones were too cruelly self-aware to ever consider themselves truly respectable. Powerful yes, Devoted to the Family cause certainly, Feared preferably, but never respectable. Respectability was too confining.

Shaking his head, Sirius had to wonder what would have happened had he and Barty been given proper trials. Ironically, it was entirely plausible that Crouch Senior would have made Minister if he'd actually pursued justice rather than simply handing out punishment in his zealous haste and irrational hatred of everything Dark.

* * *

Dorea spent Halloween in a knot of ever-increasing tension. She _knew_ something was wrong, _knew_ something was going to happen and didn't know enough to prevent it. Her friends picked up on her nerves easily and stuck close, which prompted the other Slytherins to stick close and move in groups as well. The Ravenclaws noticed and responded accordingly, which the Hufflepuffs picked up on and passed on to the Gryffindors. By dinner no students were moving around unaccompanied which made Dorea's self-appointed task of identifying the possessed student both easier and harder. Easier because she'd managed to determine that the unfortunate was indeed among the first-year lions, but harder because she had no idea which one it was. A nine in ten chance of being wrong was not good odds when the element of surprise was her only advantage.

Dinner however passed without incident, dessert following the main course without pause or interruption. Dorea lingered in the Entrance Hall after the plates had finally been cleared away, wondering about the possibility of her instincts leading her astray when there was a shriek from the first floor corridor that the lions took on the way back to their common room. Filled with an abrupt sense of dread Dorea darted up the stairs, Zee and Dee at her heels and Draco not far behind. Pushing through the unsettlingly silent crowd Dorea came to a halt in front of the haunted and perpetually out-of-order girls' bathroom where Moaning Myrtle could usually be found sulking and took in the glistening red letters daubed on the wall above a spreading puddle of water:

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Dorea felt a bubble of white-hot ire welling up from somewhere around her stomach. Oh yes, her enemies had bloody well _better_ beware, because whoever had been party to this ridiculous piece of melodrama was going to _suffer_ for ruining her year like this! She didn't care if they were possessed, they had it coming!

Draco pushed through the crowd to stand beside her, slightly dishevelled and flushed from the run up the stairs. Dorea felt rather than heard him take a breath and turned just far enough for him to catch the expression on her face. Her cousin flinched, deflating slightly as he took in the scene with hungry eyes. He still looked completely thrilled by the turn of events; if ever Dorea had needed proof that Draco was at heart as recklessly naïve as a Gryffindor here it was. Her cousin had not an ounce of sense for timing his words appropriately but at least this time he kept his mouth shut.

"What's going on here? What's going on?" Dorea did not turn to look as the voice of Argus Filch echoed along the deathly silent corridor. Her attention had been caught by the slightly fuzzy shadow hanging beneath the writing on the wall. It looked unnaturally stiff for a dead thing.

Filch shouldered his way through the students blocking the hallway and came to a halt in the open space directly in front of the writing, then fell back in horror at the sight of the thing hanging beneath.

"My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs Norris?" He shrieked.

"That's Mrs Norris?" Dee murmured curiously as Blaise swore quietly but earnestly in Italian.

"Which of you little monsters murdered my cat?" The caretaker screeched, whirling around to glare at the assembled students.

"I don't think she's dead, Mr Filch," Dorea said clearly, feeling as though she was standing a long way away from her own body. "I saw her barely an hour ago and it takes longer than that for rigor mortis to set in. Is she under a full body bind perhaps?"

Her words were still echoing down the hallway as Filch stared at her with something wild and strange in his eyes when Dumbledore swept onto the scene followed by Professors Snape, McGonagall and Lockhart.

"Come with me, Argus," the headmaster said calmly. "Students, please return to your common rooms."

Dorea allowed Blaise to tug her away from the set-up, following obediently as he led their little group down a back staircase that led directly to the basement level, along a corridor then down another steep staircase into the lower dungeons.

"Draco," Dorea said abruptly as they walked down a narrow and empty corridor lit by sparse, flickering torches and notably bare of portraits, "did you know this was going to happen?"

Dee and Zee both turned on the platinum blond boy, backing him against the wall. Draco seemed to suddenly notice that he was alone with the only three of his year-mates who could easily get away with hexing him into the Hospital Wing and paled abruptly.

"N-n-no," he stammered, eyes darting from one unfriendly face to the next. "My father said I should keep my head down this year so I guessed _something _was going on, but–"

"Thank-you Draco," Dorea said quietly, her shoulders relaxing. "Draco, remember how when we were six Grandfather talked to us about Family secrets?" This was a risky move to make but Draco did have a brain for all he rarely used it. Maybe this would encourage him to do so. A bit of Slytherin good sense and some trust might actually get him to think and notice things as he should.

"Yes," her cousin said warily, glancing from Daphne to Blaise in suspicion.

"Daphne had Pledged allegiance to me and Blaise has Pledged brotherhood," Dorea said calmly, "so I know this secret will go no further. Draco, _I_ am the Heir of Slytherin and I have the Gringotts letter at home to prove it." The blood inheritance ritual had been most enlightening. "Whoever is doing this in an imposter stealing my heritage."

Draco's jaw dropped. "_You_? But, but!"

"I don't strictly count, being female," Dorea went on pleasantly, "and having inherited through my mother, but I have the blood and the associated Family gift. So I would be most grateful if you really did keep quiet on the matter until I manage to ferret out who is moving against me in such a crass manner."

Her cousin blinked, closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. "You think this is an attack on the Family?"

Dorea spread her hands out. "What else could it be, Draco? Someone is attempting to demonise the Slytherins, which will lead to an increase in the isolation I am trying to end so we can further our influence. As it stands we are automatically suspected of foul play simply because were belong to the house of the snakes. Our careers are hindered, our reach limited. Someone is masquerading as the Heir of Slytherin to sow fear in the school, which may well lead to the school being closed. How can we acquire information and familiarise ourselves with those who would oppose us if we cannot interact with them unsupervised?"

Dorea knew very well she was likely dealing with Tom Riddle, former Heir of Slytherin, but that didn't mean her story wasn't plausible. Draco certainly bought it.

"That's why you're befriending all kinds of riffraff like Granger? To further the Family advantage?"

"Dumbledore has ruled our world for far too long," Dorea said quietly and with utmost sincerity. "We cannot overthrow him without allies in every camp. One must appeal to the majority in order to be accepted, no matter how distasteful we may find certain traits of our allies."

Draco nodded, looking as serious as Dorea had ever seen him. Finally, proof that he _could_ think sensibly if he wanted to! Maybe all hope for him wasn't lost after all. "My apologies cousin, I didn't think of it that way. I'll keep my opinions to the common room in future."

Dorea smiled. "Thank-you Draco; perhaps you could let drop that whoever's behind this 'heir' business is rather lacking in class? I mean, painting dramatic messages on the wall and attacking Filch's _cat_ of all things? You'd think it was a cheap Muggle theatre production!"

Draco had clearly not considered things in this light before and screwed up his nose in disgust. "And outside a girl's bathroom of all places! I see what you mean Dorea; nobody properly brought-up would stoop to such things."

"Blood and bodies in the Entrance Hall or nothing," Dorea joked, her smile predatory. "Oh, and since I know you can keep a secret cousin–" she turned her attention to Fizz "–_come on out, Fizz: I want to show you off to my brood-mate._"

Draco was not the only one to quail at the unearthly hisses that emerged from her lips as the green-and-black head of her pet snake emerged from under the collar of her uniform.

"Y-y-you…" Draco trailed off, then recovered. "You're a parselmouth, cousin?"

Dorea inclined her head. "I said I had the Slytherin Family gift, didn't I? Let's keep it between us for now, please. I'd rather not have Dumbledore and the rest of the bigoted so-called Light Wizards breathing down my neck and accusing me of being the next Morgana le Fay."

"No matter how true that might be," Zee added drolly, making both Dee and Draco snort.

"Fine, I'll leave you to your plotting cousin," Draco agreed, sighing. "Do _please_ keep me informed though?"

"I will, but I suggest you focus more on Quidditch," Dorea said mischievously. "After all, do well and you will make some priceless connections with the older players as well as gain a following among the younger students."

Draco swelled in pride at the perceived 'compliment' of his cunning in getting on the Quidditch team and Dorea turned to continue down towards the common room, the other three falling in step around her. The green-eyed second-year hoped this new approach with Draco would work; his marks at the end of last year had proved he had a keen mind so it was clearly just a matter of finding the right approach in order to encourage him to use it. This might eventually enable him to step out of his father's shadow and become his own person, which could only be for the better.

* * *

Dorea spent the following week introducing Zee and Dee to the parsel-locked passages around the castle and the portrait of Salazar Slytherin. Said portrait was happy to confirm the existence of the Chamber but refused to give details as to its location, stating that to 'prove her worthiness' she had to find it for herself. He was however happy to tell her all about how he'd managed to build it right under the noses of the other three founders and about his travels prior to returning to Hogwarts. Dorea steered the conversation towards Creatures capable of speaking and understanding parseltongue that he'd met on his travels and took extensive notes, occasionally asking questions on behalf of her friends who were no less fascinated by the animated likeness of the patron of their House even though he only spoke parseltongue.

By the time the first Quidditch match of the season came around Dorea had a very detailed list of potential inhabitants of the Chamber of Secrets with the most likely suspects marked by a star. She would have liked to have involved Trey in all this, but Trey had drifted towards Millie Bulstrode while in-house and spent most of her time when outside the Slytherin quarters with Padma and Hermione, giggling over Lockhart. Dee found this just as distressing as Dorea did, but Dawn reassured them both that their friend would get over it so they just got on with things without her as best they could. Zee helped them both with his charm and humour and Draco had become miraculously more tolerable after their little chat, which was a relief. Pansy rather amusingly was just as smitten with Lockhart as most of the other younger girls so she didn't bother with Dorea and her coterie much.

Dorea felt that the most likely inhabitant of the Chamber of Secrets was a Basilisk, though she could not rule out Nagas, Lamias, Gorgons or a Hydra. Cockatrices and Runespoors were too small to be considered, a Sea Serpent would be unsuitable and Ashwinders didn't live long enough. Wyverns and Lindworms also spoke parseltongue and most dragons understood it, even though they didn't always speak it from what Slytherin had told her of his travels. Dorea personally doubted that Slytherin would have brought a Naga or a Gorgon back to Britain as they were Beings rather than Creatures, but Lamias were very dangerous to children and a Hydra would be a total nightmare to deal with. She was still leaning towards the Basilisk idea though, as it was called 'The King of Serpents' and that pretentiousness would have appealed greatly to the man whose portrait she was by now rather familiar with.

However Quidditch put the research project on hold, since Draco would be playing and in light of their reconciliation Dorea had promised to cheer for him in the match against Gryffindor. That Terence would be enforcing hers and Blaise's attendance was the final nail in the coffin; she would have to wrap up warmly and sit outside in the early Scottish winter with just about everyone else. At least it would give her the opportunity to approach some of the Gryffindor firsties without attracting attention.


	25. Chapter 25

Beta'd by the youthful InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of having the misfortune of being right **

Dorea might not have minded sitting through the Quidditch match if it hadn't started raining barely twenty minutes in. Admittedly it had been pretty damn obvious from the ominous slate-grey clouds that rain had been in the cards today, but that didn't mean Dorea _enjoyed_ huddling in her winter cloak, the hood pulled up to shade her face with Warming Charms ensuring her gloves, scarf and socks actually kept her comfortable rather than simply making sure she survived the icy downpour. Dee on her left was almost sitting in her lap with how close she was snuggling and Blaise was so hunched sideways in his attempt to shelter from the wind his face was inches from Dorea's own.

"_Crappy rain, stupid shit sport, moron wizard bastards for inventing it,_" she muttered mutinously in Italian as Zee mumbled agreement with every profanity uttered.

"Sorry Rhea; it's more fun to play and you don't notice the cold so much in the air," Terence said apologetically from her other side, reaching out to wrap an arm around her shoulders and shelter her from the bitter wind. "How about a compromise: I'll show up early to get seats in the sheltered stands and you come along and watch without my chivvying you."

Dorea eyed him sideways. "Can't I just skip out on the wet games entirely? I hate getting cold." She really did, since it made her feel sick to her stomach and it took her forever to warm up again afterwards. There was a reason she had all those expensive cashmere vests in her trunk and it wasn't that they went well with her complexion. Warming Charms could only go so far, as evidenced by their soggy, miserable weather-induced huddling.

"You really need to socialise more Rhea," Rence said with a wry smile that made Dorea's stomach wobble strangely. "You were enjoying bantering with the firsties before the game, weren't you? Don't you feel a part of something bigger out here?"

"You are evil and I hate you," Dorea said flatly, but without much heat as Sally-Anne shot past on the Cleansweep Seven she'd borrowed from Neville. Sally-Anne was the new Gryffindor Seeker and was actually pretty good, though Dorea had no idea why Neville owned a broom when he'd never ridden on one before last year and didn't like flying much at all. Maybe it had belonged to one of his parents?

It had actually been nice to meet some of the new lions separately before the game and her badger cousin had even introduced her to a few of them, which had enabled her to cross two girls and four boys of her 'potentially possessed' list. That left another four girls –there were rather more girls than boys in their year, with nearly half the boys being Muggleborn– including Ginny Weasley, whom Dorea was starting to get a bad feeling about. After all, if it came out that the youngest child of the cheerfully ineffectual, Muggle-loving and Dumbledore-supporting Arthur Weasley was attacking Muggleborns, things could go very badly for said man and his new Muggle Protection Act which was currently moving through the courts. If that was the case it was entirely possible that someone had _deliberately_ exposed the littlest Weasley to a Horcrux, which rather limited the suspect pool as the number of people Riddle would have trusted with such an item was very limited, especially when you crossed of the Lestranges due to their one having been destroyed already.

Dorea didn't actually care _how_ one of her school-mates had wound up possessed; she was more interested in identifying them and coming up with a way to reverse the affliction before it killed them. She suspected the Soul Fire that was part and parcel of her Blood Ward would be able to purge a possession –it had after all protected her– but she didn't know how much it would damage the person possessed. In her own body the Ward reinforced, strengthened and healed, but it might not do the same in others. However if the choice was between killing an innocent and horribly maiming said innocent, Dorea would go with maiming every time. Even if it meant she was more likely to get in trouble since her involvement could be proven.

"Aw, Rhea! You say the sweetest things!" Terence teased, ruffling her damp hair with frozen, sodden fingers. Dorea pushed him away, confused by the warmth in her chest and the sudden heat in her face. Why did she like Rence touching her all of a sudden? It didn't make sense!

* * *

After the game –which Slytherin lost quite unexpectedly when Sally-Anne Perks caught the snitch from right on top of Draco's head– Dorea went directly back to the dorms for a long hot shower, then up to the hospital wing. George Weasley had broken his arm when two bludgers converged on him from different directions and Lockhart, in a stunning display of ineptitude, had Vanished all his bones from the elbow down. Fred had needed to be sat on to prevent him from killing the strutting ponce and Dorea strongly suspected that the elder Weasley Twin would be making it his mission to torture the incompetent Defence teacher into a nervous breakdown. Dorea was tempted to help; it would be good practice for her investigations into Parselmagic…

George was about as well as could be expected considering his right arm looked like a deflated balloon, but Fred was with him and the dreadful duo were cheerfully confusing everyone –Madam Pomphrey included– as to which twin it was who had been injured. It never ceased to irritate Dorea that she was the _only_ person –their parents included– who was never fooled by the constant switches and twin-speak. Not even their own siblings paid enough attention to tell twin from twin, which was despicable behaviour. Padma and Pavarti were equally identical, but their parents knew them apart, encouraged them in their separate hobbies and recognised that they had two daughters rather than one daughter who happened to have two bodies and two names to choose from. To everyone bar Dorea the Weasley twins were Fred-and-George and she found it less amusing that the twins liked to pretend it was. She could tell they didn't like it much either, but playing it up for laughs made them feel better about the whole issue. It was why she hadn't bothered to clear up the confusion over which twin was actually injured.

Dorea left them to their cheerful plotting of how to go about smuggling some butterbeer into the Hospital Wing and retreated back to the Slytherin Common Room for a spar and an early night. Ric had agreed to allow her to start using a _real_ sword after Christmas provided she kept up her current rate of improvement and Dorea was looking forward to being able to pick one that suited her out of the Family Vaults. At this rate she might actually be good enough to no longer require structured lessons by the time Avery graduated at the end of the next school year. Being recognised as competent with a sword was something Dorea was desperate to achieve sooner rather than later, as evidenced by her hard work and constant practice.

In Charms she and the rest of her little group were about a year ahead, in Battle Magic –as that was what the jinxes, hexes and curses learned in Defence technically were– they had completed the year's curriculum and were well into independently expanding their expertise, in Transfiguration they were not ahead but were definitely completely capable and confident in themselves, in Potions Dorea had got Neville to the point that he actually turned in a functional potion about half the time and rarely caused explosions –her own independent work was going very well too as Hermione and Padma had pitched in– and she was apparently at about fourth-year-level in Runes, though the ones she was best at –Chinese Runes– were not taught at Hogwarts at all. Herbology Dorea enjoyed but lacked both talent and enthusiasm for, History she was seriously considering avoiding entirely and Astronomy she suffered through ungraciously. Her grades in the latter three however were impeccable regardless of her lack of interest. At least after taking her OWLs in the last two in the first week of the Christmas holidays she could stop attending them and would have more free time to work with.

Her grades in her optional classes were also high, with her Ancient Studies teacher talking about letting her move up a grade in the spring, the Art Professor starting her on the complicated Animating Charms involved in giving her paintings more semblance of life than simple movement and the Music teacher –who evaluated her progress once a fortnight– had actually smiled warmly at her this week. Professor Runcorn was a stern, unrelenting perfectionist so that was high praise indeed, especially since he had been firmly disapproving of her preference for 'Muggle music' until he had discovered how much more complex and well-written it was. Dorea loved learning but not for its own sake: she loved first and foremost being able to _do_, so all that she learned had practical applications. This was where she differed from Padma and Hermione, both of whom loved knowledge for its own sake.

* * *

"_Wake up Mistress! Wake up! Basileia wanders the halls and threatens those under your protection!_"

Dorea's eyes flew open, blinking blearily at the boomslang that was hissing at her frantically.

"_Basileia?_" she repeated bemusedly.

"_The Queen of Serpents moves through your nest and she hungers, Mistress!_" the snake insisted, swaying in agitation. Dorea scooped up the nervous serpent and placed him around her neck as she pulled on an extra pair of socks, a warm jumper and slippers and wrapped her invisibility cloak around herself. It seemed 'Slytherin's monster' was indeed a Basilisk, a female one if Fizz was to be believed, and it was even now at large. This meant that Fred Weasley's plan to visit his twin in the Hospital Wing had the potential to go very wrong for him and she really needed to warn them both. Not bothering to go even as far as the common room, Dorea turned to one of the serpentine statues in the corridor connecting the girls' dormitories and hissed the password:

"_Make way for the heiress._"

The snake shifted with a grinding of stone, revealing a steep, narrow staircase that Dorea hurried up even as behind her the statue returned to its original position, cutting off all light. Not that Dorea needed light; holding out a hand from under the cloak she murmured a spell that conjured Coldfire, enabling her to continue up the spiral stair without risking injury.

The staircase emerged behind a tapestry of a Lamia on the first floor, not far from the viaduct. It was also less than five minutes' walk from the Hospital Wing, so Dorea extinguished the conjured fire, wrapped her cloak around her once more and made her way silently and invisibly past the dozing portraits to the wide double doors that marked the entrance to the infirmary. Slipping inside, Dorea noted that George's bed at the far end and he looked to be asleep. Fred was nowhere to be seen, which was worrying. She stole over to the redhead's side, let her cloak slide off onto the floor and tapped him on the nose.

George woke with a groan, his forehead wrinkling in pain from the partially-regrown bones in his arm as he opened his eyes and blinked at her. While he'd managed to get to sleep earlier despite the pain he was in, it might take him a bit longer to drop off again as the mid-phase of bone regrowth was supposedly the most painful part.

"Fred?"

"No, it's me," Dorea said patiently as she settled on the edge of the bed. "I've found out what Slytherin's monster is."

George's eyes widened. "What is it?"

"Basilisk," Dorea said grimly. "They can kill with a look, making wandering around at night extremely unsafe right now. I was hoping Fred would be here, since it's almost midnight, but if he isn't–"

George looked sick at the implications and tried to get out of bed, but Dorea shifted forwards so she was sitting on his chest. "Look, we don't _know_, do we? He might just have got caught by McGonagall and sent back to the Gryffindor dorms. Or there was no butterbeer left in Gryffindor Tower so he had to go and get some first." Dorea knew there were passages to Hogsmeade and that the twins knew where they were; how else did you explain their ability to get hold of sweets, chocolate and butterbeer at less than an hour's notice?

George still looked distinctly unhappy but stopped trying to get out of bed.

"That might be him now," Dorea added hopefully, her ears picking up the sound of footsteps.

However it quickly became clear that more than one person was moving down the hallway outside and Dorea slid off the bed and pulled the invisibility cloak over herself even as George lay back on the cushions and pretended to be asleep.

The doors to the hospital wing opened to reveal Professor Dumbledore backing into the room, holding one end of what looked like a statue. Professor McGonagall followed after him moments later holding the feet. The Transfiguration Professor was fully dressed, indicating she'd been patrolling the castle, but the headmaster was wearing a dressing gown and nightcap. They placed the statue on a bed; it was about as tall as McGonagall and was wearing red pyjamas.

"Get Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore whispered and McGonagall swept past the end of the bed George was in towards the Matron's office and quarters, walking within a foot of where Dorea was huddled on the cold floor. Carefully rising to her knees and doing her best to make as little noise as possible, Dorea peered over the bed to get a better look at the statue Dumbledore was standing over. At that moment moonlight streamed in through the tall windows and Dorea had to employ all of her mental discipline not to gasp.

Lying on the bed, eyes wide and vacant with one hand held up as if leaning on a wall and peering around a corner, was Fred Weasley. At that moment McGonagall swept back into the room, Madam Pomfrey on her heels. Dorea took advantage of the brief increase in ambient noise to shift over so she was kneeling right beside George's pillow and clamped one hand down over his mouth, making sure the angle was about right for her to be hiding under the bed rather than beside him and invisible. The way Papa had told it Dumbledore hadn't known Uncle James had an invisibility cloak until after they graduated, but now he was aware of the possibility of invisible students at large he had likely taken precautions.

"What happened?" Madame Pomfrey asked as George's eyes opened wide.

"Another attack; Minerva found him near the mirror at the corner of the main fourth floor corridor and the hospital tower corridor," Dumbledore said gravely. "He had a case of butterbeer with him; we believe he was coming to the hospital wing to visit his twin."

George's eyes bulged and his face paled horribly, his entire body stiffening as a horrified moan tried to get past his tightly closed lips. Dorea kept her hand firmly in place, palm braced against the underside of George's chin so he couldn't move his jaw.

"Petrified?" Madame Pomfrey whispered.

"Yes," McGonagall said. "But I shudder to think… If Albus hadn't taken a detour on his way down to the kitchens for some hot chocolate, who knows what might have…"

George went limp in relief, his eyes briefly fluttering closed. Dorea took a deep, slow breath, trying to calm her frantically pounding heart. Not dead, thank God and Merlin, Fred wasn't dead.

"What does this _mean _Albus?" The Transfiguration professor asked urgently.

"It means," Dumbledore said slowly, "that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again."

Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. McGonagall looked shocked.

"But Albus… who?"

"The question is not _who_," Dumbledore said, staring with furrowed brow at Fred Weasley. "The question is, _how_?"

McGonagall didn't seem to understand but Dorea did, all too well. Riddle had clearly opened the Chamber before –probably while he was at Hogwarts as a student– and Dumbledore now realised Riddle was somehow in the school again. She would have to write to Aunt Lucretia about the last time the Chamber was opened and step up her investigation into who out of the younger lions was possessed. George would help her there; right now he'd probably hand over his soul if she told him it would revive his twin. Thinking of which, she'd have to ask Aunt Lucretia to see about getting hold of mature mandrakes as well; Professor Sprout's mandrakes that they were studying in Herbology wouldn't be ready until May at the earliest so they'd have to see about shipping them in from the southern hemisphere. Probably New Zealand. That way Fred could be revived around New Year, early February at the latest. That would help Fred, George and any future victims but it was both typical and suspicious that Dumbledore wasn't taking the same steps since he clearly knew what was going on from prior experience. The headmaster had no need to wander about a draughty castle at night in search of hot chocolate when a house-elf could be summoned to bring it to his bedside.

After the professors had left Dorea swiftly removed the cloak and sat back on top of George before he could get out of bed.

"Get off me! Fred–"

"Is fine," Dorea hissed urgently. "Petrified people can't be harmed by anything less than the Killing Curse; the magic keeping them petrified protects them. He's in stasis and won't remember anything between it happening and being revived. He won't age either, so you're going to have to get used to being the older twin from now on."

George made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a sob.

"Look, I'm down to four possible suspects on the whole 'Heir of Slytherin' thing," the twelve-year-old went on, "and I'm pretty sure it's one of the first-year Gryffindor girls who is possessed by whatever's doing it. If I can get into the tower I can identify specifically which girl it is–"

"Password's 'Bat-Bogey' right now," George interrupted hoarsely.

"–right, thank-you. Then I have to get them out of Hogwarts to Uncle Ignatius and Aunt Lucretia, as they know how to get rid of possessing spirits without killing the person afflicted," Dorea continued, "which unfortunately will have to wait until Christmas as I do not trust Dumbledore to call in an expert. He'd probably try to deal with himself, like he is doing now when he _really_ should have got a Curse-Breaker in right after Halloween. In fact, he should have got somebody in way back when people started muttering about the Defence position being cursed. He's a Transfiguration Master and a Duellist but he seems to think that being Albus Dumbledore makes him an expert in everything."

"Great-Uncle Iggy can do that?" George's eyes brightened briefly. "Cool." He'd not seemed to notice her brief rant at Dumbledore but Dorea suspected he'd heard it and would be remembering it. George could hold grudges just as well as his twin, he was just less obviously vicious about it. Both twins had rather a lot of their grandmother Cedrella in them.

"I'll see about getting some Mandrakes shipped over from New Zealand as well so you don't have to wait until June for Fred to be back to his normal self," Dorea promised. "In the meantime, are you going to be okay in Gryffindor without him?"

George swallowed hard, tears welling up. "Dorea…"

"It's okay if you're not," Dorea said quietly. "I can come up with something to keep you in school and away from your house-mates until Fred's up and about again. I can't imagine how you're feeling right now but I guess a change would help you not to think about it too much."

George stared at her, tears glittering on his eyelashes. "How?"

"I can hide you in Slytherin; I've got a _lot_ of pull as Heiress Black and an idea of how to make sure you get politely overlooked," Dorea said, mind whirring through her hastily-cobbled-together plan. "You'd take lessons mostly with the fourth-year snakes and ravens, all of whom know better than to poke their noses into personal matters, and sleep in the Slytherin dorms, but you'll have to not take advantage of it to pull pranks. The common rooms and dorms are a safe place, a retreat, and I'll not be party to ruining that."

"Deal," George promised quietly. "I… I really don't feel up to pranking anyone right now."

"I'll come get you in the morning; _don't_ leave before I get there," Dorea said urgently, "and be prepared to go along with my story. With Slytherins image is half the battle so as long as I can make this _look_ right they'll overlook the reality in favour of the polite fiction." She huffed angrily. "Not even McGonagall knew which one of you had been Petrified! I'm not leaving you in such slipshod care when you're messed up like this!"

George shuddered, chuckling even as tears slipped down his cheeks. "Dearest, most wonderful and warlike Dorea, please never change. I… I don't know what to do. Fred's _always_ been there and now…" he trailed off with a sob. Dorea leaned forward so she could hug him, ignoring the wet patch he left on her shoulder. He really had to be hurting to fall apart like this in front of her.

"Don't worry: I'll look after you. You're my favourite Weasley but don't tell Fred, Bill, Charlie or your Granddad I said that, okay? If you want to talk about it you can write to Uncle Ignatius: I know he and Aunt Lucretia have had all kinds of scary near-misses over the years and he'd love to have somebody to write to. Most people he knows are dead or off being Curse-Breakers half a continent away."

"See you tomorrow then," George whispered, reluctantly letting go of her. Dorea hesitated before reaching inside her jumper to retrieve Fizz.

"Fizz will keep you company until I get back," she said, knowing that her pet understood English perfectly well by now. The snake slid out of her hands and down onto the blanket, making his way up to the pillow and curling up next to George's neck. "Don't worry: boomslang's are pretty shy and retiring and he won't even dry-bite you unless you hurt him first." Unspoken was that having Fizz hanging over his person would keep just about everyone in the building at arm's length; the boomslang was well over five feet long now and still growing.

George's smile was wan and barely there, but it was a smile. Dorea smiled worriedly back then slipped out of the Hospital Wing, pulling her cloak back on once she was past the doors. George in his distress hadn't even noticed her vanishing and reappearing under the Potter heirloom, but that was no reason to be careless.

She would check the Gryffindor girls tomorrow night or the night after, once she had George properly sorted out. He needed to be amongst people who would see him for himself and not as one-half of Fred-and-George, the Weasley Twins. Managing _that_ would take finesse, but she had a plan.


	26. Chapter 26

**Of coping strategies and giant spiders**

Despite her late-night excursion Dorea was up bright and early, even though it was Sunday and the only day of the week she could get away with a lie-in. She then invaded the fifth-year girls' dorm to talk to Dawn and Deborah about her plan, hurried up to the Owlery to send off a letter to Aunt Lucretia then cornered Rence and Ade Pucey as they emerged from the boys' dorms to tell them her plan. Dorea then spoke to Jennet Mulciber and Maximus Deverill, the seventh-year prefects, to get her plan their seal of approval. Neither exactly _liked_ her idea, but that she'd got the Twin in question to swear off pranks for the duration got their grudging agreement. Her list ticked off, Dorea strong-armed Rence into lending her some clothes –he and George were the same height and had similar enough builds– then dashed off to the Hospital Wing while most of her House were at breakfast.

Dorea entered just in time to hear Madam Pomfrey tell George –whom she called 'Mr Weasley'– that he could leave once he'd finished eating. She glanced over at Fred's bed, but it now had white curtains around it so nobody could see anything.

"Miss Black? What are you doing here?" Dorea looked back at the matron and blinked innocently.

"I brought Weasley a change of clothes since none of his dorm-mates seem to have bothered," she said airily, tossing the uniform and associated accessories onto the foot of the bed. Madam Pomfrey didn't notice that the clothing was edged with Slytherin colours and of better quality than George usually wore, but George did and glanced up at her curiously from the food he'd been picking at. Dorea let her eyes drop meaningfully to the garments, then up to meet his eyes before turning around and going outside to wait while he finished.

Ten minutes later George emerged, looking much smarter, neater and more subdued than usual with Fizz draped around his neck in plain sight instead of a tie. Fizz didn't seem to mind being neckwear for the tall Weasley, which was good because he was a vital part of her cunning plan. "So, plan?" he asked quietly.

"You are now Gerard Fornax Prewett; my cousin Jerry," Dorea said quietly as she led the way down a hidden passage that led to the kitchens; the Great Hall would be a bad idea right now. "I've already talked to Higgs and Pucey, who have promised to run interference for you. The seventh-year prefects have agreed to turn a blind eye and we're going to have to dye your hair so as not to cause upsets and help people accept the fiction. My cousins are sorting that out for me, so we'll deal with it after breakfast."

"Dye my hair?" George repeated bemusedly as they descended a narrow staircase that ended at the basement level.

"It's going to be light brown; that way you'll look less like yourself and people will find it easier to buy the story," Dorea said patiently. "Well, find it easier not to think about it too hard anyway. I've got to tell Professor Snape yet, but I've got the prefects in on it so I don't think he'll kick up a fuss."

"You didn't ask him first?" George asked incredulously as they reached the painting that hid the door into the kitchens.

"It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," Dorea said pragmatically as George tickled the pear in the picture until it giggled itself into a doorknob. "If I present it right he'll just ignore you until this is over."

Then George opened the door and the house-elves rushed to accommodate them, forcing the conversation to be set aside in favour of food. Dorea watched George like a hawk and noticed that he didn't eat much, possibly because Pomfrey had already fed him but more likely because he didn't have much appetite. Dorea could understand that: she hadn't really wanted to eat while Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was bedridden and unconscious because the very idea of food had made her feel sick. It was probably much worse for George.

Breakfast dealt with, Dorea led the way down to the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. However once they'd got there she didn't say the password: now it was Fizz's turn to do his part. The snake caught his cue and lifted his head from inside George's collar so he could hiss at the hidden door:

"_Make way for a true heir_."

The blank section of wall slid open to reveal the common room and Dorea caught George's hand so as to lead him over to where the prefects and about half the other fourth-years were waiting. This would be a test of her skills; one she would be looking forward to if so much hadn't been riding on it.

George followed without complaint, sat next to her on the couch and didn't even twitch as Mulciber and Deverill cast numerous Privacy Charms around them.

"Right Black, convince us," Ingrid Rosier said grimly, folding her arms under her ample chest. Rosier was one of the ones who really loathed the Weasleys on principle. Dorea started off by firing a quick Colour-Changing Charm at George, turning his hair mouse-brown. This would help Rosier and the others change their minds, since they would no longer look at George and think 'Weasley Twin' and of all the associated and sometimes well-justified dislike some had for the twins and the Weasley Family in general.

"This is my cousin Gerard Prewett, my Aunt Lucretia's son. Jerry, from the left these are fourth-years Pucey, Rosier, Richards, Howard, Higgs and Witt, fifth-year prefects Wilkes and Montague, sixth-year prefects Farley and Orpington and seventh-year prefects Mulciber and Deverill. Higgs has agreed to make sure you get to class, get the work done and don't accidentally fall down the stairs and die." She paused for effect, making sure the other students got her point. "Jerry's promised not to play any pranks at all in-house and I'm leaving Fizz with him so he can get into the common room without needing to know the password. He needs to be kept as far away from Gryffindors as possible unless he actually tells you he wants to talk to one of them and distracted from moping too much since he's never been alone before."

"Which one is he?" Rosier asked bluntly.

Dorea raised an eyebrow. "Does it really matter if you can't tell for yourself?"

"Do _you_ know which one he is?" Gemma Farley asked perceptively.

"Yes, I do," Dorea said firmly.

"And you're taking responsibility for his behaviour as Heiress Black and his cousin?" Denzel Orpington pressed.

"Yes, I am," Dorea promised.

"And you're fine with this, 'Prewett'," Orpington said sceptically.

George finally looked up from where he'd been staring at his hands. "I'll behave for Dorea," he said quietly.

"Why?" Rosier demanded. George looked over at her, eyes flat and empty.

"Because I know that if I don't she'll kill me and nobody will ever be able to prove she did it, let alone find my mutilated body." It might have been a joke, but if it was then George's humour had taken an abrupt turn for the deadpan and sarcastic.

There was a collective blink, then a chuckle from Deverill. "Sounds like W- Prewett's got you pegged, Black. Any more objections?"

There was a universal shaking of heads and the meeting broke up, Jennet Mulciber taking down the Privacy Charms so George could be hustled off to the girls' dormitories by Dawn and Deborah to have his hair dyed the Muggle way. Dorea was then cornered by her own friends, who wanted to know what on earth was going on. Dorea gave them the condensed version without revealing which twin had ended up hiding in the snake pit; if people couldn't work it out for themselves they didn't deserve to know. Dee seemed to accept the whole strange situation without any problem, while Zee was immensely amused for some reason Dorea couldn't quite get her head around and Trey looked like she'd just found out the sky was actually pink and clouds were made of marshmallow.

When George finally emerged with his newly dyed mousy hair even Dorea had to admit that the lack of red hair made it very hard to peg him as a Weasley: he had much the same pale and well-bred look as most of the other Slytherins despite the freckles and she could have quite easily walked past him in the corridors without recognising him. That he was being quiet and not grinning madly made it even harder to connect him to George Weasley, flamboyant prankster and Gryffindor. Dorea abruptly realised that her hare-brained plan was really going to work. She also realised that she had to go and visit Professor Snape in his office and tell him about this new state of affairs before he found out for himself over lunch.

* * *

Visiting Snape took less time than she'd expected: while he did indeed stare at her as though she'd lost her mind when she told him what she'd done, when she explained her method and reasoning he relented enough to actually go along with it. He even told her he would stall Professor McGonagall for George; it seemed her impassioned objection to leaving _anyone_ in the care of someone who couldn't get your name right half the time had struck a chord in her Head of House. 'Prewett' would be integrated into Potions' class as though he'd always worn green and silver and any Gryffindor invasion attempts would be ruthlessly dealt with. Dorea did tell Professor Snape which twin was hiding in his care, but only because he was able to tell her how the two boys differed in skill and attitude; specifically that Fred was considerably better than his brother at Potions as well as the one who came up with the nastier prank ideas.

None of Gryffindor actually noticed that one of their number had defected to the Snake Pit for the better part of a week, partly because of the sheer number and level of ridiculous of the rumours flying around. The first rumour, started on Sunday afternoon, was that one of the Weasley Twins had been petrified. This brought with it all manner of concern from _all_ the students, as despite being considered 'blood traitors' by the more uptight purebloods the Weasleys had no Muggle heritage in their family tree for at least six generations. Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley née Prewett both had pureblood parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents, all of well-established families. If the enemies of the so-called 'Heir of Slytherin' included Weasleys, their agenda was not as clear as had been initially believed. Muggeborns had yet to be targeted at all and this really drove up the fearful atmosphere.

Rather ironically, Dorea's improvised fabrication to get Draco to see sense had made the rounds in Slytherin and was being taken as fact. Every last snake was firmly of the opinion that they were dealing with an impostor and found the whole business positively infuriating, which was made worse by the year's Defence teacher being utterly incompetent. The fifth-years and seventh-years in particular had taken to either staring blankly at Lockhart during lessons or ignoring him entirely in favour of independent study, depending on their temperament. Dorea suspected George would be quietly consulted by various vengeance-seekers during his sojourn in the dungeons, which would hopefully help him get his mind of his situation and Lockhart out of the castle as soon as possible, so their Defence lessons could be spent more productively. According to Papa the fraud investigation was moving forward nicely, but they wouldn't be ready to inform the newspapers until January at the earliest.

The next rumour, which blew up and then over during Monday, was that _both_ Weasley Twins had been Petrified, hence why neither twin had been sighted since Saturday night. However by Tuesday morning the lions had noticed that only one bed in the Hospital Wing had been cordoned off and that was when things started to go a bit strange. Initially most of the lions, ravens and badgers believed that the twin that had not been Petrified –which one it was nobody was certain– had gone home, but the remaining Weasleys soon exploded that theory. Then the matter went in two directions at once: those lions who'd been more familiar with the twins started looking for their house-mate around the castle, believing him to be in hiding, while others started to gossip about how maybe there'd only ever been one Weasley 'twin' who had through accidental magic created a separate body for his alternate personality. There were other rumours as well, but that one rather stuck in Dorea's mind due to the sheer level of ridiculous.

Meanwhile George –answering to 'Jerry' or just 'Prewett'– quietly slunk from class to class in a knot of fourth-year Slytherins, Fizz, curled around his neck and looking, sounding and behaving nothing like his normal exuberant self. The fourth-year ravens had of course noticed that their class now included one more student but they did not pry and did not comment, keeping the matter to themselves. Ravens loved secrets, loved having information that others did not and were by far the most divided house despite how careless the lions were proving to be of their own. The fourth-year Hufflepuffs were also likely to have noticed the extra person in their Astronomy lessons, but Hufflepuffs were all about solidarity and protecting their friends so kept the secret to protect the visibly unhappy incognito Weasley who was clearly being very well cared for by the house of snakes. The Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, but fourth-year Potions was on Tuesday and Professor Snape had been in fine form, to the point that none of George's fellow lions had noticed that there were ten Slytherins in the room instead of the usual nine.

Dorea's year numbered only ten per house, but the Weasley Twins' year was even smaller: nine Slytherins, eight Ravenclaws, nine Hufflepuffs and ten Gryffindors, with the Twins being the reason it wasn't just nine per house. This meant that usually one Slytherin would have to brew alone, but the lions had been too distracted to notice that Pucey was sitting with Witt rather than Higgs or that Rence's current partner looked a lot like the missing Weasley. Rence had regaled the story to her with much humour, but she'd seen the fury in his eyes at their negligence. The fourth-years had closed ranks around George after that and Dorea suspected it would be at least another two weeks before the Gryffindors began to get an inkling as to where their house-mate had vanished to. They'd likely overlook him on the coming Tuesday out of prejudice unless Professor Snape called on him to answer a question.

Wednesday night was when Dorea only pretended to go to bed at curfew and instead donned her invisibility cloak and trekked up to the seventh floor, where she camped out in a classroom not far from the portrait of the portly lady in pink and read several chapters of _General Winter_ waiting for everyone to go to bed. Wednesday was when the first-year Gryffindors had Astronomy, so they'd be traipsing back and forth at eleven forty-five and one-thirty respectively to fall into bed and sleep like the dead, enabling Dorea to not need to wait long for them to be asleep. She'd be a wreck tomorrow but it would be worth it to narrow her suspect pool down to one. After hearing the eleven-year-olds clamber down into the corridor and patter off down the hall Dorea removed her tie, clutched her book so it covered the crest on her robes and hid the invisibility cloak in her shoulder bag, then left the classroom and approached the portrait. Being as tall as she was meant she could pass for being two or even three years older in the flickering half-light of the torches.

The password was still 'Bat-Bogey' so Dorea got in without a problem, settling herself behind one of the couches nearest the fire and pulling the cloak over her to prevent herself from being discovered by an over-zealous prefect. She then went back to reading by the light of the fire, occasionally twirling her holly wand to the movements described in her book.

It barely seemed to take any time at all for the firsties to return; Dorea suspicions were confirmed when her forehead stung as they passed her on their way up to their dormitories. She got to her feet as they trailed past, following on the heels of Eloise Midgen at the end of the line of girls and easily settling herself on the windowsill of their dormitory, still comfortably invisible, and waited for them to settle down. It felt like ages, but that was probably tension and the itching of her Ward making the minutes drag. Once all the breathing had deepened and evened out Dorea hopped back down to ground level and began her circuit of the room.

She really shouldn't have been surprised to find that Ginny Weasley was the guilty party; when had life ever made things easy for her? The source of the problem was the diary tucked under her pillow and much as Dorea would have liked to call up her Ward and incinerate it then and there she didn't. She didn't know what would happen if she tried that and it might even kill the poor girl. She couldn't do that to George, not now. So she retreated back down the stairs and out of the Gryffindor Tower, down to her own dormitory and her bed. Tomorrow she'd have a letter to write.

* * *

The letter Dorea got back from her aunt and uncle told her to sit tight until the lists for signing up to stay in school at Christmas came out, then to infiltrate Gryffindor Tower again and make sure Miss Weasley was _not_ on the list. Following that Dorea was to be patient until the last day of the winter term, abduct Ginny on the way to the train and bring her home in one of her trunk's compartments, preferably either stunned or drugged. Dorea resolved to recruit the assistance of Rence, George, Dee and Zee a bit closer the time then firmly set the matter aside since obsessing wouldn't make the time go faster.

So it was that, in the first week of December, Dorea decided to go looking for the Thestrals that had pulled the carriages at the beginning of term to get her mind off things she couldn't do anything about just yet. By this point the 'missing twin' issue had been mostly forgotten, being old news, despite the forth-year lions having finally noticed that their missing house-mate was going by 'Jerry Prewett' and was hiding behind the snakes. There would have been more tension over that if it hadn't been for Rosier noticing that the Gryffindors didn't know which twin they were seeing either and ruthlessly turning this fact to her house's advantage. Thus far the lions were all too ashamed of their inability to tell one twin from the other to pry into why one of their number had taken up with their greatest rivals.

Dorea told her friends of her intention to find the Thestrals over breakfast on the Saturday, prompting Trey and Zee to bow out and Theo Nott to invite himself along. Dee had been sticking close since coming out of her shell again but Blaise wanted to get some extra practice in before his combat lesson right before lunch, so at half-past nine Dorea, Theo and Daphne were heading out towards Hagrid's hut, wrapped up in their warmest clothing and with a brown paper package of raw steak begged from the kitchens tucked under Theo's arm. Theo was unusually voluble on the subject of Thestrals; Dorea learned he'd been able to see them since his Uncle died last Christmas and that he rather liked how they looked. His exact words were, 'like power and sorrow made flesh,' which was incredibly poetic and hinted at him having depths he'd taken pains to hide from everyone. Probably one of the reasons he wasn't the most outgoing or forthcoming of her year-mates.

Hagrid was someone Dora had heard about but hadn't really interacted with yet, but despite being obviously wary of Slytherins he soon warmed up to the subject matter. It turned out he'd been the one to domesticate the Thestrals and he knew a great deal about them, including where they could find the herd at the moment. However he was currently busy trying to discover what was killing his chickens, so he couldn't accompany them. Dorea suspected the chicken-killer to be a possessed Ginny Weasley, but did not say so; instead she led the way into the Forbidden Forest behind Hagrid's hut, unwrapping the bloody steaks as she did so.

Less than ten minutes later there were five skeletal black winged horses surrounding them, eagerly tearing off pieces of the steaks and nibbling at Theo's slightly bloodstained sleeves. Dee seemed fascinated, cautiously stroking sleek, scaled skin she could not see as Dorea and Theo examined the Creatures as closely as they dared, Dorea with pencil and paper out so she could sketch them. They really were stunningly beautiful in a slightly macabre way, Dorea mused; she really should paint one as her end-of-year Art project this year. A Thestral in a wintry landscape under skeletal trees would look as stunning in paint as it did in real life.

However they eventually ran out of steak and the Thestrals lost interest in being petted, wandering off into the depths of the forest. Dee then noticed that they'd been out for nearly two hours and really needed to get back to the castle, so Dorea set about retracing their steps through the frosty underbrush. They were still a good way from the edge of the trees when Dorea heard a rustling and a clicking from above them and off to one side. Pausing, she palmed her elm wand –just in case she needed to cast something really nasty– caught her friends' eyes and glanced upwards.

Giant spiders. Four of them, the smallest about the size of a pig and the largest as tall as a horse. Dorea had only ever read about Acromantula –they were native to Borneo– but she could tell that was what they were. She had no idea what they were doing in central Scotland and did not care so long as they left her and her friends alone. Gripping Dee's sleeve in one hand she hurried onwards, taking care not to lose the path in her haste. Theo stuck close to her left side, his wand held in a white-knuckled grip and his face pale. Dee looked much the same, but there was a languidness to her movements that indicated she was thinking very hard and preparing herself for a fight. The spiders followed them, two more dog-sized spiders joining their little group as they scuttled through the branches. Dorea cleared her throat.

"Come any closer and I'll curse you," she said threateningly, calling up the mindset Grandfather has described as useful when wordlessly casting violent magic. The Blasting Curse was not something she'd had a lot of practice with but she was pretty sure she could vaporise at least one spider with it.

"Little wizards…" the largest spider hissed, its pincers clicking angrily, but it did not advance further as the second-years fled the area as quickly as they could without sacrificing security for speed. When they could at last see the tree line they finally broke into a run, putting a good distance between themselves and the forest before coming to a halt.

"Why the _hell_ are there Acromantula within a mile of Hogwarts?" Theo demanded, his voice rather high.

"How do you kill Acromantula?" Dee asked steadily, her face white and her hands trembling as she straightened her scarf.

"I was going to use the Blasting Curse," Dorea admitted, "but the Knockback Jinx would probably have worked to delay them."

"You know the Blasting Curse?" Theo asked. "Sorry, stupid question; teach me?"

"If you would, Rhea," Dee agreed. "I suddenly feel much less safe."

"Okay; how about tomorrow afternoon? I'll ask the house-elves for some fruit for us to practice on," Dorea offered. She could understand their point of view: giant, man-eating spiders living side-by-side with a school? She was _so_ going to write home about this! Acromantula were one of the reasons that the ban on experimental breeding had been created in the first place and why the penalties were so severe: the species was obviously wizard-bred, being capable of speech and easily trained while young despite their fondness for eating people once fully grown. That they were doing perfectly well in Scotland said they'd been designed much better than had previously been documented, since they'd only ever been sighted in South-East Asia and tropical parts of Africa before now. Dorea was grudgingly impressed, if no less utterly horrified.

"Thank-you Rhea," Theo said sincerely. "I don't mind owing you over this; I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"I'll try and come up with something before Christmas," Dorea told him. Letting debts sit around and fester was just plain rude.


	27. Chapter 27

Beta'd by the stupendous Insane Scriptist.

As I mentioned last week, there will be no more Sunday updates. Hence this chapter not being published yesterday.

* * *

**Of tension and identity **

The sign-up sheet for staying at Hogwarts over Christmas appeared in the Slytherin Common Room on the tenth of December, prompting Dorea to go on another late-night foray into Gryffindor territory to erase Ginny Weasley's name from said list before McGonagall took it away again. For some reason the lions didn't change their passwords more than one or twice a term, so her knowledge was still valid. Arthur and Molly Weasley were in Egypt visiting their eldest son, which Dorea would have been more disgusted about had they actually _known_ one of their sons was lying Petrified in the Hospital Wing. Somehow it seemed that news had failed to get through; how shocking. Sadly Dorea was not as surprised by this as she might have been: had Mrs Weasley known of her son's plight there would have been Howlers galore aimed at the Headmaster and all of her other children would have been removed from Hogwarts at once. For all she was loud, ill-mannered and controlling, Molly Weasley loved her children dearly. Dorea hadn't sent a letter herself because she needed Ginny where she could see her, so as to make the abduction and exorcism easier. She already had a plan: her cousin Trish was even now preparing to brew the Draught of Living Death and Aunt Lucretia had ordered Wiggenweld Potion from a discreet brewer.

However the abduction could not take place for another two weeks, so Dorea had to settle for securing her friends' assistance and promising to tell George exactly what was going on when they were about to get on the train. Telling him sooner would send him haring off after his sister, as he _was_ a lion for all he was acting like a snake right now.

The sign-up sheet for an all-years Duelling Club in the Entrance Hall the following week looked pretty interesting, for all that it was suspiciously silent on who would be teaching. Draco had already signed up, as had just about everybody else in Slytherin –with Lockhart being incompetent any spell practice was a good idea– so Dorea added her name to the list. George hadn't and neither had Rence or Ric Avery, leading Dorea to suspect that the two Slytherin boys had something else in mind already to distract the depressed lion in their midst. Rence was no swordsman but he was positively lethal with a kite shield in one hand and his cypress wand in the other.

Wizarding armed combat different from Muggle combat in that a witch or wizard _always_ held their wand in their dominant hand and their weapon in the other, leading it to look to the uninformed like most wizards were left-handed. This was incidentally where a lot of Muggle prejudice against lefties came from; a wizard wielding wand and blade could do a lot of damage in unexpected ways. Dorea was actually left-handed so she held her sword in her right hand, though she could wield it with her left in a pinch. Getting used to using her off-hand was why it had taken her so long to get past the basics but she was now improving very quickly. Blaise was improving much faster than she with a blade, being practically ambidextrous already and having a few years practice under his belt from before starting Hogwarts. He still grumbled about early mornings and exercise though.

Swords and shields were not the only weapons taught under the supervision of the Bloody Baron: axes, maces, knives and whips were also popular, with knives being the most popular as they were easily concealed inside clothing. Knife-fighting lessons were actually held on an unofficial basis in the girls dormitories, with the older girls teaching those of their younger house-mates they actually liked and approved of. Dorea and Dee were getting the basics from Deborah, who was better at it than Dawn despite coming across as a bit distracted most of the time. That Deborah regularly carried around a misericorde and none of the teachers had noticed yet was actually rather scary: it was a twelve-inch blade designed for skewering people, for Merlin's sake! How could people not notice it was hiding up her sleeve? A Notice-Me-Not didn't let you do that!

* * *

When eight o'clock came around and Dorea wandered into the Great Hall with her friends she was initially pleased to see Professor Snape standing off to one side; her Head of House was an excellent duellist. Then Lockhart flounced into view and she groaned. Loudly.

"I should have guessed; why did I agree to this?" she complained, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. Zee patted her shoulder reassuringly while Dee placed a gently hand on her arm; on Dee's other side Trey looked slightly flustered.

"Let's go stand nearer Professor Snape," Daphne said calmly, "at least then we might learn something."

Dorea agreed with such an eminently sensible idea and steered them through the crowd as Lockhart made a fool of himself on stage until starting a formal duel with the Potions Master.

"He's not got the brains of a rabbit," Zee said, mildly awed as he watched the idiot rile up their Head of House. "How is he still alive?"

As Snape had just blasted Lockhart across the room with the Disarming Charm, Dorea really had to ask herself that too. Though since this led to an opportunity to duel amongst themselves she didn't really mind, even though she found herself facing off against Hermione while off to one side Ron Weasley was paired with Draco.

Looking into her sort-of-protégée's hazel eyes, Dorea smirked. "I won't be holding back, 'Mione," she said sweetly, "so do keep your head."

Hermione's answering smile was a fierce bearing of teeth that made the Black Heiress so proud of the other girl's progress. She ignored Lockhart telling them to disarm and disarm only; Professor Snape was close enough to counter any unfortunate mishaps and Hermione had only duelled a few times before now, so she needed the practice.

Dorea dodged the Disarming Charm, dancing forward to cast the Tickling Hex then back again as Hermione cast the Knockback Jinx, ducking under the blast and casting the Full Body Bind. Laughing too hard to dodge, Hermione went as stiff as a board and toppled over. Then Professor Snape cancelled everyone's spells and Dorea actually bothered to look around rather than just keep her awareness open in case of badly-aimed spells.

The Great Hall was a mess: students collapsed on the floor, smoke and dust hanging in the air, a few older teens busily reversing hexes and curses off to one side and Professor Snape keeping what looked like most of the school in line with sheer force of personality. Dorea was moderately awed: she wanted to be that authoritative when she grew up!

Lockhart then decided that Shielding Spells were the order of the day and Snape volunteered Weasley and Draco to the stage. Dorea was pretty sure this was all going to go horribly wrong: Professor Snape despised the youngest male Weasley because he was a lazy, loud-mouthed slob who never paid enough attention in class. Draco on the other hand was cheerfully and enthusiastically continuing his father Lucius's feud against Arthur Weasley, though her cousin was at least smart enough not to pick a fight with the twins or Ginny.

Dorea moved around as everyone gathered closer to the stage, standing with the Hufflepuffs and greeting Hannah, Justin, Ernie and Susan as Snape whispered something in Draco's ear and Lockhart dropped his wand while attempting to show Ron Weasley a spell. Then Lockhart stepped out of the way and called out,

"One–two–three–go!"

"Serpensosia!" Draco bellowed. Dorea stiffened as a huge black snake, a mamba, exploded from the end of his wand and landed heavily less than eight feet from Ron, raising its head to strike. There were screams as the people nearest the stage retreated, leaving Dorea on the new front line with the rest of her group.

"Don't move Weasley," Professor Snape said lazily, clearly enjoying the way Ron had gone grey with terror, "I'll get rid of it–"

"Allow me!" Lockhart said grandly, pointing his wand at the mamba. Dorea had a sudden feeling of profound foreboding.

"Retreat!" she hissed, shoving Susan and Dee behind her as there was a loud bang and the snake flew up high into the air, landing with a hard smack on the stone floor barely two feet from Dorea's feet. Clearly enraged and hissing furiously it slithered towards Justin Finch-Fletchley, mouth open and fangs dripping.

Dorea ignored the panic all around her and started to hum. According to _Children of the Naga,_ music was a very good medium for Parselmagic, far better than a mere wand. Dance and movement was even better, but music while less precise had a more potent effect. Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_ was perhaps not the most suitable tune for soothing furious reptiles but it had been what came to mind.

The mamba paused, turning away from the terrified badger to gaze at her. Dorea hummed on, swaying as she let the tune carry her off but taking care to keep in mind that there were no threats here and that Dorea would protect the snake if it let her. There was a brief, barely-audible disgruntled hiss and the mamba lowered its head and slithered over to her ankle, winding itself up swiftly her leg and around her waist under her robes. Dorea kept up the humming and ignored the way Justin and the other badgers were staring at her in undisguised awe, Draco's sudden nervousness and Professor Snape's intensely calculating expression; she had an eight-foot snake wrapped around her middle and it hadn't yet made up its mind to like her. Mambas were feared as one of Africa's most dangerous and venomous snakes; Dorea had no idea where Draco had conjured this one up from but it was most definitely a _real_ snake and not just a magical construct. Not conjured, she corrected herself, since those weren't properly real and eventually faded, but summoned in an instantaneous fashion that bypassed the school Wards.

"_I will stay with you, little mistress,_" came a muffled hiss from under her robes, "_so long as you make sure there are plenty of rats to eat._"

Dorea hummed a little improvised riff, thinking clearly that she agreed to those terms, then stopped. The Hall was now dead silent.

"Draco," she said clearly, "if you ever use that spell again I will tell your father what _really_ happened that time with the Knarls when we were six."

Draco went white and swallowed hard. Dorea smiled, sweet as cyanide.

"However I really must thank you for my gorgeous new pet; I've always wanted a black mamba but Father said they were far too dangerous."

Professor Snape's lips twitched as Lockhart fainted dead away and Ron Weasley whimpered, the boy's skin going an unhealthy shade of grey under his freckles.

* * *

Fizz was not at all happy to have his territory encroached on by a snooty female mamba, for all that said mamba made it quite clear she would have been much happier not belonging to Dorea at all. Dorea had decided to call her Bise, meaning 'kiss', and spent a full hour after breakfast the next morning trying to persuade Professor Sprout to let Bise hunt rats in the greenhouses. Possibly due to Dorea having recently rescued one of her badgers from almost certain death, Sprout eventually agreed on the condition that a Tracking Charm and a Proximity Charm be placed on the mamba and that she keep her distance from the students. Bise agreed to it all with ill-grace, vanishing into the warm depths of Greenhouse Four without a backward glance as soon as the spells had been cast.

Shaking her head, Professor Sprout hurried off to prepare for her lesson. Dorea in turn headed off to her own class, flinching slightly as the blizzard that had blown up during the night rattled the windows and forced icy breezes through the cracks. She was late for History but didn't really care, as it wasn't like Binns would notice and after Christmas she would hopefully never have to sit through another lesson of being droned at by a ghost.

In fact, why not skip the lesson entirely? Buoyed up by this cheerfully rebellious thought, Dorea turned on her heel and set off back they way she'd come, past the Advanced Arithmancy classroom and towards the Transfiguration classroom she'd passed on her way up from the Greenhouses.

"_So hungry… for so long…_"

Dorea reacted to the deep, resonant hisses before they really registered, throwing herself sideways past a suit of armour and into the hidden alcove behind it, eyes tightly shut.

"_Be patient, soon you will be able to feed,_" came a voice that most certainly did not belong to Ginny Weasley. Dorea flicked her elm wand to cast an Obscuring Spell, one that would hide her body heat, which snakes could see and quite a few Revealing Charms relied upon. The fluid sound of scales on stone echoed around her, taking up the entire corridor as the murmuring of the portraits was silenced and the sound from the classrooms seemed muted. The slithering sound seemed to go on forever, a ceaseless counterpoint to the pounding of her heart.

Dorea faintly heard vaguely familiar voices abruptly cut off away in the direction the snake was headed and desperately prayed that nobody had died. Not now, when she was nearly at the point of getting Ginny to professional, competent help and she had managed to keep her House from being demonised over the mess!

Cautiously emerging from her hidey-hole, Dorea stared down the first-floor corridor at the back end of a massive green-scaled body filling the entire hall. Fishing her Invisibility Cloak out of her bag, she threw it over herself and followed, Silencing her feet as an additional precaution.

Half-way down the corridor she nearly tripped over the Petrified body of Justin Finch-Fletchley –it seemed he was doomed to snake-related injury despite her rescue yesterday– and Sir Nicholas who was looking very odd indeed. She ignored them however: she needed to know where the entrance to the Chamber was and this was her best bet. Carefully edging around a corner she paused and stared, caught between realisation and irritation.

It would be in _that_ bathroom, wouldn't it?

* * *

Carefully approaching Moaning Myrtle and asking about how she died proved a most successful strategy, though Dorea really had to wonder why nobody else had ever tried that before. She was right _there_, for goodness sake! Admittedly Myrtle was a miserable teenage embodiment of everything that was wrong with the house of ravens, but still!

Having located the Chamber of Secrets and determined how to go about entering it, Dorea set about preparing for her planned abduction of the littlest Weasley. Having prepped her accomplices, got her trunk moved up to the second floor and finally informed George of _who_ exactly was responsible for the Petrifications, Dorea studied the map the irate older Weasley had handed over to her so as to locate her prey. She intended to tell Ginny that George wanted to talk to her –which was true enough– then lead her down to where Zee, Dee, Theo, Rence and George were waiting with the trunk.

Ginny Weasley did not look very well at all. The wan pallor and slight twitchiness were the most visible signs of her condition, but she had also lost weight over the past few months. Possession, particularly unwilling possession, was not at all healthy for the host.

"Weasley?" Dorea said quietly, so as not to catch the attention of her target's house-mates who were chatting mere feet away. "George wants a word."

Ginny's eyes widened and brightened in evident relief; she instantly turned and followed Dorea along a crossing passage and down a staircase, hopping easily over the trick step.

"Is he alright?" the young redhead asked breathlessly. "Where has he been?"

"He's been pretty out of it since Fred got Petrified," Dorea said gently, noticing the younger girl's nervous flinch at the word 'Petrified', "so I've been keeping him hidden and making sure he eats. He's very subdued and I think being around his friends wouldn't help much, as he'd keep looking for Fred when he isn't there."

Ginny sagged, but kept up as Dorea led her along the Eastern Corridor on the second floor, which was entirely empty due to there being no lessons today since just about everyone was going home for Christmas. Draco wasn't, but that was because his parents were having a private Christmas in Greece.

"In there," Dorea said, indicating the partly-open door to the deserted classroom she'd chosen for the ambush, most of her attention on Ginny's schoolbag with the Diary inside it. Her forehead had been stinging all the way down the stairs and while she hoped that distance would enable them to restrain Ginny without Riddle emerging, she wasn't optimistic.

Ginny pushed the door open, saw George –his hair temporarily Charmed ginger again– and beamed happily just as Rence, Zee and Dee all fired spells at her. The petite redhead collapsed, her bag flying across the room and spilling its contents all over the floor. Theo hurried over with the vial of Draught of Living Death, eyes wide and rather awed as he joined Dorea in kneeling over the younger girl and pouring the potion down her throat. George and Rence then wrapped the eleven-year-old in a borrowed quilt, tucking her into the empty trunk compartment and closing the lid. Dorea then cautiously approached the spilled texts and stationary piled in the corner of the room, Dee beside her wearing Dragonhide gloves and the boys standing well back, wands at the ready.

The slim black Muggle diary seemed so very innocuous, but its proximity brought her Ward up to dance lightly across her skin. Dorea didn't touch it, instead pulling out of her own bag the heavily-warded case her aunt had sent her and held it open.

"Now Dee," she said hoarsely.

Dee scooped up the diary in gloved hands and quickly dropped it into the box, sighing in relief as Dorea snapped the lid closed and the Runes on it flared. Everyone sighed in relief, Dorea carefully replacing the box in her bag.

"Right; Rence, Jerry, you two carry the trunk down to the station while Zee, Dee and I get the rest of the bags from behind the statue of Caractacus the Snooty," Dorea said, feeling slightly dizzy as she came down from the adrenaline high. "Remember that Bise is sleeping in the other compartment and that she's the reason I'm even taking my trunk home mid-year in the first place."

The black mamba proved to be the perfect excuse, as this way Bise could be safely transported away from the school to roam free around the grounds of Black Manor without running the risk of biting anyone. There was no way anybody would try and keep her from doing so, no matter how suspicious Professor Snape for one most certainly was of her recent doings.

They boarded the train without a hitch and Dorea immediately sprawled out on a seat between George and Zee, her nose in _Creature Wars_ as she prepared for her OWLs. She would be sitting them the day after tomorrow so she fully intended to be ready for them, kidnapped Weasley in her trunk or not. Appearances had to be kept up, especially when engaged in less-than-legal activities for a good cause: you shouldn't let the dubious nature of your actions detract from your goal. Her Papa had explained all this to her when she was younger, though he had couched it in terms of pranks and how to achieve them.


	28. Chapter 28

Beta'd by the thought-provoking InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of rage and despondency **

After sitting her History and Astronomy OWLs –the latter in the late evening– and two days' rest, Dorea was finally told what her father and aunts had in mind for the Horcrux that had sunk its hooks into Ginevra Weasley. Needless to say, she didn't like it.

"But Great-Aunt Cassiopeia! It will kill you!"

Her great-aunt smiled fondly at her, skin wrinkling as hands that had not shaken before the past summer stroked her hair.

"Darling girl, you've been like a daughter to me all these years but I'm getting old. Even if I don't do this I won't last the year and I'd prefer to have some say in how I go rather than pass in my sleep while you're away at school. I have put my affairs in order so I can free you from this abomination and meet my father in the afterlife with my head held high." The elderly lady sighed, tapping Dorea on the nose. "I love you, silly goose, and I'll spare you the horror of dealing with such things for as long as I am able."

"But you'll be _dead_!"

Great-Aunt Cassiopeia hugged her. "But you will have a single Horcrux left to find and destroy, and this one is the first he made. Only from the first can the maker rebuild himself; the others are merely anchors. You said there was a basilisk in Hogwarts, did you not? Their venom will destroy a Horcrux, though it also destroys the object used as a Soul Jar. Weep not for me, my dear, for I'll be going to join my own dear sister, your namesake, and my reprehensible Jean-Pierre who will doubtless be waiting for me. I will also be able to hold my head high among our forebears, knowing I raised the next Lady Black to bring new glory to the Family."

Dorea wept into her Great-Aunt's shoulder, clinging tightly as she shook. Death was part of life; she _knew_ this. But that didn't make losing people any less painful, even when both you and they knew it was time to go.

"Hush now darling; I'm rather looking forward to tell your mother about all the things you got up to as a child and finding out which exactly of your less admirable traits came from that scapegrace Potter your father claims as a sibling," Great-Aunt Cassiopeia said matter-of-factly, making Dorea hiccup in shock. "He is after all my nephew and I have a feeling my baby sister spoiled him horribly."

Dorea giggled damply, her heart aching. "Don't leave me?" she begged hopelessly.

Great-Aunt Cassiopeia smiled. "That, Dorry dearest, is a foolish question," the only mother the twelve-year-old really remembered reprimanded gently. "I cannot help but leave; I am mortal after all. But some day in the distant future, when you have had children and spoiled your grandchildren rotten, your day will come and I will see you then."

"Au revoir then," Dorea mumbled reluctantly, slowly unclenching her fingers from Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's robes.

"That's my good girl," the elderly lady said proudly. "Now go and do your part to ensure that the craven Riddle cannot walk in my cousin Cedrella's granddaughter's skin."

Dorea gave her Great-Aunt one last hug and went to sit in the secondary circle adjacent to the one that held the innocuous-looking diary. Ginny was lying unconscious in that second circle and Dorea's job was to use her Ward to purge all trace of the soul fragment from her person. Aunt Lucretia had explained a lot about Soul Fire to her yesterday, but it boiled down to there being several different types and her Ward being made of the kind that strengthened and healed. Riddle's soul fragment, being incomplete, could not bear to touch it because it made him feel the agony of his injuries, but to a whole, healthy soul her Ward would speed recovery. So Dorea knelt over the body of the girl who had all unknowingly put her own brother in the Hogwarts hospital wing and reached for the power that wrapped around her own like a soap bubble, delicate but distinct.

Golden fire wreathed her hands and she urged the power onward, into the girl who lay as though dead on the cold stone floor. She _wanted_ Ginny to be purged, to be healed, to be whole. Ginny was loved, was precious to her family and Dorea didn't want them to suffer the loss of their youngest child.

The flames sunk into Ginny's body, driving out fine, shrieking wisps of shadow that retreated back to the diary. Dorea did not stop until Ginny's skin glowed like a star, proving that not a trace of the darkness remained within her. Then she took her hands away, grabbing the vial of Wiggenweld potion and tipping it through cold, unresponsive lips. The girl's parents –her mother in particular– would certainly have argued otherwise but Dorea knew Ginny would want to see her tormentor die, if only so she could be sure she would never be hurt by it again.

The redhead took in a breath and blinked.

"You opened the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny," Dorea said bluntly, making the younger girl blanch. "Well, it was done by your body, but the mind behind it is in there," she pointed to the diary.

Ginny gasped. "Tom?"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, the late Heir of Slytherin," Dorea said grimly, making Ginny cringe. The redhead then noticed the other adults in the room and burst into tears. Dorea sighed.

"George is next door; come on," she dragged the other girl to her feet and out of the circle. That Ginevra Weasley managed to actually _leave_ the circle indicated that Dorea had accomplished what she had intended; the circle had been drawn around her and it hadn't been possible to move her before. Dorea had checked; Aunt Luctretia had insisted, so as to prove that the Ward circle was working as intended.

Ginny was only too happy to leave the stone ritual room and throw herself into her brother's arms, sobbing bitterly, but Dorea felt her heart clench painfully as she closed the door behind her. If this was what being noble felt like then she was only too pleased to be a Slytherin; she'd rather be a coward than hurt like this all the time. If this was what Gryffindors craved they were either masochists or an alien species.

* * *

Blaise sat on a garden wall, bundled up in several layers of jumper, coat and cloak, watching his best friend cuddle a hippogriff and cry into its feathers. The hippogriff was responding to her distress, chirring and grooming her hair in between rubbing its head against her back. Pardon him; the hippogriff was rubbing _his_ head against her back. Blaise had been introduced to Boreas back in the summer and still couldn't quite get his head around how the massive predator doted on his friend. Rhea claimed Boreas was a big old softy, which by hippogriff standards he might well be, but he was still a cart-horse-sized Magical Creature with sharp claws and a vicious beak.

He was out here because it was not yet dawn on Christmas morning and Rhea's house-elf Moppet had apologetically woken him up an hour ago to tell him that 'Mistress Dorea' was up and getting dressed to go outside. A few days ago he'd asked the elf to wake him if Rhea ever got up early so he could keep her company, so he reassured her that he wasn't cross at being woken at five in the morning –well he wasn't, not _really_, considering– and dressed in as many layers as he could throw on before hurrying out after his friend. That Rhea had barely responded to his intrusion, not even rolled her eyes or huffed that she didn't _need_ babysitting, told him that he'd done the right thing.

Even Blaise felt the loss of the formidable Cassiopeia Black, who had teased him over fleeing her tea parties and welcomed him into her Lord's home last summer. He couldn't imagine how Rhea felt after having lost the woman who raised her. Her Lord father Sirius Black was also grieving, but Blaise didn't think he was feeling it as keenly as Rhea was. Rhea had told him quite a bit about her childhood and until Rhea was four, Cassiopeia Black had been her sole parent what with her father being in Azkaban and all. Rhea loved deeply and fiercely for all she didn't let it show very often and she was completely devastated. She hadn't blamed the Weasley-ette for it, not yet, but Blaise knew she had to be thinking it. That Rhea had steered well clear of the young redhead since that awful night told its own story.

Prewett probably had the best idea as to Rhea's state of mind since his twin was still lying Petrified in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, but he had stuck by his sister and told Blaise to be there for Rhea no matter what. The older boy had confided that Rhea being there for him and making sure there was _always_ somebody with him had helped him immensely at school after his twin had been incapacitated. Unfortunately what with the situation being what it was Blaise was the only person capable of dragging themselves out of bed and following Rhea around the place. Her Aunt and Uncle were still recovering from the strain of dealing with the cursed object that had possessed the littlest Weasley, as was her father, and Prewett was busy looking after his sister. Blaise had the feeling that even after there were two Weasley Twins around the place things wouldn't go back to how they'd been before, as quite a few of the upper years had gotten attached to Prewett. It was entirely possible that Dorea's impulsive kindness and incredibly unusual family loyalty in taking care of Jerry would change the lion-snake dynamic forever, which was a scary thought.

Oh well. The house-elves were keeping him in hot chocolate and so far he had managed to hug his friend three times without her hitting him. Rhea was like a sister to him, an annoyingly brilliant and unconditionally loving little sister who needed looking after and who he would cheerfully kill for. Blaise didn't think he'd ever marry –seeing his mother go through husbands like wine made him profoundly wary of the whole wedding and possible romance thing– but he was looking forward to doting on his Rhea's eventual children. They'd be awesome, he just knew it.

Hopefully Rhea would be ready to go back inside again soon, as Blaise wanted to open his presents before the rest of the extended Black horde arrived for Christmas breakfast.

* * *

It really would have been easier if Dorea had been angry, but no. The anger had passed within days, as had the weeping. Now she was just depressed. Unfortunately a depressed Dorea created a truly dismal picture of misery and dampened the whole Christmas spirit. Not that George was going to do anything about that; he knew better. He wasn't exactly feeling like sunshine and roses either, for all that Great-Aunt Lulu had somehow gotten hold of some almost-mature Mandrakes and his twin would be up and about within the month.

However saving his baby sister from a cursed diary had cost Dorea her own Great-Aunt and George felt horribly guilty about it all. So did Ginny, for that matter. Never mind that despite their bearing some of the blame for Cassiopeia Black's death Dorea's father had insisted they stay for Christmas… then claimed it wouldn't be responsible of him to send the two Weasleys to the Burrow when their parents weren't there and that packing them off back to Hogwarts would be both callous and attract unwanted attention to Ginny's plight.

Blaise was treating Dorea not unlike George was his own baby sister, never leaving her alone unless she was in the bathroom and even then threatening to invade if she stayed in there more than twenty minutes, making sure she ate and hugging her whenever possible, though in Rhea's case Blaise had to deal with Fizz the boomslang who also wanted to snuggle. George did like the snake –it definitely had a sense of humour– but he wouldn't want to get bitten because he'd accidentally squished it while cuddling someone. Part of the reason Dorea had lent him Fizz at school was that with her snake hanging around his neck the people willing to get within a metre of him could be counted on one hand. That they included Snape was… disturbing. You think you know a man and then he goes and surprises you. George would never have guessed that the dour Dungeon Bat had a soft spot for Dorea, but he really did. He'd even agreed to shelter a lion among his snakes because Dorea had been the one asking. Higgs had confirmed that Dorea was totally Potion Master's Pet but no Slytherin had ever breathed a word about it because their Head of House or not, Snape was still scary and Dorea was terrifyingly brilliant at Potions in her own right and just a teensy bit touchy about her skills. Slandering her competence was a good way to get her to make you wish you were dead.

Seeing the extended Black clan, of whom only three were purebloods and one of those three was a squib, George had to admit that even with the subdued atmosphere he had a good feeling about the future. Admittedly a good half of Dorea's cousins didn't bear the Black name but Richard Oatley and Desmond Woodmore still considered themselves to be Blacks and would have changed their names if they hadn't seen it as disrespectful to their fathers. With the infamous Sirius Black as Family Head the Blacks were going to take the magical world by storm and in fact already were: Dora Tonks was here too and her news on Lockhart had been met with shock, disbelief and outrage. George had known he was a useless git but to think he'd stolen other people's achievements to make himself famous made his blood boil. As soon as Boxing Day had come and gone Lord Black was going to send a copy of the information to Rita Skeeter, then deliver the rest to Madam Bones in person. With a bit of luck the blond fraud would be in jail come the start of term and that would be that.

* * *

To Dorea the days and weeks following her Great-Aunt's death on Winter Solstice passed in a fog of pain and indifference. She got up in the mornings, did what was required of her and kept herself occupied when she didn't have anywhere particular to be, but it didn't really matter to her like it had before. She was just going through the motions. Lockhart's arrest and dramatic fall from grace did not move her and neither did Fred's recovery. Her OWL results –two Os– meant nothing, despite them being accompanied by a Gringotts letter telling her she now had full access to her late Uncle Cygnus' Vault and any heirlooms from the Potter Vaults. Audric Avery visiting and dragging her out to the bank to pick out a sword brought a brief moment of respite, but the novelty of wielding a live blade soon faded away into the dull ache of everyday.

After school started up again after Christmas Dee and Zee stuck closer than ever, Trey drifting back to them now that her illusions of Lockhart had been utterly shattered. Rence stuck around too, breaking into her dull, cold world a few times a week to drag her into the Potions lab and pick up her experimenting with Hermione and Padma again. Sometimes however Dorea just wanted to get away and that was when she escaped down the parsel-passages and into the Chamber of Secrets to talk to the Basilisk. Basileia, Fizz had called her. She was magnificent to look at but Slytherin hadn't bred her for her brains. She was probably about as smart as Crabbe, which ironically meant she was smarter than Goyle. Dorea liked sitting on her and talking, as the Queen of Snakes had a charmingly simple outlook on life and was rather soothing to be around. Leaving Baz to starve in the bowels of Hogwarts would have been cruel, so Dorea had found and opened the old passages leading to the Forest so the immense serpent could get out and eat. She'd told the Basilisk that she had to leave the Centaurs, Unicorns and Thestrals alone but could eat as many Acromantula as she wanted. It turned out that Baz considered Acromantula to be a delightfully tasty snack and very appealing, so she was perfectly happy to deplete the colony lurking near the school down to nothing, with her "_little mistress' permission_," of course. There had been no official action against the completely illegal Acromantula colony and there was no way Dumbledore didn't know about it, but the manipulative Headmaster's neglect was a form of complicity and encouragement.

Having gotten her OWLs, Dorea refused to go on attending either Astronomy or History lessons since her 'O's in both subjects proved she already knew the material and she wasn't interested in progressing to NEWT level.. Instead she slept through the night or haunted her favourite music room, pouring out her grief into music. Before Christmas her teacher had taught her a Charm that enabled a quill to transcribe her music as she played it and over the weeks and months she piled up stacks of tunes and improvisation, none of which she ever looked at. Professor Runcorn was delighted by her efforts, though he notably did not comment on her listlessness. It might have been out of respect for her loss, but the man had been a Ravenclaw and didn't have much tact so maybe her misery wasn't adversely affecting her performance.

Her Occlumency was certainly better than it had ever been and she was performing admirably in all her wand subjects despite not really caring much. She knew the spells in Charms and Defence, Transfiguration was tedious if occasionally challenging and Potions she simply worked through methodically. Maybe by third-year she'd be able to bring herself to care but right now nothing really mattered.

The only time she really emerged from her funk was combat lessons, but that was because Ric pushed her brutally hard and demanded she really give her all now she was using live steel. Since she had two fewer subjects on her timetable he'd added in extra sword lessons to 'keep her from getting into trouble' and now ran her into the ground three nights a week in addition to Saturday afternoons. Dorea lived for those lessons: with wand and blade in her hands she could live in the moment and her duelling skills grew by leaps and bounds.

It wasn't until May that Dorea started to feel human again, the aching pain in her chest where Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had been torn from her numbing and starting to heal. Nobody in the world had ever been as close to her as Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, not even her father, so Dorea knew she'd never hurt like this again. It was a cold comfort.


	29. Chapter 29

Beta'd by the splendid InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of peace and transience **

The thirteenth year of Dorea's life was blessedly, beautifully crisis-free, unless you considered her brief panic over what to wear on her first ever date to be a crisis. The summer before her thirteenth birthday had been spent visiting all her Potter properties, since it was about time she got to know them what with being the heir and all, and she had spent a lot of time with Remus going over the books for her businesses and talking about why he was investing in certain things and supporting some ventures over others. It was most interesting and useful despite involving quite a lot of maths.

Ten days before her birthday Abraxas Malfoy died of Dragon Pox, which led to Aunt Cissa and Draco not attending her party. Dorea couldn't really bring herself to mind their absence despite being a little saddened by the late Lord Malfoy's death. Abraxas –he had insisted on Dorea calling him by his first name– had been one of Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's more frequent gentleman callers after Papa was released from Azkaban and the elder lady had started receiving guests; he had always treated Dorea like a person rather than a baby. He'd been utterly charming, always smiling and had given her all manner of interesting gifts over the years. She'd always been respectful of him though, because Abraxas had a certain gleam in his eye that said _danger_ no matter how much he seemed to enjoy doting on her. At his Will-reading three days before she turned thirteen she found out he had left her his string of racing Granians and a lot of very beautiful and expensive jewellery, which was all very inappropriate. There wasn't anything anybody could do about it though, since he probably hadn't planned on dying just yet and the gift would have been moderately appropriate if she had been even one year older, for all that the jewellery probably should have gone to Abraxas' daughter-in-law –Auntie Cissa– or be held in trust for Draco's own daughter.

On her actual birthday she discovered there was a present from him, likely picked out and delivered before he got so sick, which she had opened in private since there was no way to write him a thank-you letter. It turned out to be a variety of books on Atlantean Soul Magic –he'd been an adventurer before marrying–a basic Alchemy primer and a jewel box full of uncut gems and small bars of various different metals. Dorea had been delighted at the prospect of a new field of study to investigate and had immediately hidden everything in one of her trunk's secret hidey-holes. She already had plans to build herself a new and better trunk, but she was very attached to Great-Auntie Isla's one and didn't want to trade up just yet.

The beginning of her third year at Hogwarts had gone smoothly enough, with Hermione finally getting herself a pet –a large and unfortunate-looking half-kneazle she had named Crookshanks– and both Daphne's and Ric's little sisters starting their first year. Both were sorted into Slytherin where their elder siblings could keep an eye on them, but what with Ric being in his NEWT year Dorea had been the person Arietta Avery had come to with her problems. Ric was after all seventeen now and an adult, so for all that his baby sister all but worshipped him she didn't go to him with things like needing help with school-work.

Ade Pucey had somehow made prefect alongside Odile Witt, which kept him busy as the new year-group was twice the size as the one above it. It made sense really, as the new students had all been conceived in the year following the end of the Voldemort War when for the first time in over a decade British Wizarding Society had been free from fear and violence. Astoria and Arietta had another seventeen fellow Slytherins in their year, which was rather astounding. Rence found it hilarious that Ade had been selected and needled him at every possible opportunity all through September, by which point the novelty had worn off a bit and he turned his attention back to his studies. Rence and Ade were after all fifth-years now and would be taking their OWLs in the summer. That Dorea had already taken two of hers and done so well had both irritated and reassured Rence's year-group, as it made them seem less difficult. Rosier had asked to borrow her History books to study from and Dorea had happily lent them to her, specifying that they were not to leave Slytherin Dungeon as she didn't want them getting confiscated. That Rosier was not the only student reading them did not surprise her in the slightest; Binns and Bagshot were a poor combination for any genuinely interested student of History.

Dorea had decided to study Arithmancy and Ancient Runes as her electives, since Care of Magical Creatures was only useful if you intended to work in that field and she was familiar enough with Muggle society not to need Muggle Studies. She would probably sit the exam anyway though, just like her cousins had, as it was an easy O. Divination she scorned on principle and refused to even contemplate: she refused to trick her mind into believing that she had no choice. Free will was absolute, so prophecy only bound her if she allowed it.

Arithmancy was like maths but not quite and had various divinatory properties, but Dorea ignored those in favour of how it could be used in rituals, wards, alchemy and spell creation. She was about average in class and enjoyed it. Runes was different: it turned out her self-study had put her ahead on the rest of the class by a good margin so Professor Babbling made her sit the end-of-year test then adjusted her schedule so she could attend the forth-year class. It was at the same time as third-year history, but since Dorea wasn't taking that it wasn't a problem. Hermione seemed a little put-out by that, but it couldn't be helped. Getting pushed up a year meant Dorea was taking Ancient Runes with Gregory and Stephanie, which was fun since she didn't usually see much of either of them. Now she could sit in class with them and study with them in the library.

Rather amusingly, this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was none other than her cousin Richard, who soon had all the female upper years swooning after him and proved a highly competent educator. His lessons were interesting, they actually got to practice spells and the various Dark Creatures he either brought into class or showed them images of livened up the classroom considerably. He even got special permission from the Ministry after Christmas to have a Dementor brought into the school –properly escorted by an Auror of course– which he followed up with a lesson on the Patronus Charm. By the time exams rolled around her cousin had been enshrined in the minds of all his students as Best Defence Teacher Ever, so hearing that he was on a limited one-year-contract and would not be coming back was incredibly disheartening. Richard however confided in Dorea that Uncle Iggy had sponsored his teaching year so he could investigate the 'curse' on the Defence position without attracting suspicion. It turned out there actually _was_ a curse: it was a Living Curse, a very powerful one cast by Tom Riddle that meant that, for as long as he was technically not fully dead, no Defence Professor would last more than one year unless _he_ was the one hired for the job. It struck Dorea as an incredibly petty waste of otherwise rather impressive magic.

Third year was also the year that puberty happened for Dorea; she'd grown two inches over the course of each previous year, meaning that on the first of September she'd been five foot five, but after starting Hogwarts again her body went into overdrive, making her bones ache, her appetite expand to disconcertingly unladylike proportions –not that it stopped her from eating her fill– and, most peculiarly, to the development of _curves_. Bad enough that she had to go for new uniforms at New Year due to being five foot seven _already_, but she also had to buy new supportive underwear and by Easter it was very obvious, even in the unflattering Hogwarts uniform, that she actually had breasts. Thankfully however she wasn't the only one: Millie Bulstrode had come back from the summer holidays with a very generous cleavage, Trey's short stature made her succumbing to puberty blindingly obvious and even Dee needed to have her uniforms adjusted at the front. Hermione was proving to be a late developer, though her temper was certainly a lot shorter than it had been last year.

* * *

It took Dorea until mid-November to find out about the Time-Turner, which prompted her to exercise her right as Patron and give Hermione a gruesomely detailed lecture on why Time-Turners were restricted and what prolonged usage could do to your mind and magic. Hermione had lost her temper at 'being ordered around' at which point Dorea had lost her own composure and demonstrated to her thoroughly cowed audience that she did, in fact, possess the infamous Black Temper. In _spades_. The confrontation had ended with Hermione bursting into tears and trying to punch Dorea in the face –Rence had leapt into the breach and deflected her– but the Muggleborn had, after calming down, given the item back and stopped attending Muggle Studies and Divination. In an expression of gratitude at her friend's good sense Dorea had helped her enrol into the Ancient Studies class, paying for Hermione's lessons out of the Vault she had received from her late Uncle Cygnus for irony's sake. This had thoroughly dissipated Hermione's resentment and their friendship had proceeded as normal, slightly distant but perfectly amicable. Not that Hermione knew Dorea was paying for her classes, but still.

Third year came with the perk of Hogsmeade visits, which were fun as they were a rare opportunity to get away from the school for a while. Most of the seventh-years didn't actually bother going anymore, either having tired of the limited charms the small village could offer or using the time to sneak out of Hogsmeade to visit family and friends on the sly –if either they or said relatives could apparate– but to Dorea and her friends it was all still new and exciting. The first trip was on Halloween, which Dorea actually enjoyed for once as Tom Riddle conspicuously failed to spoil her day. The second trip was a week before the beginning of the Christmas holidays, enabling everyone to do a bit of Christmas shopping.

Unfortunately it was at this point that the tension that had been simmering between Fred and George Weasley since the previous February finally boiled over, resulting in George hiding in Slytherin again for five days and Fred alternating between betrayed fury and abject misery. Thankfully the previously-older twin got his head out of his arse before the first day of the holidays and by the time Dorea returned at New Year both Fred and George seemed much happier. That Fred had stopped messing around in Potions and George had taken up the flute utterly bamboozled the entire school, with even the teachers wondering what the prank was. Of course the fifth-year Slytherins were all incredibly smug, as _they_ had seen it coming a mile off. They were quite fond of 'Jerry Prewett'.

February brought Valentine's Day and Dorea's first ever date: it seemed Rence had noticed her crush and decided to reciprocate. Rather than take her to Madam Puddifoot's in Hogsmeade –which was so despicably twee it made her want to throw up– he coaxed a picnic out of the house-elves and they sat out by the lake to eat it. Dorea would have been more nervous about sitting right at the edge of the Forbidden Forest if she hadn't known that Baz had depleted the Acromantula colony down to nothing over the past year, finally chowing down on the two Elder spiders and the unhatched eggs only the previous week. The forest was now officially Acromantula-free, much to the basilisk's disappointment. Apparently she considered the giant spiders to be the tastiest snack food in existence, her exact words having been, "_so more-ish and crunchy!_" Admittedly not having eaten a full meal in over a century meant Baz was a _very_ hungry basilisk, so the complete destruction of the colony was in retrospect rather predictable.

Dorea thoroughly enjoyed her introduction to dating and romance: it was like a dream where nothing could touch her. Unfortunately however the shine wore off by the end of the school year, leading them to decide that they were better off staying friends. Dorea was closer to Rence now though and a number of the girls in his year teased him about his devotion to her. It wasn't romantic though; in retrospect it never really had been. Rence just wanted her to cherished and safe, which explained his tendency to distract people who were angry with her for one reason or another.

Part of what killed off Dorea's first crush was the advent of the exam season, as her renewed focus on her studies led her to realise that her affection for Rence had been mostly chemical. They didn't share the same goals or even the same basic moral code, so the relationship would never have worked anyway. Dorea honestly admired the older boy for his dedication to maintaining a certain degree of chivalry in the face of his own ambitions, though Rence still hadn't quite decided what he wanted to do with his life. As a half-blood of modest means Rence would need a job upon graduating, but the only subjects that really brought him any pleasure were combat and art. He did enjoy runes, but only as a means to Enchant things. Dorea had jokingly suggested he go into jewellery or something like that, which had made her friend look very thoughtful and mention that he might just look into it. If he did, Dorea certainly wasn't going to complain. If he was any good she might even sponsor him! While he might not ever be as good as Fairbourne's, he could certainly do no worse than Madam Belinda's utterly tasteless wares!

* * *

Her summer holidays began with the news that Peter Pettigrew had finally died in prison. While not exactly bad news, it did send both her Papa and Remus into pensive moods for a few days, after which they resolutely threw off their gloom in favour of a manor-wide prank war that soon sucked in both Weasley Twins –on opposite sides– Great-Uncle Septimus, Uncle Iggy and Theo, though Dorea still wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to persuade his father to let him stay away from the Nott family home for three weeks. Her response to the mayhem was to enlist Aunt Lucretia's assistance in Warding her rooms against intrusion, invite Hermione over and get stuck into the Alchemy primer Abraxas had left her. Hermione was utterly delighted to get to investigate such a rare subject, especially when it shared half its roots with Muggle chemistry. Unfortunately Hermione lacked the imagination and instincts to truly shine in alchemy, but she still had a really great time learning the basic principles. There had been a few tense moments over the house-elves, but talking to the now very frail Tansy had helped the Muggleborn get her facts straight and she'd thankfully dropped the prospective crusade to free the oppressed before it really got started.

More disturbingly, spending that long in Black Manor meant Hermione had found out about Dorea's swordsmanship lessons and had volunteered that one of the things she did with her father during the summer was go shooting. Not just target shooting, but clay pigeon shooting. The whole idea of firing on moving targets fascinated Avery, who demanded more explanations and persuaded both Deborah and Hermione to help him copy the system for spell practice. Dorea just watched in bemusement as Deborah somehow acquired an _actual_ clay pigeon trap, installed it to one side of the end of the Long Lawn then assisted Hermione in setting up a Rune system to fire it.

Hermione proved a crack shot with the Reductor Curse, making Dorea wonder exactly how well she'd do with a Muggle gun in her hands. It took Ric a while to adapt to the system but he quickly improved once he got into the swing of things. Dorea herself turned out to be startlingly good, though she privately thought it was connected to her uncanny spatial awareness and all those years spent chasing snitches with Omen Owls. They just loved chasing those things, for all that their idea of play was rough enough to damage the tiny fluttering wings beyond repair after a while. Deborah wasn't very good at it at all, but she seemed to consider it a challenge and persisted. Ric then started showing up at the Manor every day to 'help' her, which Dorea found rather cute. She hoped that her former swordsmanship tutor would get his act together and propose soon; he'd graduated now and Deborah was seventeen too, so there was no reason why not. Besides, both her Papa and her Uncle Jimmy Oatley actually _liked_ Ric, so it wasn't like they'd oppose the match. Her cousins had much more freedom of choice in who they would marry than a good many other families; certainly they had far greater freedom than Dorea herself did.

Dorea's respite from the machinations of Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore lasted past her fourteenth birthday right up until the Quidditch World Cup, the aftermath of which made her realise that no matter how good she had it right now, society's problems were still festering under the surface. Then she found out about the impending Triwizard Tournament and decided that there was no _way_ it wasn't a trap. It had been disbanded due to the casualties piling up it the first place! Who for, how and why were immaterial; the fact remained that the opportunities for mischief in the upcoming school year would be pretty much endless. Thus it was pointless to speculate overly much, but it would be a good idea to be prepared. Very prepared.

Oh well, at least she'd finally worked out how to cancel the parseltongue locking spells on the Planetarium so Professor Sinistra could have her lessons at a civilised hour next term. The students would be grateful for not having to keep late hours and brave the top of the Astronomy tower in the icy depths of a Scottish winter.


	30. Chapter 30

Beta'd by the affable InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of authority and respect **

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, gazing thoughtfully at the silvery thoughts swirling gently in the small Pensieve he'd been given by the Germans after defeating Gellert. It was not one of the elegant wide stone basins that a few of the more distinguished Ancient Magical Families owned as heirlooms dating to before the founding of Hogwarts, but it was perfectly serviceable if no larger than a pasta bowl. The Potters owned one such ancient Pensieve, which he had made use of until the goblins had recalled all heirlooms to the Potter Vault shortly after Sirius Black's disaster of a trial. So zealous had the bankers been that Albus had barely been able to recover his thoughts before they were carried off!

The trial was really where things had started to go wrong for Albus. He'd been so _sure_ that the prophecy had referred to Rose Potter –though its wording had initially led him to believe that Neville Longbottom was the only possible candidate– but he'd been unable to find any trace of the girl following her parents' deaths. When at the trial Sirius had somehow managed to insist under Veritaserum that Rose Potter had never existed the public had turned on Albus, with Millicent Bagnold leading the charge in an attempt to recover her popularity and shed some of the blame. Bartemius Crouch had been thrown under the carriage as well, though he had not managed to recover nearly as well as Albus had. The Potter Wills had been unsealed and Albus had hoped that doing so would force those who had spirited the child away to come forward, but neither Will had referenced her at all. Instead, bar a few minor bequests, the Potters had left everything to the wrongly-imprisoned Sirius Black, to be held in trust for one of James' distant cousins until she came of age. Said cousin was also a Black, so Sirius being Regent made sense as he had been James' best friend and had also been reinstated as heir to Lord Arcturus Black.

Though in retrospect it was clear that Lord Black had never disowned Sirius at all, judging by the elder Black's campaign for a public trial almost from the very week of his grandson's imprisonment. It had become clear that Sirius' so-called 'disownment' had been more his mother not wanting anything to do with him after he was fifteen rather than an official barring from the family, with the teenager running into Charlus and Dorea Potter's open arms rather than seeking out closer potentially sympathetic relatives. All the elder Blacks had also emerged from their seclusion to make his life difficult, Cassiopeia Black in particular. The ferocious and opinionated witch had been one of the darlings of the Grindelwald War, particularly beloved of the French Magical Resistance for her tireless support of their cause and willingness to utterly destroy all who stood in her way. While the Germans had thanked Albus for his part in Gellert's defeat the French had spurned him in favour of the few surviving witches and wizards who had waged guerrilla warfare upon his army from the very moment it had invaded their borders. Most of the survivors were unashamedly Dark, much as Madam Black was, and had openly scorned Albus for cowering in a school until the very last weeks of the war. All that scorn and distrust had been stirred up again after the trial and Albus had been forced to use up a great many of his accumulated political favours to remain Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Albus had then dedicated the next six years to studying the prophecy and seeking the still missing Rose Potter, as he did not believe the tale spun across the public eye by the Blacks. He did not believe Sirius to have betrayed them –Peter Pettigrew's discovery and willing confession made it clear he had not– but Albus did believe that the Black Heir had hidden his best friend and blood-brother's daughter away, probably abroad. The Potters had property and connections in New Zealand, central Africa and Canada, so those were the places Albus looked whenever Hogwarts was not in session. He had found nothing.

Then, in the year that Rose Potter –whom he had almost given up on as she was not listed in the Hogwarts Book– should have entered her first year, Albus set eyes upon Dorea Black. Named for James' mother with curly black hair and eyes as green as Lily Potter's had ever been, the self-possessed eleven-year-old was sorted into Slytherin. Investigation indicated that Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter was Sirius' daughter and the distant cousin mentioned in the Wills, but Albus believed otherwise. This had to be the missing Rose Potter! Sirius had clearly changed her name and raised her as his own, so the prophecy was still in motion. Unfortunately however he had no proof: the girl was untouched by any visible scar or power that would indicate Voldemort had indeed 'marked as his equal' the young child and if he claimed that the Black Heir was the Girl Who Lived he would be denounced as a madman. The Blacks had made it very clear that Voldemort's death had been the work of Lily Potter and that the Unspeakables were actually making progress in the area of Warding against the Unforgivables indicated that much was indeed correct. However Albus had seen no evidence of a destroyed or dissipated Ward in that nursery, which would only be possible if it was still intact and had been removed entirely, likely with the child it protected. It was of course possible that he Dark Lord's 'mark' was purely metaphorical, but Albus was determined to ensure Voldemort's demise and the only way to do so was through Rose Potter. However he had no authority over Dorea Black, which meant he needed to acquire some before the house of Black brought all of Wizarding Britain into ruin without realising it.

But still things had gone wrong for him. Quirinus had died before Christmas, frightened to death by a Boggart, and the possessing spirit clinging to him had fled before Albus could identify it. Worse, the stone Nicholas Flamel had given him when he finished his Transfiguration Mastery was gone too! It had not been a true Philosopher's Stone, but his old Master had told him it had special properties that he would be able to activate once he had the courage and conviction in his goals to use it. Now that opportunity was lost forever and he had no idea who had robbed him of it. That the business with the Troll had made front-page news over the Christmas holidays had been another blow to his reputation, and the discovery of the Cerberus had led to him losing his position as Chief Warlock to Tiberius Ogden.

Then there had been the brief re-opening of the Chamber of Secrets the following year, which had also been over by Christmas. That an unknown beast had been roaming the school for a few months did not make the news –thankfully– but that he had not made the effort to import Mandrakes from New Zealand so as to revive the Petrified students at the New Year _had_, which had almost been worse. Lucretia Prewett donated mature mandrakes to the school in early January, leading Albus to believe he had been the victim of another Black scheme. Though as the only remaining Heir of Slytherin was Tom Riddle, how had they managed to orchestrate things in such a controlled manner? Albus eventually decided that the Chamber had not actually been opened and that one Black or another had hired a Gorgon to do the deed. Blacks were rather inventive enemies and the last opening of the Chamber had not exactly been low-key.

Last year had however been marvellously quiet, enabling him to suggest to Cornelius the idea of an international school competition of some kind to showcase the skill of British wizards. Ludo Bagman, together with the new Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, decided on the Triwizard tournament, just as Albus had believed they would. So many foreign wizards pouring into Hogwarts would attract Voldemort's attention, bringing him back to the school and into contact with Dorea Black. Albus knew that Voldemort firmly believed in the prophecy and was certain that the wraith knew exactly who it was that had been party to his vanquishing, so he simply had to see whether or not Tom personally targeted the Heiress Black in order to prove his theory. He had little doubt that Dorea Black would survive; she was after all prophesied to be Tom's equal and what little he had seen of the teenager suggested she was very much Cassiopeia Black's successor in every way that mattered. No doubt she was already learning Dark magic, which saddened him as it certainly was not a power 'the Dark Lord knew not' and would do her sanity no favours in the long run.

* * *

Remus wasn't entirely sure how Padfoot had managed to produce a daughter as calm, organised, diligent and dedicated to her education as Dorea, but suspected that part of it was her also being Lily's daughter and the rest was Madam Cassie's fault. As it was his best friend's daughter already had two OWLs, would be doing her Rune OWL come the summer and was nearly at the end of the compulsory Charms curriculum despite being only just fourteen. Her Transfiguration was easily NEWT level and Sirius had offered to tutor her in the animagus transformation over the summer, but Dorea had declined because according to her Greek Transfiguration book the modern animagus transformation locked a person into a single form and Dorea intended to rediscover the art of self-transformation as showcased by the 'gods' of Greek myth. Zeus, Hera and the rest had actually been wizards not gods, so Remus thought Dorea had a good chance of succeeding. Of course school subjects were not the only areas Dorea was well ahead of her peers in: she was an Occlumency Mistress, a Scryer, was fluent in seven languages and could read another two not counting Runes. She was also very well informed on Soul Magic and just this past summer had started learning Alchemy. She had also recently been pronounced sufficiently competent with a blade to no longer require lessons, which was very impressive indeed. All things considered, Remus really had to wonder how Lily would have turned out if she'd had access to an unexpurgated Pureblood family library like Dorea did. It was a humbling thought.

However what with his sort-of goddaughter being a highly competent Slytherin, Remus was starting to get an uneasy feeling that Dorea was headed for a collision course with the murky reality of wizarding politics. After all she was less than three years off her majority now and when she turned seventeen she would be Lady Potter with all the power and influence that implied. Coupled with her evident magical power and genuine passion for making the world a better place for her friends and family, the werewolf had an odd feeling that bright, brilliant Dorea might find herself running for Minister of Magic one day in the not-too-distant future. He wasn't sure if such an occurrence would make him happy or persuade him to request permission to move to Canada, but it would doubtless be interesting. Hmm… Remus smirked, the inner streak of mischief that had ensured he was no less of a Maruader than James or Sirius –despite making prefect while at school– making itself known. The Magical Government was corrupt, rotting in place like a dying tree. As a werewolf he was horrifically discriminated against and the only reason he had a job was that Sirius didn't trust anyone else to manage James' money for him.

When Dorea came of age he'd be shunted back into a managerial position, though he fully intended to resign after she'd properly learned the ropes so she wouldn't feel obliged to keep him on. After all he'd been paid a stupidly huge amount of money to make sure the Potter Estates were well cared-for over the past decade and shrewd investments had only added more gold to his vault. If he retired tomorrow he's be able to live modestly and comfortably for the rest of his life without ever lifting a finger, not that he would ever be so lazy. Since his position only required him to work two weeks out of every four he'd spent his 'free' week –the fourth week was spent preparing for and recovering from the full moon– doing independent research into lycanthropy, magical creatures and pre-medieval curses.

He'd amassed quite a lot of material and come up with a few theories, but what was really exciting was that he'd almost managed to pin down the true nature of the lycanthropy curse, with a little help from a few fellow werewolves that is. It was looking very promising and while he was pretty sure he'd be turning into a wolf for the rest of his life, he was hopeful that the parts of the curse that turned him into an irrational ball of rage and drove him to crave human flesh could be neutralised. The Wolfsbane potion did counteract those urges, but it was a suppressant rather than a proper long-term solution as it was essentially a poison. It was far healthier for a werewolf to undergo the moon-driven transformation in an open but secure area, despite the lycanthropy-driven tendency towards self-mutilation if no convenient victims could be found. Neutralising that craving and the mindless rage would seriously limit the spread of lycanthropy, as most werewolves were victims of accidents rather than of deliberate malice like Remus himself was. Sirius had once voiced the opinion that killing Greyback would in itself drastically reduce the spread of lycanthropy, which Remus knew to be true. However Remus had _not_ agreed with his best friend's rather vindictive mumble about having a werewolf pelt as a wall-hanging, no matter how tempting the idea was.

He'd recently shared his research with Sirius, who had gamely gone through the Black Grimoires looking for clues. Was still going through the Grimoires, in fact: the Black bloodline was old, the established noble family going back to France in the eighth century while their heritage was rumoured to stretch back even further, all the way to ancient Greece. There had been no Greek Blacks for nearly two thousand years of course, but the family hoarded everything and there were piles and piles of old records and scrolls in ancient languages in the dozen family Gringotts vaunts and hidden document rooms in various established family houses. Remus was pretty sure the information was there, somewhere. Finding it would take time though. It at least gave Padfoot something to do beyond manage the family finances, exchange letters with the Weasley Twins and worry about his daughter.

* * *

Dorea slumped in her seat in the train compartment Daphne had staked out for the group, head leaning against Zee's shoulder and completely engrossed in the large volume that was a transcription of an Ancient Greek collection of scrolls on types of Soul Magic and how they corresponded to peoples' personalities and strengths. It was a truly fascinating and unexpectedly scientific piece of work, peppered with eye-witness accounts and personal histories. Dorea's project for the year was to teach herself to use Soulfire or, as it was also called, Will's Flame, in between expanding her knowledge of Ritual Magic and Alchemy. Rituals interested her because quite a lot of them could be adapted to be powered by Soulfire rather than magic, or at least so it appeared from reading between the lines. Certainly in some cases the effects of certain rituals were not proportional to the amount of magic expended in setting them in motion, even taking astral movements into account. If she could properly determine which rituals tapped into a person's Soulfire and how then she might be able to adapt any ritual of her choice to run wholly on it, making it possible for them to be used more easily by squibs and even Muggles. Soulfire was a quality inherent to all human beings after all, even though the vast majority could no more harness it than they could magic.

Her friends were also interested, mainly because the best Soulfire focuses were gemstones rather than wands, which would make it an excellent backup skill in case of being disarmed or in a location where conventional magic would attract unwanted attention. The books Abraxas had given her had been utterly fascinating and had provided her with a solid foundation on which to build her knowledge, books that even now were being read by Zee on her right and Dee opposite her. Mione was reading the Law books she'd borrowed from the Black Library, having decided that since it was the laws and customs of British Magical Society that stood in the way of her ambitions then she needed to know her enemy. The Muggleborn girl had gotten a lot more driven since hitting puberty and her temper had become ever so slightly scary; Zee had mentioned –in Italian so Hermione didn't kill him for his audacity– that a boyfriend might mellow her out a bit. Trey was reading a potions manual –she had decided that she wanted to be a Healer when she graduated– Theo had his nose in a battered old book that had no obvious title on its peeling binding and Millie Bulstrode, who had mellowed rather since her figure developed, was playing exploding snap with Padma and Luna. Currently Luna was winning.

The compartments on the Hogwarts Express only appeared large enough for six, as that was how many seats they contained, but pushing up the armrests meant eight could be fitted in quite comfortably provided none of the eight were particularly large. As Zee was tall rather than wide and Millie was the only member of their party who strictly qualified as 'large', they were all perfectly comfortable. Luna and Trey were both smallish anyway, so while rather a close fit it wasn't uncomfortable. If any more people wanted to sit in the compartment with them then the Re-Sizing Charms on the carriage would kick in, enlarging the internal space so that there was room for every person to have their own seat. The overhead rack would also extend, which was handy as otherwise there would be limited luggage space. What with how low the numbers of students attending Hogwarts had been in recent decades due to the War, most people had no idea that the Express was Charmed this way, as it had not been necessary to use them. However now that attendance was picking up again it was likely that people would start to notice them more. The prefects knew about them, as they met on the train and fitting twenty-four students into a single compartment would be impossible without Expansion Charms, but nobody else did. Dorea only knew because she'd seen them in action.

Moros was perched on the edge of the luggage rack, poised to attack should any unwary fool barge in through the door, Mione's Crookshanks was curled up in said girl's lap and purring up a storm and Fizz was curled around Dorea's neck, dozing fitfully and dreaming of mice. Fizz was now nearly eight feet long and didn't seem likely to stop growing any time soon, which Dorea suspected to be due to his spending so much time in the presence of a Parselmouth. From what she'd been able to discover, parselmouths affected snakes by having a magical affinity for them. This meant that she could communicate with Fizz, but also that her spells would affect serpents and serpent-like Creatures more strongly. It also suggested that snakes were more likely to absorb the low-level magic she radiated naturally, which affected them by heightening their intelligence, increasing their size and lengthening their lifespan. Basilisks were likely the culmination of Herpo the Foul's own investigations into this area, but Dorea was more interested in phoenixes.

Phoenixes were a fascinating contradiction: they hatched from fertile Ashwinder eggs, which were incredibly rare since most magical fires never produced more than one Ashwinder. Ashwinders were hermaphroditic but couldn't self-fertilise, so most of their eggs were sterile. However if fertile Ashwinder eggs were left alone the fire that sprung up around them would burn for twenty-eight days and nights before dying, at which point one or maybe two of the eggs would hatch into phoenix chicks.

The rarity of phoenixes indicated how unlikely such a thing was to happen; Dorea doubted that more than four hundred birds existed in the entire world. As phoenixes couldn't breed –no doubt connected to their inability to die and how much less rare they'd be if they were capable of it– this indicated that only four hundred Ashwinder eggs had ever hatched since the first magical fire came to be. Considering that most of the holy 'eternal flames' had been sabotaged during the medieval period, few fires were large and intense enough to produce more than one Ashwinder at once nowadays and most wizards froze any eggs they found, not wanting their houses to be burnt down around them. Ashwinder eggs were an important ingredient in most Love Potions, as well as a number of healing potions. Dorea suspected that if people realised that Ashwinder eggs were phoenix eggs then more people would be inclined to try and hatch them. This could be very damaging if someone as enthusiastically naïve as Hagrid tried, since limiting the spread of intense magical fire was a very difficult skill and made hatching Ashwinder eggs as hazardous as breeding dragons in Central London.

Turning a page, Dorea let herself become engrossed once more in the spectrum of Soul Fire described and the temperaments associated with them.


	31. Chapter 31

Beta'd by the eloquent InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of intuition and its consequences**

When Dumbledore introduced the scarred, battered man with the wooden leg as 'Professor Moody' Dorea instantly knew two things: Firstly, this man was _not_ Alastor Moody; secondly, that he was nonetheless the trustworthy adult confidant she'd been wishing for and could be relied upon to keep her secrets. There were some things you couldn't share with family while at Hogwarts, never mind that family usually couldn't give you an outside viewpoint on the subject, and Professor Snape was out because she'd come to realise that the only reason he was teaching was that Dumbledore had something on him. She did like her Head of House, but the Headmaster was not to be trusted with so much as a bent spoon.

Dorea did not doubt her instincts: they had only gotten more accurate over time and were never, ever wrong. Of course, some of the things they drove her to do were a bit peculiar –she still wasn't sure why she needed to read that rather disturbing book on runic marriage rituals– but they'd always been incredibly useful in hindsight. It had been her instincts that had prompted her to ask Padma about Parselmouths, for instance, at the Indian girl had not only been well-informed and not remotely biased but had provided her with books and later enabled her to enter in correspondence with another snake speaker! Admittedly Dorea needed to improve her Hindi so as to be able to communicate more effectively, but that was a work-in-progress both Patil twins were helping her with. Her correspondent claimed that English as a language lacked the nuanced subtlety required to properly communicate how Parselmagic worked and since there was no written form of snake-speech –snakes did not write after all– Hindi it would have to be.

The Black Heiress was however not even slightly interested in the proposed Triwizard Tournament, at least not beyond how badly it would disrupt her schedule. She and her friends only had another few months left of the compulsory Charms curriculum left and not much more than that in the Defence curriculum. What they'd do with their group study time after that was still up in the air, but Dorea suspected that learning to harness Soulfire would be what caught her friends' interest. They were already borrowing her books on the subject after all, even the Weasley Twins.

Her study group had undergone fission in the spring of the previous year as a result of the addition of numerous Hufflepuffs and a handful of younger students. Now Dorea and her core clique met two evenings a week, then on two other afternoons Dorea and two of her friends would lead the second study group. Luna often volunteered for this, as did Trey, but the teaching was led by Neville who was blossoming wonderfully and proving a truly excellent leader. As the secondary study group was nearly two-dozen strong by the end of the last year, Dorea suspected they'd need to split it again when the new first-years found out about it and more of the second-years tried to join. She had gone to great lengths to ensure everyone knew it _wasn't_ a club, so everything was unofficial, but there had usually been a Hufflepuff prefect in attendance when the larger group met –nominally to learn but probably to keep order– or if not then an older member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Dorea was very pleased with how well her campaign to connect with the badgers was going and rather hoped that Hannah, Susan and Ernie would be interested in coming along to the 'upper group' when she invited them. Those three had been the first to come along to her study sessions and had been the furthest ahead of the newcomers when the group split, so they were almost caught up with her other friends now.

Dumbledore then announced the Triwizard Tournament and Dorea noticed that less than a third of her fellow-snakes looked remotely enthused. Likely because taking part would require them to _volunteer_, they would be placed under a binding magical contract and therefore unable to back out and worse, the so-called 'eternal glory' was anything but. Who remembered the name of the person who'd won the last time it had been held? Nobody, that was who. One thousand Galleons would be nice, but Dorea didn't need them and a good half of her House-mates were similarly well-off. The Gryffindors however looked ecstatic –this was their kind of thing– as did two-thirds of the Hufflepuffs and at least half the Ravenclaws. While the lions were past hoping for, Dorea was sure she could call back to sanity those of her fellow snakes who had taken leave of their senses.

"Look, let's all agree to cheer whoever ends up competing in the daft thing, since they're representing the school and all, but otherwise stay out of the whole mess," Dorea suggested. "That way we can focus on what actually matters like making connections, getting good grades and not getting noticed by the horde that will doubtless descend when this circus gets started."

"Seconded," said Rosier sharply, the sixth-year looking thoroughly put-out by her less intelligent male peers' excitement. The older girl's friendship with the younger Weasley twin had outlived his tenure as Jerry Prewett and won Dorea the older girl's unwavering support in keeping in check those of their fellows whose ambition outstripped their cunning. "This is just a publicity stunt by Dumbledore, trying to win people over after the Quirrell and Chamber fiascos."

That entering the tournament would equate supporting Dumbledore's agenda promptly killed any Slytherin's inclination to enter, so mealtime conversation turned instead to upcoming classes, Quidditch –because a lack of official matches was no reason not to play– and introducing the new first-years to how the house of Snakes comported itself in public. A few seats to Dorea's right Ade and Odile were chatting to the new fifth-year prefects, helping them get their heads around what would need doing and how they should go about it. There were _twenty six_ new snakelings joining this year, twelve girls and fourteen boys; Cousin Stephanie and Edwin Vaisey were going to have their work cut out for them.

With that potential problem nipped in the bud, Dorea started planning out how she would go about permanently dismantling the parsel-locks on the Planetarium and showing it off to Professor Sinistra. The unlocking could be done later in the evening, but the Astronomy Professor did not have open office hours until Wednesday afternoon at the earliest, so she would have to either write a note requesting an earlier slot of just book an appointment the normal way. A note would probably be most diplomatic, considering the scope of the discovery…

* * *

Rather fortuitously Dorea and her fellow snakes had Defence with Professor Not-Moody first thing on Monday morning, so after a really enjoyable lesson on the legality of various curses she lingered and asked the new teacher if she could visit his office on Tuesday after dinner to talk. She explained it as 'not being something I can really discuss with my father as he is too close to the issue' and her having chosen Not-Moody –not that she called him that to his face– due to 'Professor Snape being far too busy with his Head-of-House duties' and the new professor's familiarity with the Ministry. The magical eye had rolled in its socket at her, but Not-Moody had agreed gruffly and told her to come by his office on the second floor at half-past six. Dorea had thanked him with a smile then hurried off to her favourite Music Room to play some Tchaikovsky.

When Tuesday evening came around Dorea made her way to the office that every last Defence Professor had spent their year of teaching working from and knocked politely.

"Come in, Black," came the gruff voice of Alastor Moody; Dorea's two days' contemplation of the situation had convinced her that the impostor was using Polyjuice, which meant that the real Moody was alive, reasonably well and in Hogwarts. Probably locked in a trunk, considering Dorea had used that very method to smuggle Ginny Weasley out of the school in her second year. Her instincts however told her she didn't need to worry about the retired Auror, so she didn't.

"Thank-you for agreeing to this, sir," she said politely, letting herself in and closing the door behind her. The scarred man had set out a low table which had a battered tea set sitting on it and two chairs; Dorea's had its back to the door so she shifted it around slightly so that was no longer the case. Not-Moody grinned appreciatively at her caution.

"Smart move there, lass. Remember, constant vigilance!" he barked before conjuring up a stream of boiling hot water to fill the teapot with. Dorea automatically checked her cup of Darjeeling for any unwanted additions, the wandless and wordless little Charm enabling her to verify that her instincts were correct yet again. Not-Moody noticed of course but just chuckled approvingly. Once she had taken a sip of the tea Dorea settled in to talk; it was after all what she'd come for.

"What really got me started on worrying was how my father got thrown in Azkaban without a trial," she began, using her Occlumency training to calm her mind so that her instincts could rise to the surface. This was _important_ and she needed to do it right. "It only really sunk in when Mr Crouch died and Father told me about Uncle Regulus and Cousin Barty."

Dorea's eyes were on her tea, but she still saw Not-Moody twitch in the reflection cast in her cup by the torchlight. It was a trick her great-aunt had taught her that most people never really noticed. "Especially Cousin Barty: he didn't do anything wrong except make friends with the so-called 'wrong' people and his own father tossed him in Azkaban after a show trial where they didn't even bother to interview the suspects properly! Barty had only been nineteen and he was dead less than a year later, all because Mr Crouch didn't want his 'traitor' son getting in the way of his Ministry career." Dorea huffed indignantly. "Well, Grandpa Arcturus soon put a stop to that; Father's trial going the way it did really put the kneazle among the pigeons and every trial he'd ever participated in was reviewed. Cousin Barty getting posthumously declared innocent ensured Crouch would never, ever be Minister and good riddance to the man; I just wish he'd still been alive so we could have helped him."

Dorea glanced up at Not-Moody, whose expression was rather hard to read what with all the scars. "Barty Crouch was my father's third cousin and Grandpa would have taken him in and made sure he got treatment, like he did for Father. Blacks look out for each-other after all; it's what family should do. If Great-Aunt Charis hadn't already been dead she'd probably have skinned her son alive for what he did to his own son, her grandson. I know Great-Aunt Cedrella refused to attend any event he'd be present at after he threw Barty in jail and Great-Aunt Callidora only ever attended those events so as to be venomous in person."

She sighed. "Thinking about Barty makes Father quiet and depressed because of Regulus; Regulus and Barty were Slytherins together but my uncle died when he was barely out of school, while Father was on the run with the Potters. Father never got to reconcile with him and I know he really wanted to, so it depresses him to think of how many other people he'll never get to see again due to the stupid war." Dorea finished her tea and Not-Moody poured her another cup.

"Which leads me back to the Ministry. If the system wasn't so stupidly convoluted and corrupt neither Father nor Barty would ever have been thrown in jail in the first place. Dumbledore has far too much power and is happy to sit back and do nothing while everything falls into ruin around his ears and I can't _stand_ it!" The real Moody was a friend of the Headmaster, but Dorea was pretty sure the man she was talking to wouldn't piss on the old coot if he was on fire. "The legal system needs an overhaul, the powers need separating out so no person can hold more than one position at once and the bureaucracy needs streamlining so things actually get _done_ without needing to bribe people to do their jobs."

"Is that what you're planning on doing when you graduate? Take over the Ministry?" Not-Moody asked with a grin. "Sounds like you've got a plan of some kind."

"I'd much rather not, but if that's what it takes to purge the system of idiots then I'll do it," Dorea said grimly. "I do not want to be Minister –it's a thankless job if you do it right– but I'm sure that a team of Hufflepuffs with a Gryffindor to lead the way and a few Ravenclaws to back them up would be able to drag our society out of the muck it's currently wallowing in and back onto the international stage. That way the next generation might be able to actually _learn_ things at Hogwarts rather than just be force-fed the bigoted, wishy-washy nonsense that's left over when all the real knowledge had been banned due to being 'subversive'. Why isn't there a compulsory Wizarding Culture course for first-year Muggle-raised students? That way they wouldn't blunder in and insult our way of life because they don't have a clue what's going on or why! There should be language classes like there are in the other major magical schools and history should go back further than the Founders' time, as there were wizards around over four thousand years before then in some parts of the world!" Dorea took another sip of tea. "Sorry to rant at you, professor; I'm not best pleased by the quality of the education I am paying for."

"I don't blame you Black, if those are your complaints," Not-Moody said equitably. "Hogwarts does have fewer subjects than it did when I attended. Fewer students too, but that's mostly due to the war."

"Lots of people left," Dorea agreed. "That they didn't come back should have been our government's first clue."

* * *

After Dorea Black left his office the disguised Barty Crouch sat back in his chair and stared pensively into space, cradling his teacup. He hadn't known about his pardon; no doubt his father had kept him ignorant and hidden because revealing that he'd broken his son out of Azkaban would have had _him_ arrested, since he'd committed a crime. Barty ironically would have gotten off and probably been treated to a recompense; it was hardly _his_ fault his father had placed him under Imperius after all. The spell was damn hard to fight even for a healthy person, never mind one suffering from Dementor exposure. He was a free man, had been for nearly a decade, and he hadn't known. His master hadn't mentioned it either; probably hadn't thought it mattered. It didn't _really_; Barty wasn't going to abandon his master just because he now had options, but his master's lack of faith in his devotion was rather offensive. _He_ had been the one to seek out his master upon his father's death, _he_ had gifted his master with his own house-elf so that his Lord would be well cared-for while Barty was completing his master's mission so he could rise again. Even now he was gently twisting the charms on the Goblet of Fire to his master's purposes and observing the one who had been party to his downfall.

Dorea Black, Rose Potter, had been the means by which the Dark Lord had been defeated. A Potter Blood Ward cast by James and his mudblood wife upon the child –who wasn't even James' daughter– had led to his master's incorporeal state. Barty didn't see how any of that was Dorea's fault, but his master wanted to make an example of her after his rebirth, so Barty would be bringing her along when the summons came. Until then he would bide his time, ensure the tournament went reasonably smoothly and that Dumbledore was kept too busy to speculate. A spot of discreet sabotage here and there would likely suffice; just enough to keep the old fool guessing and aimless enough to be confusing. Maybe a little extra to test Dorea and her friends, so as to get an idea of her capabilities before he abducted her.

Barty liked Dorea; she was like a female and more assertive Regulus with a touch of Bella's good looks and none of her sadism. She was a good student, her entire House followed her lead and she was subverting the other Houses to her cause right under Dumbledore's nose. It would be a shame to waste all that hard work; perhaps his master would agree to put off killing her until she'd made good on her intentions. A more efficient Ministry would make taking over much easier, after all.

No, the Dark Lord wouldn't go for it though; he wanted to make a statement and that meant Dorea would die in the coming June. Barty sighed, took another sip of Polyjuice and made a face; it was disgustingly similar to boiled cabbage. At least Dumbledore was completely fooled and had given him free reign in the classroom; he intended to terrify the lions and badgers with a practical demonstration of the Unforgivables…


	32. Chapter 32

Beta'd by the incomparable InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of identity and ambition**

To Fred, no time at all passed between seeing glowing eyes reflected in the mirror on the fourth floor and waking up in the Hospital wing, so that two months had passed him by took some getting used to. What took more getting used to was that the entire nature of reality had changed somehow while he wasn't looking and now the Slytherins could tell him and George apart. Well, they didn't know which one of them was 'Fred' and which was 'George', but they could conclusively identify Fred as being the twin who had been Petrified. They called him 'Not-Prewett'.

This had been confusing and irritating for the time it took him to weasel out of his twin and friends what had happened in those missing two months, after which it had been less confusing but no less irritating. The Slytherins would call out to George in the corridors and his twin would _answer_! Civilly, even! They either called him 'Prewett' or 'Jerry' and it was perfectly clear that they were _George's_ friends, not 'the Twins' friends. Fred had tried to get over it –he was grateful that Dorea had looked after his twin while he was incapacitated even though her chosen method had been to stash George in the Snake Pit– but despite managing to bury his resentment until the summer, said resentment hadn't exactly gone away.

Summer however had been fun enough that he almost completely forgot about the Prewett Problem: Great-Uncle Iggy had invited them over for a fortnight and been very interested in their original prank items. Fred had then broached their shared dream of opening a joke shop, which their great-uncle had encouraged them in and offered to provide them with start-up funds, provided of course they got at _least_ six OWLS each. He also promised them financial incentives for every Exceeds Expectations and Outstanding they got as well as each OWL above the minimum six, so both he and George had thrown themselves into studying with grim purpose. If grades would get them cash for their dream, then they'd get the grades.

However come the new school year Fred had once more been confronted with the Prewett Problem, made worse by George objecting to pranks on their fellow fifth-years in the House of Snakes. Fred had gotten grumpier and more irritable all the way until mid-December, when he hadn't been able to bear it any longer and had exploded in fury. It hadn't gone the way he'd expected: rather than argue back just as furiously the way he always had before on those vanishingly rare occasions they disagreed, George had run away. Out of the dorm, the Gryffindor Tower and completely disappeared.

It had been _awful_. Fred had felt like he was barely a third of his usual self without George there and the bitter, guilty emptiness had gnawed away at his insides for two whole days until he managed to track down his twin, who was lying low in Slytherin, _again_. Fred would have been angrier about that if he hadn't felt so miserable and depressed over alienating the only person who truly understood and accepted him.

It had taken Fred a further three days to get over himself, corner George and apologise, three days he never, ever wanted to repeat. How had George managed to last two whole months of this? Less than a week had half-killed him! However, a benefit of the whole fiasco was that now he'd got past the prejudice Fred discovered that the fifth-year snakes were actually his kind of people, so long as you could overlook the snotty accents and occasionally incomprehensibly _boring_ ambitions.

Appealing to Dorea had gotten him his own Prewett nickname and a not-quite matching disguise, so rather than 'Not-Prewett' the snakes in his year now called him 'Frank' to his twin's 'Jerry'. Shortly after that he'd received a letter from Great-Uncle Iggy, explaining that since he and Great-Aunt Lulu had no children, they wanted to make him and George their heirs in their Wills. That had just been mind-boggling, especially since in the next paragraph Iggy had offered to write to their father and ask if he'd be amenable to them changing their names, so as to carry the Prewett name onwards. There weren't many Prewetts left in the main family, just Muriel and Iggy, neither of whom had children. If he and George got adopted –which wouldn't be hard considering Mum was Great-Uncle Iggy's niece– then they would inherit the Prewett fortune rather than it going to one of Mum's second cousins. Muriel loathed them, but she was Iggy's younger sister and so didn't actually get a say. Fred was tempted, though he wouldn't do it if his parents didn't agree. It wasn't worth dividing the family over.

As it turned out Mum had been a bit hesitant, but had agreed they could do it if they wanted to –so long as they waited until Great-Uncle Iggy was actually dead. That way it would feel less like they were leaving the family. Fred knew Mum expected Great-Uncle Iggy to continue going strong for another few decades yet, so she probably expected them all to have married and settled down by then and was hoping to have grandkids to spoil. It also gave her more time to get used to the idea, which Fred was fine with. That she had accepted the proposal however meant she wouldn't have a leg to stand on if she protested Great-Uncle Iggy's funding of the joke shop, which was funny and slightly evil as a prank. Ultimately harmless, but Mum would be _so_ cross when she found out! It was going to be hilarious!

* * *

Studying for their OWLs was quite possibly the most boring, mind-numbingly unpleasant thing they'd ever done, but once it was done both twins kicked back and went a bit crazy on the prank front. Nothing nasty: lots of bright colours, temporary partial transfigurations and fireworks at odd times of day or night. This festive mood had continued into the holidays.

Fred and George were both invited over to Dorea's for three weeks of mad pranking with Dorea's dad, who had turned out to be Padfoot the Marauder. That the Potter Family Estate Manager was Moony and James Potter had been Prongs had almost been too much for the twins, but they recovered swiftly when it became clear that nobody was going to stop the hilarity for anything less than a near-fatal injury. Dorea vanished half-way through week one, only appearing at the dinner table where a truce –enforced by the house-elves– was in effect and spending the rest of her time in her room. George however made use of their perilous cousin's brilliance by knocking politely every so often and asking questions about this or that so as to acquire more inspiration. Dorea was utterly brilliant at it –with Padfoot as a father it was almost a given– but she usually couldn't be bothered to join in herself. This was probably for the best, as Dorea was even scarier now than she had been aged ten and could be ruthlessly vicious in way neither the twins nor the Marauders ever wanted to deal with. As Padfoot had commented, St Mungo's still hadn't been able to cure Neville's Great-Uncle of his persistent donkey-like braying problem.

After the three weeks were up and they returned to the Burrow, their mother was pole-axed by the letter bearing the astounding news that both Fred and George had managed to get _nine_ OWLs. _Each_. Mum had barely been able to believe it, especially when they'd each got _three_ Os. She'd been so delighted once she recovered from the shock that she bought them both new dress robes –that they got to _choose_– and agreed to buy them a pet. Fred was dead set on having an owl –he'd always wanted one– but George quietly but firmly voiced his desire for a cat. Both their parents had been baffled by this sudden show of individuality, but Dad had gamely agreed to buy them a pet _each_, since they'd both done equally well and buying a pet that only one of them actually wanted would be unfair to the other twin.

So after a trip to Diagon Fred had a long-eared owl that he'd lovingly named 'Terror' and George was the proud owner of an utterly gorgeous female Russian Blue cat, named 'Chaos' because she wasn't fully grown yet and got into everything. Chaos was about one-quarter Kneazle, so she'd been quite expensive, but Mum had been so dazzled by their grades she hadn't minded. The best thing about the holidays though was that, since they'd moved all their stock to Prewett House, Mum didn't discover it when she went on a sudden cleaning spree the week after they got their results back. Much as they loved their mother she was a bit overbearing and seemed to think they should all work for the Ministry, something George was now even more categorically against than Fred was for some reason. Fred put this down as a result of George's sojourn among the snakes.

Fred just thought Mum was way out of touch: Bill earned more as a Curse-Breaker than he ever could in a Ministry job, Charlie was happy tending to dragons and his hazard pay was nothing to sneeze at either. Percy _was_ going into the Ministry but he was a pompous prat and rather disturbingly naïve about politics, so Fred suspected he'd soon get cruelly disillusioned or become even more unbearable. Ron didn't seem to have any ambition beyond joining the Chudley Cannons –not that he was all that great at Quidditch– and Mum had been getting on his case more than ever this year as his grades made it clear he really wasn't making much of an effort. He was taking _divination_ of all things, which practically shouted 'I am a lazy tosser!' to any prospective employer. He and George had taken Muggle Studies and Care, though they had taken the latter mainly in the interests of learning about how to deal with animals you wanted to turn into potion ingredients and get new original prank ideas. Which had worked out pretty well for them, all things considered.

* * *

Finding out about the Triwizard Tournament had been incredibly exciting: while the twins didn't need the money now –Great-Uncle Iggy had set up an account for them as soon as they showed him the letter with their grades– it certainly wouldn't hurt, and the prospect of representing the school in an international contest was just _so_ tempting. Unfortunately they wouldn't be quite old enough, but Fred was sure an Aging Potion would fix that. Dorea just rolled her eyes when he mentioned this to her, which he took as her considering his enthusiasm to be incomprehensively Gryffindor but letting him continue unimpeded as it was his life. He was getting rather good at reading his scariest cousin. However other than the cruel and unusual cancelling of Quidditch, it was shaping up to be a good year. They had a competent Defence teacher –again! Two years in a row was impressive– had got good enough marks in their OWLs to continue with the subjects they wanted to and the Triwizard Tournament promised to be great fun even if they weren't selected as champions. As it turned out _none_ of the Slytherins were entering for some bizarre reason, there would be less competition for the rest of them.

The thing that was hardest to get used to in sixth year was attending Potions class without George. Fred had got an O in the subject but George had only achieved an E, meaning that Snape wouldn't let him in because he was a perfectionist git. The rest of the classes the two of them were continuing they shared –Transfiguration, Charms and Defence– but it felt peculiar to sit in front of a cauldron without his brother beside him. George had somehow got into music lessons and attended those while Fred was in the dungeons, so it wasn't like he was leaving his twin to his own devices, but it was still odd. Fred would have quit but George hadn't let him, insisting that he not allow George's lack of aptitude for the subject prevent him from learning new stuff. After all they could still practice together couldn't they?

Fred couldn't really argue with that logic, so he settled for making his twin help him with his Potions' homework, listening to George practice his flute and taking the time to get to know those of his year-mates who had met Snape's exacting standards. The sixth-year potions class consisted of six Slytherins, two Hufflepuffs, five Ravenclaws and Fred himself as the only Gryffindor. It was actually rather disconcerting to realise that he'd surpassed _all_ his fellow lions in this subject despite not studying nearly as hard as, say, Angelina who had only just scraped an E despite hours and hours of revising. He'd always known he had a good mind but Mum and Dad had never made a fuss over them like they did over Bill and Percy or even Charlie. But _Charlie_ hadn't made it into NEWT-level potions when he was in Hogwarts, so Fred had gone one better than his dragon-obsessed brother there.

Of course, being in Potions class made access to ingredients much easier, meaning it wouldn't be very hard at all to brew and Aging Potion to tackle the promised age-line with. However before that the other two schools had to arrive, which could only be interesting.


	33. Chapter 33

Beta'd by the fabulous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of guests and blatant cheating**

Having to stand outside the castle on the evening of the 30th of October and wait for the representatives of the two guest schools was not something Dorea was looking forward to at all, for all that she knew quite a bit about Beauxbatons due to her cousin Morgane Poincarré née Blac being a dormitory supervisor there. Beauxbatons had originally been an all-girls school modelled after a nunnery, but after the Napoleonic wars and related closure of the royalty-sponsored school in Aragon had opened a new wing so that boys could also attend. The school's population was still heavily female-dominated however, as most magical parents in Europe preferred to send their sons to La Scuola Sabina, which had a more martial and business-orientated curriculum. Beauxbatons focused more on scholarship, politics and the arts, clinging to its heritage as an institution dedicated to the production of ladies of quality.

Durmstrang on the other hand Dorea only knew about through the letters her late Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's friends still sent, though it was now Dorea's responsibility to answer them, sharing British gossip and putting forth requests of her own. She'd met about two-thirds of the people she wrote to in person, none of them more than twice, but they all seemed perfectly content to correspond with a teenager regardless of that. It made Dorea wonder quite how much her Great-Aunt had written to them about her before her death. Perhaps they enjoyed a younger perspective on things or were interested in educating the younger generation?

She knew that the Durmstrang Institute was located in northern Scandinavia and accepted students from right across Eastern Europe, but not from Russia as the Russians had their own school. This had not changed during the Muggle Cold War, as Magical national boundaries had not changed during that time. Durmstrang did not accept Muggleborns, but _did_ accept the children of Muggleborns provided they were raised within Magical society. Muggleborns in North and Eastern Europe attended trade schools regardless of their social status and intelligence, probably in part because Trade Schools had compulsory Wizarding Integration classes that Durmstrang did not. As Durmstrang was rather small getting in was considered a privilege, not a right, so getting a letter was a cause for great pride and rejoicing.

However none of this did anything to change the fact that Dorea was standing outside on a cold autumn evening, very glad for her warm winter cloak and feeling that the entire exercise was somewhat pointless. What was the point of everyone standing out in the cold like this, especially before dinner? That they had to stand with their House and Year was bad enough; it felt pointless and pretentious to wait in the dark like this. When the other schools arrived nobody would be able to see them!

"I wonder how the other two schools are coming here," Tracy mused.

"_I_ wonder how late they're going to be," Blaise muttered, huddling closer to Dorea and Theo. Blaise really did _not_ like the Scottish weather; he claimed it was far too damp to be pleasant, even on a clear evening like this.

Then Dumbledore said something about the delegation from Beauxbatons and Dorea glanced up, gasping in delight as she was the winged horses. Abraxans! A matched set too, and so well-trained! Being rather tall for her age gave her an advantage, as she was able to look over the heads of the younger students in front of her in order to admire the magnificent beasts. When the applause started she automatically joined in, then belatedly turned back to see why.

The immensely tall woman in front of the carriage was doubtless Madame Maxime, though Dorea really had to wonder about the thirteen-odd older teens shivering behind her. Hadn't they heard how abysmal the Scottish weather was? It wasn't exactly a secret! She was not surprised when their statuesque headmistress led them inside to warm up, though Dorea didn't think much of their intelligence if they hadn't thought of Warming Charms. She had Permanent Warming Wards wound into her scarf now, as did her gloves and socks. Her hat and cloak had come pre-Warded, so hadn't needed them adding. Inside her cloak Fizz mumbled irritably about '_human silliness_'. As far as the snake was concerned, hospitality should be shown by not killing the invaders of their territory and everything else was superfluous. Dorea currently lacked the inclination to argue with that point of view.

Durmstrang were clearly attempting to be fashionably late, which was falling rather flat since the French had been punctual. Dorea was about to try and sneak to the back of the crowd and back indoors when one of the lions spotted something going on in the lake: a whirlpool. Then a mast emerged from the whirlpool, followed by a slightly skeletal wooden galleon that settled on the surface as the disturbance in the water died away. Dorea was frankly amazed that the Giant Squid hadn't taken offence. The ship glided up to the bank, a gangplank was lowered and people started to descend. This party was much smaller than the one from Beauxbatons; Dorea counted eight including their headmaster. Then again, Durmstrang was a much smaller school despite its distinguished past.

As the little cavalcade came closer Dorea saw that they were dressed appropriately for the weather, which was only to be expected really considering they were from somewhere even _colder_ than Scotland. As they came close enough to be properly visible in the light streaming out of Hogwarts' massive front doors, Dorea saw that their headmaster was Igor Karkaroff, Death Eater exonerated after ratting out a dozen of his fellows. A coward, Dorea decided, but no less dangerous for that. As the late Pettigrew had proved, cowards were not to be under-estimated.

"Hey, Rhea! Look at the guy right behind Karkaroff. Isn't that Victor Krum?" Terence hissed excitedly in her ear, one hand gripping her shoulder. Dorea obligingly looked; so it was. Not that she'd ever seen him before, but she did read the newspapers –just not the _Daily Prophet_– and the famous Bulgarian Seeker had featured heavily in the sports sections in the run-up to the Quidditch World Cup back in August.

"Yes, it is," she said calmly; she suspected Victor Krum didn't think much of his fame or his more idiotic fans, if the scowl on his face was any indication. "Come on; let's go inside."

"Show a bit more enthusiasm, Rhea!" Rence pleaded, keeping in step with her and Dee as Zee led the way to the Great Hall. "He caught the snitch at the World Cup Final!"

Dorea wondered what Rence would say if she told him that she had been the baby that the mostly-late Dark Lord had tried and failed to kill and if he'd be as starry-eyed about it as he was being over Krum.

The Durmstrang students had stalled in the doorway, seemingly undecided over where to sit. The Beauxbatons students had already made themselves comfortable at the Ravenclaw table, so Dorea decided to be hospitable and changed direction, Dee at her side, and came to a halt in front of Krum, who seemed to be in charge of making decisions.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said with a polite smile, looking the older and taller boy in the eye; "I am Dorea Black, Heiress Black, and I would like to invite you and your fellow students to dine at the Slytherin table." She waved a hand over to where her fellow snakes were sitting.

"A pleasure, Miss Black," Krum said gruffly, his voice deep and harshly accented. "I am Victor Krum. Ve vould be happy to take you up on your kind offer." He offered her an arm, which she accepted. Dee took the arm of the boy behind him and they made their way over to her fellow Slytherins, all of whom were clearly delighted by her show of initiative. The Gryffindors across the room looked a bit sour, but they could have made the offer first if they'd wanted to. That they hadn't spoke of self-absorption, rudeness and the assumption that the Durmstrang students would gravitate to their table anyway because _everybody_ wanted to be in Gryffindor. Being supposedly the House of the Brave, they really should have made the first move.

Krum politely showed her onto the bench, then removed his cloak before sitting down himself, setting the heavy furs beside him. He was now sat on Dorea's left, the furs on his other side. Dee was lowered to sit opposite Dorea, while Zee had claimed the place at her right and Trey was on Dee's right. The Durmstrang students' robes were dark red, which stood out in the hall just as well as the powder-blue robes of the Beauxbatons students.

"Are the plates real gold?" the boy –young man really– who had taken Daphne's arm asked curiously as he picked one up.

"I don't think so," Theo offered, "as gold's rather soft and the cutlery doesn't damage the plates at all. They're more likely to be bronze or brass."

"Still very impressive," a red-robed girl further down the table added, looking up at the starry ceiling.

At that moment Draco sat down a few spaces down from Trey and made puppy eyes up at Dorea. Draco had been getting gradually more bearable over the past year and had taken to avoiding Pansy, who in turn was attempting to cultivate the lower years in an attempt to improve her standing. The pug-nosed girl wasn't succeeding, much to her dismay. Dorea's study-group had thus far snapped up all of the younger students Pansy considered worth cultivating and most of those she wouldn't have bothered with anyway. It had swallowed up most of the 'worthwhile' students from the other houses too.

"Cousin Rhea?" The platinum-blond asked hopefully. Dorea sighed.

"Mister Krum, may I present my second cousin, Draco Malfoy, Heir Malfoy. Draco, this is Victor Krum." Krum nodded across the table at Draco, who gave his best social smile and said,

"A pleasure to meet you; I was fortunate enough to see you at the World Cup. You fly Seeker much better than I do."

"Thank-you," Krum said tersely; Dorea got the impression he didn't much like his public.

"Sitting opposite you are Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davies," Dorea went on, "to your left is Theo Nott and to my right is Blaise Zabini. We are all fourth-years, so I don't think the Tournament will be affecting us all that much."

Krum nodded to Dee, Trey and Zee, and shook hands with Theo. "A pleasure," he said shortly. Then the staff entered, followed by Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Madame Maxine, so all conversations were put on hold until later.

* * *

By the end of the meal Krum had requested that Dorea call him 'Victor' and she had also insisted he call her by her first name and he had proved a friendly and enthusiastic conversationalist so long as his fame and Quidditch were not mentioned. By that point Dorea had volunteered herself to give him a tour of the school the following morning –since it would be a Saturday– and invited him to spend time with her friends during their study time, both of which Victor had been very amenable to. He had also told her quite a lot about Durmstrang, Bulgaria and his favourite subjects. However the very pleasant dinnertime conversation had to come to an end, as Dumbledore had stood up to announce something tournament-related.

Dorea listened to the elderly wizard with barely half an ear, though she was intrigued by the Goblet of Fire as it was another ancient artefact and likely far too dangerous to be used in such a trivial manner as it was being put to. Which reminded her: she still hadn't found Hogwarts' Lumber Room, or whatever the room or rooms used to house old, damaged or non-essential items was called. Her best bet would probably be asking the house-elves, as they would know where it was. It would be something to keep her busy with this year, considering that the compulsory Charms curriculum would only last them another fortnight at the most and the Transfiguration curriculum was unlikely to keep them busy past Valentines' Day. A room full of junk would enable her friends to pick out separate projects but still work together, as the sense of community was something she really wanted to preserve.

"Black, do you think Prewetts One and Two will still try to enter?" Rosier asked as people started getting up to leave the Great Hall.

"Yes, but I really doubt they'll succeed, since they're going to try Aging Potions," Dorea said wryly. "I can think of three ways more likely to succeed off the top of my head."

"Oh?" suddenly she had a very interested audience; even the Durmstrang students looked fascinated.

"I'll tell you all _tomorrow_," Dorea said firmly. "I don't want to get in trouble with Professor Snape for giving people _ideas_."

This got a chuckle from her friends, as Snape had taken points off her on no less than three occasions the previous year for that very offence.

"I vill look forvard to tomorrow evening then, Dorea," Victor said cheerfully, patting her on the shoulder just as Professor Karkaroff hurried over to take his students back to their ship.

* * *

Saturday proved highly entertaining, though Dorea missed seeing Fred and George make total fools of themselves due to taking Victor and three of his friends on the promised tour of the castle right after an early breakfast along with Zee, who was fluent enough in German to make intelligent conversation; German was the official teaching language of Durmstrang.

Dorea stuck to the main thoroughfares, pointed out all the trick steps and taught them a spell she had found the previous year which would let them check in advance whether a door, section of wall or staircase was Charmed in any way. As Monika had put her foot through one such trick step just a few minutes before, all four were very grateful to learn the spell. Monika then grumbled for several minutes about Hogwarts resembling 'a Muggle fun-house', which Dorea had to concede was not an inaccurate summation. The four Durmstrang students were however impressed by the portraits, tapestries, statues and suits of armour, as well as the sheer size of the building. They parted ways with Dorea after lunch, at which point the fourteen-year-old dragged Dee, Trey and Zee outside to investigate the Abraxans.

After an hour spent doting on the elephant-sized winged horses and having them dote right back, Dorea then headed over to the house-sized powder-blue carriage with the Beauxbatons crest on the doors in the hope that there would be someone willing to make polite conversation. She was not immediately successful despite her impeccable French getting her a curious audience, but two of the girls knew her cousin Morgane and agreed to meet Dorea and her friends on the coming Sunday. Dorea suspected they would show up for the opportunity to speak French to someone other than the dozen others they would be sharing quarters with for the coming year as much as anything else.

Having done her bit to socialise and encourage inter-school unity, Dorea went to spar in the Slytherin Large Duelling Hall against Rence for an hour or so. Rence favoured a defensive style in strong contrast to Dorea's more offensive one and he was more experienced, so he still beat her more often than not. She was getting better though: he had to work harder for victory now.

When dinner-time came around the Durmstrang students sat at the Slytherin table again and joined in with the rest of the snakes in trying to wheedle out of Dorea ways to fool the Goblet. Dorea eventually relented over dessert, as by that point there was no way anyone else could put their name in.

"First is the option of simply bribing an older student to put your name in," she pointed out, "which I'm sure any of you older ones would have had no trouble doing for our two redheaded mischief-makers, if only to see what they'd do next." This got a laugh. "Second, the Age Line was drawn on the stone floor so a broom to fly over the goblet would have worked perfectly well." This got a lot of groans and people hitting themselves for not thinking of it, which Dorea smirked at. "Thirdly, Enchanting the paper with your name on to fly into the Goblet."

"Would that have worked?" Draco asked curiously.

"I actually tested that last one with a blank piece of paper," Dorea admitted sheepishly; her curiosity had gotten the better of her there. "It worked."

Victor laughed and laughed, as did his fellow Durmstrang students. One boy was actually pounding his fist on the table in appreciation. "So, Dumbledore's precautions vere not as secure as he vould haff liked," the Bulgarian said with a deep, appreciative chuckle. "It is fortunate for all of us that you did not vish to enter."

Dorea pinked slightly; she wasn't used to getting those kinds of compliments. "I'm only fourteen and I promised my father that I wouldn't place myself in unnecessary peril while at school," she protested weakly.

"Rubbish, Rhea: you've got two OWLs already, are taking another one this year and could take another two at Christmas if you really wanted to," Rence said briskly. "You're brilliant and bloody dangerous in a fight: if you ever actually used lethal spells when we duel you'd wipe the floor with me."

Dorea flushed darker despite her best efforts to keep her emotions in check; puberty was _really_ annoying! Despite Rence no longer making her stomach flip-flop when he smiled, she was still more susceptible to compliments than she would have liked.

"You duel?" One of the other boys in red asked. Dorea seemed to remember his name was Michal Cybulski.

"Quite a few of us Slytherins do," Dawn said, leaning down the table to join in the conversation. "Would any of you fine fellows be interested in an unofficial tournament perhaps? Friendly-like, just to pass the time and so we can get to know each-other?" She smiled charmingly in a way that said that she knew nobody would stop her, not even Professor Snape. Cousin Dawn was Head Girl despite not having ever been prefect and her Seer-like gift for knowing what went on in peoples' heads was enabling her to keep order in Slytherin House with terrifying effectiveness. That she deferred to Dorea anytime the young Black Heiress actually wanted anything meant that this year Dorea had ascended to undisputed Queen of Slytherin, a position she was unlikely to lose in future years due to Rence, Ade, Odile Witt and Ingrid Rosier in sixth-year being friendly with Dorea as well, not to mention happy to let her take the lead despite her youth. That Dorea had singlehandedly 'reformed' the Weasley Twins into the far more bearable and moderately respectable Prewetts meant the opinionated and forceful older girl was willing to follow rather than lead.

The Durmstrang students all looked rather keen on the idea and offered a chorus of affirmatives, even Victor.

"That's settled then; I'll find us a referee then let you know where we'll be holding it. It'll probably be somewhere private, considering Dumbledore's stance on 'unnecessary violence'." Dawn scoffed slightly in uttering those final words, indicating that she did not share the Headmaster's opinion that duelling was in any way uncivilised. "So I would appreciate your not mentioning it to your headmaster, hm?"

There was something in her face that made it very, very clear that she _would_ know _exactly_ who had tattled if such a thing happened and that said individual would regret it bitterly.

"Very vell," Victor said after a measuring pause, "so long as none of us are seriously injured."

"A caveat I can agree to," Dawn said cheerfully. "I will be in touch." She then turned back to her own conversation.

"Who vas that?" Victor asked Dorea quietly.

"That is my cousin Dawn Woodmore, who is also the Head Girl," Dorea said equally quietly. "She has a knack for reading people, so don't be surprised if she says something she shouldn't know anything about."

Victor was not the only person to look concerned, but at that moment the plates vanished and Dumbledore got to his feet, distracting him and most of the rest of the table.

Dorea however ducked her head and stared into space, quietly pondering the Runes and structure of the Enchantments on the Goblet of fire, Runes and Enchantments that had been the _real _reason for her borrowing Draco's broom at three o'clock in the morning –without permission– for a short flight in the Entrance Hall. They had been very simple, very well-entrenched, completely illegal –had they not been over five centuries old– and… twisted. Somebody had bent the Enchantments ever so slightly, narrowing down the selection criteria. It had been done recently and wouldn't last for very long –Dorea gave them another six hours at most– but would hold through the selection process. She wasn't sure who had done it, as it could so easily be an extra precaution against underage students entering, but her instincts had firmly and baselessly asserted that Not-Moody was responsible.

"The Champion for Durmstrang will be Victor Krum!"

Dorea quickly joined in the applause as Victor got to his feet and slouched up towards Dumbledore before turning off into a small side-chamber.

"The Champion for Beauxbatons is Arséne Galet!" A slim, auburn-haired boy rose from the Ravenclaw table to follow in Victor's footsteps; Dorea noticed that most of the other Beauxbatons girls at the table looked extremely disgruntled; two even burst into tears.

"The Hogwarts champion is Roger Davies!" Dorea blinked in shock as a few seats to her right Tracy squealed in glee:

"My brother is Hogwarts champion!"

The ceremony over, all the students were dismissed back to their common rooms –for the Hogwarts students– or their respective residences –for the visitors. Dorea caught Trey's sleeve as they left the Great Hall.

"D'you want us to help your brother?"

Tracy hesitated. "Yes, please," she eventually said decisively. "I don't want him to die, which has happened in past tournaments, so he needs to have every possible advantage, no matter how underhanded."

"Right." Dorea decided it was time to put her well-practiced scrying skills to practical use. "Blaise, want to help me do a spot of blatant cheating?"

The Italian looked gleeful. "When do we start?"


	34. Chapter 34

Beta'd by the diligent InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of dragons and almost fatal accidents **

Exactly one week after Roger Davies was proclaimed Hogwarts' champion, a bit less than two weeks before the first task was due to take place, Dorea asked Padma if she could get Roger to come over to the classroom on the fourth floor that was the unofficial headquarters of the study group, as they had some information he would probably be interested in. Dorea then headed up that way herself, Zee carrying their scrying notes and Dee reassuring Trey that of course they'd help her brother, knowing that the rest of her core group of friends and allies would soon be joining them. Said group now included Susan, Hannah, Ernie and Justin from Hufflepuff and Terry and Anthony from Ravenclaw as well as Neville, Roger and Pavarti from Gryffindor. Sally-Anne, Fay and Lavender were in the top tier of the next group down and quite happy to stay there, as the extra work required for the main group was more than they could be bothered with. Sally-Anne did stop by sometimes though, as she was interested in learning to use Soulfire. Lisa Turpin and Mandy Brocklehurst were also in the top tier of the lower group, but in their case it was due to both ravens being more interested in subjects other than Charms and Transfiguration.

By the time Padma, Hermione and Roger Davies arrived everybody else had already paired off to practice non-verbal shielding, with the people testing the shields doing their best to use non-verbal spells as well. The insistence on non-verbal magic was a direct result of Dorea's personal definition of what meant to master a spell differing from the professors' version: she believed a truly mastered spell could be done wordlessly and preferably wandlessly as well. Of course none of her friends knew about the 'wandless' bit, but they'd noticed her tendency to practice wordlessly in second year and joined in. That wordless magic was NEWT level was something nobody in the group really believed, as it wasn't all that hard provided you learned right off not to rely on the incantation. Neville was actually very good at wordless magic, mostly because he still stuttered when overly nervous and it was easier for him to say nothing at all. That most transfiguration spells were also wordless had helped get it into everybody's heads that actually speaking a spell aloud was unnecessary.

Trey's big brother looked rather intrigued by what was going on, but did come right over to where Dorea and Trey herself were waiting with a stack of notes, a few books open at useful points, Zee sitting on the floor nearly hunched over a silver dish and scribbling on a piece of paper.

"Hello Dorea," Roger said amiably. "Padma said something about you knowing what the task was and Trey mentioned the other day that you were doing some snooping on my behalf." Roger didn't bother to even pretend he disapproved: he knew Dorea pretty well and doted on his little sister whenever he wasn't teasing her, and he was clearly interested in what they'd come up with.

"The first task is going to involve dragons," Dorea said flatly after putting up a basic Privacy Charm. "Nesting mother dragons at that. It will also involve golden eggs, so I suspect you will have to steal one of said shiny metal eggs from the nesting mother's clutch."

Roger winced, paling dramatically. "Merlin, that's… thank-you for warning me," he managed to say.

"I like Trey cheerful and carefree, so be sure I'm going to give you all the help I can to keep her like that," Dorea said firmly. "There are three different dragons: a Swedish Short-Snout, a Chinese Fireball and a Hungarian Horntail. You'll need to tailor a strategy for each breed, as they are all very different in temperament, strengths and weaknesses. I advise _against_ the Conjunctivitis Curse, by the way: blinding a dragon will only make if thrash around and behave erratically. You're better off going for a distraction, some kind of area effect or extremely effective camouflage. You could even attempt to Charm the egg from a distance, which may possibly work but shouldn't be relied on." She paused, glancing down at the extensive notes she and Zee had taken over the past four days as they had scried the dragons' progress across Continental Europe and the paperwork carried by the Handlers and Ministry Officials involved.

"The dragons should get here about a week before the task date, so you should be able to sneak out and see them for yourself in that time. They'll be kept around the back of the Forbidden Forest; we've drawn a map." She handed the sketch over, along with sketches of the three dragons and a short biography of each specific individual. Locating the Dragon Reserve's records and copying the details had been very easy once they knew what they wanted. Well, very easy for Dorea: Blaise still wasn't as capable as she was, despite being a natural at water scrying. Given time and dedication to practice he was likely to surpass her.

Roger accepted the papers. "I won't ask, okay?" He said, his attempt at a smile looking rather sickly. "Thanks again Rhea; I think I'll go do some research." He bowed briefly but sincerely and hurried out of the room. Next to Dorea Trey heaved a shaky sigh.

"Rhea? D'you think…"

"Your brother will be fine," Dorea said firmly, turning to hug her friend. "He's clever, strong and practical, so now he knows what's needed he can prepare himself for every possible contingency. Don't worry."

* * *

As the date of the first task drew closer Dorea and her friends had to spend more and more time reassuring Trey that everything would be alright. Dorea didn't blame her friend for not believing them; after all, _dragons_. All dragons were dangerous no matter their size and nesting mothers were about as dangerous as dragons could get. However four days before the task Roger crashed their study session to hug his little sister, tell her he had plans for every contingency and bow to Dorea, saying that if House Black ever needed the assistance of House Davies then aid would be offered without hesitation. Dorea had accepted politely, then teasingly ordered the older boy to make a good showing on Hogwarts' behalf. Roger had grinned, saluted then left again.

The next few days went much more smoothly, as Trey had recovered her nerve and Dorea had started asking her friends what they wanted to fill their study time with once they finished the compulsory curriculum. Hermione was all for continuing into the NEWT material, until she discovered that silent casting took up a large part of said curriculum in all the wand-based subjects and had to sit down. Zee then quietly suggested they investigate more specialised or advanced subjects like Elemental Magic, Enchanting, Alchemy… or Soul Magic. Dee had suggested Spellcrafting and Ritual, Trey had voiced an interest in Healing and Luna had mentioned Illusions. Despite being in the year below most of her friends, Luna worked very hard to keep up with them on the academic front and was petitioning to be allowed to take her OWLS early so she could graduate with Dorea's year.

This had made it very clear that there was no way they could cover everything, so Dorea had suggested that they pick one thing to all do together, then everybody pick _one_ other subject that interested them and they all do their own thing together after the joint study time. That way everyone could get outside opinions if they got stuck, do joint projects if they wanted to and so on. This had gone down very well until Hannah pointed out that they'd need a permanent, secure study area for long-term projects, which they didn't have. Dorea had rather rashly promised to solve that problem by the time they needed one, which was three weeks away. Well, two weeks technically, but Dorea had planned a party to celebrate their finishing of the Charms OWL syllabus and the house-elves were already working out a menu. Admittedly most of what was on that menu was cake, but it was still a serious business.

Dorea's plan for a study area involved her now moderately fluent skills in Parselmagic –Professor Sinistra had incidentally been ecstatic to learn of the planetarium's existence and all Astronomy lessons were now taken at a civilised hour– and some kind of keying system so her friends could get in. She didn't want there to be any _obvious_ connection to snake speech, so perhaps a charm or bracelet that would react to the spell on the door of the proposed workroom? Dorea would have to find a suitable room first, of course, but that would be easy. Hogwarts was more than half empty after all; closer to three-quarters abandoned in fact. She just had to pick out a room in an area of sufficiently low traffic that a door that no longer opened would not be commented upon. Somewhere like the East Wing on the sixth floor, as there were no classrooms in that area. Most people avoided it due to the chill that always whipped down the main corridor and the unpredictably mobile trick steps of the three staircases, the combination of which made it also very unpopular for romantic assignations. Dorea had actually figured out the trip step pattern: it had to do with prime numbers, the day of the lunar month and the number of that month in relation to the spring equinox. Rowena Ravenclaw had clearly been _very_ bored when she designed that part of the system and that the second staircase was Parsel-locked and therefore inaccessible had made puzzling out the key impossible for anybody else in the building.

Looking for an appropriate venue reminded her that she still hadn't found Hogwarts' Lumber Room, or indeed any room containing lost, forgotten, outdated or discarded items. Such things would not be thrown away –house-elves _never_ threw things away without express permission unless they were perishable and had gone rotten– so they had to be around somewhere. In her explorations of the castle Dorea had found many empty rooms, deserted corridors and forgotten statuary but very little furniture or any of the usual detritus that piled up around inhabited buildings. No dropped quills, no broken ink bottles, no damaged desks, no cracked telescopes. All that junk had to have gone _somewhere_, but Dorea couldn't find it. She might soon admit defeat and ask the house-elves, but she hadn't reached that point yet.

* * *

When the day of the first task dawned Dorea was utterly disgusted to discover that they'd have to go through an entire normal morning of lessons before it was time to go and watch her friend's brother and his fellow champions outwit a dragon apiece. How were they supposed to concentrate? Trey was having terrible trouble just sitting still, but at least it was a Charms lesson and she knew the material inside out. After Charms came fifth-year Runes, so Dorea had to leave Trey in Dee's capable hands as her house-mates went for Astronomy. Dorea was glad to be shot of Astronomy despite the glowing reports of the planetarium and how it could be programmed to show every conjunction that had ever taken place in the past thousand years and more; she knew what the room was capable and all the material already. She knew a lot of the Runes material too, but Professor Babbling at least let her do advanced study projects in class and only called on her if nobody else could answer a question. Dorea really enjoyed Runes and was looking forward to taking her OWL come the summer.

Then it was lunchtime, when Trey had to be coaxed into eating, and not long after they were streaming outside and walking around the edge of the Forbidden Forest to the massive, recently-constructed arena that was invisible from the castle. Zee and Rence had hurried ahead to get seats for the entire study group to it together in, as they all felt they had a stake and had made it clear they wanted to support Trey. Dorea just hoped there would be no nasty surprises and passed the time waiting for everyone to sit down analysing the Wards on the stands. They were good, but wouldn't stand up to sustained assault. Doubtless since the dragons in question were nesting the Warders did not expect them to wander far from their eggs, but that was not a wise assumption.

Her instincts were twitching uneasily –though that might be the entire situation that was bothering her– so she palmed her wand and passed the time going over the Heavy Shield Charm, the Russian Blizzard Charm and similar potentially useful spells in her head. Better safe than sorry or, as Not-Moody put it, 'constant vigilance!'

Dorea had made tea with Not-Moody a monthly event; on her last visit she had talked about the responsibilities involved in running an estate and the challenges faced when trying to invest money profitably; things the real Moody likely would have had no patience for but Not-Moody was a good listener and encouraging in a gruff way. He had been vaguely sympathetic to the frustration she felt in trying to convince men five times her age that she could make sensible decisions and was not a simpering weakling to be patted on the head and sent to play with her dolls, encouraging her to take advantage of their dismissal and turning it to profit her. As he pointed out, your enemies' carelessness was to your benefit.

She still didn't know who Not-Moody was or his agenda at Hogwarts, but so far all he had done was give genuinely engaging lessons –barring the whole 'let's Imperiuse the students' nonsense where Dorea's Occlumency had proved its worth– needle Professor Snape and insinuate himself into the forces responsible for the security of the tournament. While he certainly had an agenda and probably was not to be trusted, Dorea knew he bore no ill-will to any of the champions or indeed any of the students at all. He detested all of his colleagues no matter how well he hid it and positively _loathed_ Karkaroff, but Dorea didn't see how that was her business. He was the Defence teacher and he was teaching most effectively; beyond that his intentions were Dumbledore's problem.

Dorea stopped pondering the exact nature of her Defence teacher's identity as an unconscious Swedish Short-Snout was dragged into the arena by the handlers, a few more handlers following behind with their arms full of eggs. Once both eggs and dragon were set down in the very centre of the space the handlers revived it, then hurriedly fled as the massive, glittering blue creature stirred sluggishly. It wasn't even chained in place; the organisers clearly expected the dragons' maternal instincts to prevent them from going on a rampage. The organisers had clearly been stupid and stingy in their precautions, making dangerous accidents rather more likely than minor ones.

Then Ludo Bagman dashed up onto the judges panel on the side of the stadium above the champions' tent and shortly afterwards Victor Krum emerged into the arena. There was instantly massive applause; Dorea also clapped. Hopefully this would not all end in tears. Sadly the way her instincts were humming suggested that tears were almost certain; the combination of dangerous creatures and overly arrogant handling made it rather inevitable.

It nearly all went wrong right at the start: Krum used the Conjunctivitis Curse on the Short-Snout, making it howl in pain and hop erratically around the middle of the stadium with its wings flapping madly, crushing two eggs and snorting bursts of boiling fire all over the place. One of them clipped the Durmstrang champion as he dodged the rampaging dragon and tried to get closer to the nest, forcing him to pause and cast a spell on himself before grabbing the golden egg. Krum then fled the arena with his prize, barely managing to avoid being trodden on and ducking another blast of fire.

Dorea felt for the poor dragon and hoped that none of the other eggs had been damaged. What were the organisers thinking, using _real_ dragon eggs like that? It was criminal! She said as much as the handlers stunned the suffering creature and dragged both it and its eggs away. The other dragons would be able to smell the remains of the crushed eggs on the ground, which would make them edgier and more aggressive.

Krum then returned to the arena to be given his score; Karkaroff gave him a ten, but the other judges all took off points. Probably for the damaged eggs and the rampage: if the stands hadn't been Warded they would have caught fire and several people would have been barbecued.

* * *

The next dragon dragged onto the field was the Chinese Fireball, probably the smartest dragon as well as the most sociable. It also had the most diffuse breath attack, being a mushroom cloud of burning air rather than a lance of flame.

Roger then emerged from the Champions' entrance and Dorea leaned forward. She was interested in what he'd managed to come up with.

Roger did much, much better than Krum had: He started with conjuring a lot of water, then several very large eagles. The eagles then flew around the dragon's head, attacking and dodging as it snapped and snarled. Roger then Disillusioned himself as the Fireball tried to drive off the offending birds, vanishing completely from sight. By the time all the conjured birds were dealt with the golden egg had wobbled into the air and was floating away above the puddle, probably being carried by Roger if the small splashes were any indication. The dragon then noticed the floating egg and launched a mushroom cloud of fire and superheated air in its direction. It hit the water with a hiss like oil on a hot pan, forming a massive cloud of steam that cloaked the arena floor.

Once the steam had cleared Roger was visible again clutching the egg to his chest, skin looking rather red but otherwise intact. The dragon stared at him for a moment and then lost interest as the Hogwarts champion left the arena with the golden egg.

Dorea cheered loudly: he'd done far better than Krum!

* * *

The last dragon on the field was the Hungarian Horntail; Dorea felt rather bad for the French champion. The auburn-haired boy seemed rather sorry for himself too, if his trembling was any indication.

Galet started well enough, conjuring a thick chilly fog clearly intended to make the dragon sluggish. The fog was cunningly laced with scents too: Dorea could smell pine trees, moss, wet grass, rabbits and most importantly nothing to suggest human presence. There was a long, tense silence as everyone in the arena held their breath to see if it would work –not that anyone could see anything– but then there was a furious reptilian scream, a flash of fire and the fog quickly cleared to reveal the unfortunate champion fleeing across the arena, egg tucked under one arm with the dragon chasing after him.

He was running the wrong way too, at right-angles to the arena exit, right towards the section of seating that Dorea and her friends were halfway up. Seeing the Horntail take a deep breath, its yellow eyes narrowed and tail swishing furiously, Dorea realised abruptly that the Wards were unlikely to hold much longer.

"Shields!" she bellowed over the screams of the crowd.

Most of her friends heard her; that was all that saved them as fire tore through the flimsy Wards and washed over the stands, followed by a strafing crunch of the dragon's tail crushing the wood at the front like cardboard. The dragon instantly lost interest to pursue the French champion who was now fleeing in the right direction, parallel to the stands and ducking under the dragon's spiked tail as it lashed out at him. Dorea ignored the dragon in favour of conjuring water over the fires that had broken out all around them, casting Pain-Numbing Charms on those who had been burnt and trying to hustle screaming, panicking students towards the exits before the stands collapsed completely.

She was mostly successful: when the wooden construction groaned in a terminal fashion and dumped everyone still standing on blackened boards onto the rocky ground below, only fifty or so people were left groaning and coughing amongst the wreckage. The dragon was thankfully not a problem, having been stunned the instant the French champion was out of the arena. However judging by the whimpers made by certain of the blackened, sodden and unsteady students around her, quite a few people had damaged themselves. Or their wands, she corrected herself as she saw Neville totter to his feet, staring in horror at the snapped-off stub in his hand.

"Grandmother's going to _kill_ me!" he whimpered, eyes wide in his scratched and sooty face.

"Nev, Sally-Anne's broken something!" Roger Malone called out from a few yards away, distracting his friend from his predicament and sending the sandy-blond Gryffindor hurrying off to help his year-mate. Dorea set about chivvying her shocked, bruised and bleeding friends and other fellow students out from under the partially demolished stands, as it wouldn't do to have them fall down on top of them. As it was the bits still standing were creaking ominously.

Dorea rather hoped that the next task would be a bit less exciting. Such a dramatic and easily-avoided accident was not the best way to start an international event, but hopefully the next tasks would be better managed. The press were certainly going to have a field day and Dumbledore and the Ministry were going to be the ones targeted.


	35. Chapter 35

Beta'd by the adorable InsaneScriptist.

To those reviewers persisting in asking about pairings: Tsuna is currently five to Dorea's fourteen and Reborn is cursed into a two-year-old body and probably somewhere in his mid-to-late thirties. How are either of those appropriate love interests for a teenage girl?

* * *

**Of formalwear and forebodings**

Dorea had found out about the Yule Ball while scrying for details of the first task, so she already had many, many plans in motion by the time her friends found out the week following the whole dragon fiasco. Dee, Trey and Hermione were not exactly _amused_ when Dorea told them she'd known about this for nearly a month already and had actually ordered them new dress robes for the event, but they let it go because, well, free dress robes.

Hermione had been less impressed that Dee or Trey, but Dorea had bribed her with the promise of Family jewellery and a book on Magical Law, which distracted the Muggleborn ward of House Black very nicely. Zee, Theo, Rence and Draco were all a bit baffled by Dorea's insistence on buying them new dress robes, but none of them really cared and helped her gang up on the Weasley twins so they'd realise it wasn't charity or anything stupid like that but Dorea's somewhat irrational urge to get everyone to match. Luna was happy to be dressed up as she hadn't really expected to be invited anyway, Padma was bemused but going along with Dorea anyway and her Hufflepuff and Gryffindor friends agreed to let Dorea foot the bill for new outfits out of simple curiosity. Neville was the only one to object, but agreed to match the scheme once Dorea explained what she was up to.

She wound up buying dress robes for Ginny as well, since Neville had asked the youngest Weasley to accompany him to the ball. Ginny had joined the lower study group near the end of her first year and since then become a truly terrifying duellist. She was not well-rounded enough to make it into the upper study group and a lot of her time was taken up by Quidditch –she was the new Gryffindor seeker and pretty good at it too– but she was learning about Soulfire with her elder brothers' assistance and seemed to have a knack for it. In fact, Ginny could draw out more of it that her twin brothers, which resulted in a few destructive accidents before she got the flames under control.

The Yule Ball was made interesting by George asking Hermione to go with him and discovering she'd already agreed to go with someone else, which made him alarmingly temperamental for several hours before he got over himself and asked Luna, who agreed cheerfully since she was otherwise lacking a partner and wouldn't have been able to attend unless invited. Draco had actually gone down on his knees and begged Dee to save him from Pansy, which she had agreed to after a long pause just to make him squirm.

Dorea herself was going with Zee, who had asked her to go with him as friends so as to save him from the romantic machinations of the other girls. Theo asked Trey, who agreed blushingly, and Rence eventually asked Deborah, with the caveat that they were going just as friends so they both had someone to dance with. Rence knew Deborah had a 'thing' going with the recently-graduated Audric and didn't want to die yet, thank-you very much. Audric had achieved his swordsmanship Mastery before graduating in the summer and was off doing something for his family, probably something that was dubiously legal and taking place abroad.

Fred was going with Katie Bell of Gryffindor, Padma was going with Terry Boot, Sally-Anne was going with a fifth-year Hufflepuff, Lavender with Seamus Finnegan, Fay with Dean Thomas and Pavarti with Roger the Gryffindor, as opposed to Roger the Ravenclaw, Trey's brother and Hogwarts' champion, who had somehow got Dorea's Cousin Stephanie to agree to go with him. Dorea didn't know if they were friends or if this was a sign of something more, but it was still an interesting development and Trey was cheering him on for a number of reasons, mainly because Stephanie was both very pretty and very clever.

The 'buying new robes for everyone' thing was yet another thing Dorea was doing purely on instinct, but it was no less important for that. She was making sure everyone had robes that looked stunning, were easy to move –or even fight– in and were treated with an alchemical solution that made them flameproof: Soulfire-proof, specifically. The colour of the robes was selected to match the primary Flame affinity of each of her friends, though of course she was making sure the colours were shown tastefully since they were not universally flattering. Hair and skin colours had to be taken into account, after all. She was also ordering the robes a bit large, so that they could be magically fitted and later taken out again, to allow for growth. Alchemically treating fabrics like silk was a chore and a half and she wanted her efforts to still be wearable a few years down the line.

It would have been nice if there was someone other than herself wearing orange though, and the level of care required to find a shade of red that wouldn't clash horribly with Ginny's hair was almost more effort that it was worth. Her own dress at least was a deliberately muted and darkened shade of burnt orange, so as not to clash with Blaise's blue robes.

* * *

The Yule Ball was a smashing success, but Dorea found it rather tame compared to the various balls she had attended in the past and her own various birthday parties. What _did_ please her however was how thrilled all her friends were by their outfits. Lots of pictures were taken, Hermione looked _stunning_ dancing with Krum in a Black tiara studded with amethysts and Zee was amusing enough company to make up for the small orchestra leaving the stage half-way through the evening. The Weird Sisters did not interest Dorea in the slightest, so she and several friends escaped the party to hole up in one of the larger music rooms for some more dancing and a bit of singing.

The Charmed Muggle radio Dorea had brought with her on her first year at Hogwarts had started a bit of a craze for Muggle music among her friends. Her cousins had taken advantage of this and bought large numbers of vinyl records and a very good quality player to Hogwarts in her second year, so rather than listen to a Wizarding rip-off band in the Great Hall, Dorea and her friends danced and sang along to Sting, Dire Straits, Bonnie Tyler, various more recent Britpop bands like Oasis and Boyzone as well as numerous American hits of the past few years in a wide variety of styles. She especially enjoyed playing along to Meatloaf and Aerosmith.

Dorea, while a very capable pianist and perfectly able to improvise along to the radio, was however not a very good singer which was part of why she'd learned to play an instrument in the first place. Trey on the other hand had a wonderfully lush voice, Dee had a pleasantly ethereal soprano and Zee, Theo, Neville and Rence all had very nice voices in a variety of registers. Hermione was tone-deaf, which irritated her but Victor kept her from brooding too much by dancing with her to all the tunes which had a beat that allowed it. As the evening ticked on most of the Beauxbatons students and their dance partners also crashed the party alongside a good number of other Slytherins, but Dorea didn't care. They were all having fun.

Unfortunately despite all their fun on Christmas someone spoiled the experience for them: just three days later the _Daily Prophet_ ran an article on how students at Hogwarts were being 'corrupted' by Muggle Music. Rather ironically they included the names of the bands and quite a few details on the artists being railed against, catching the interest of those students who had not been let in on the Hogwarts underground music scene. As a result the Weasley twins somehow assisted in the procurement of two more gramophones and numerous new records, which were hidden in the House common rooms and widely enjoyed, but Dorea was still irritated that someone had told tales on their little get-together. She didn't think it had been any of the students either: everyone who'd come along had really enjoyed themselves, which meant the spy was probably some stuffy adult who had somehow avoided notice.

As the matter had mostly blown over by mid-January, Dorea set it aside and focused more on her studies and the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that she needed to be taking more than just her Runes OWL come the summer.

* * *

Dorea didn't actually pay much attention to the rumours surrounding the approaching second task, as she was mulling over her OWL issues and trying to work out what was preventing her from actually physically manifesting her Soulfire. She knew she had it, she just couldn't coax it out like her friends were managing to. The book Abraxas had left her seemed to be insinuating that she didn't _want_ it enough, which was frustrating but didn't actually help her. So Dorea set actually learning to use Soulfire aside for a little while in favour of returning to _The Invisible Book of Invisibility_ and a book on Ritual Magic she'd found in her inheritance from Uncle Cygnus. The Rituals book was old, battered and had no title, but it was a goldmine of explicit and very useful information on crafting your own rituals from scratch, something that had long since gone out of fashion in favour of more generic, reliable and widely known rituals.

The third book she was currently reading was another of the volumes inherited from Abraxas, this one a collection of eyewitness accounts of users of 'the Flames of the Will' through recorded history. Most of the more recent users were connected to the Italian Underworld, specifically the Mafia, and there were accounts in the back of the book which had actually been written by Abraxas himself. The Chronicle contained a lot of information that other people would likely kill to keep secret, so whoever the late Lord Malfoy had inherited from had either trusted Abraxas implicitly or had died before being able to destroy it. Dorea actually felt the former was more likely; looking back she suspected Abraxas had been a Soulfire user himself and had seen in her the potential to do likewise. Nothing else explained his last birthday present to her.

* * *

When the day before the second task arrived Dorea was summoned up to the Headmaster's office, where she learned what the task involved.

"So, Headmaster," Dorea said with deliberate clam, "you will be Enchanting a Ward of my House and placing her at the bottom of the Black Lake, in the middle of winter, for a champion to retrieve." As a Ward of House Black and specifically _Dorea's_ Ward, they had to ask her before using Hermione. That they wouldn't have had to ask her parents was part of the reason Dorea felt that the Ward system really needed to make a comeback; Muggleborns had fewer rights than Wizard-borns, though under-age orphans had even less.

"That's right, my dear," Dumbledore said jovially.

"I request that you not refer to me so familiarly, Headmaster," Dorea said quietly but clearly, "as we are not sufficiently well-acquainted to justify it. Will Hermione Black-Granger at any point be in danger of illness, injury or death?"

"Of course not!" Ludo Bagman said earnestly.

Dorea pinned the man with a hard stare and raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Will you so swear to me on your magic, Ludo Bagman?"

"Er–" put on the spot, the Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports looked rather more nervous that his initial assurances warranted.

"Because if not, I cannot justify such carelessness concerning the wellbeing of a Ward of House Black," Dorea went on with deceptive mildness.

"Perhaps a compromise would be possible, Miss Black?" Dumbledore suggested. "After all, an oath is rather a drastic measure when she might fall prey to minor injury where Mr Bagman cannot prevent it, such as at the hands of the champion tasked with her rescue."

"I consider an oath to be a _minimal_ safety feature, Headmaster," Dorea said coolly, "as it provides incentive to the one swearing it. Hermione is of House Black and we take such things _very_ seriously."

Headmaster Karkaroff looked caught between outrage and approval at her very explicit doubt in the capabilities of the planners to keep her Ward safe and had not yet spoken up beyond informing her that he wanted Hermione to be the hostage Victor would be retrieving. Dorea suspected that he hadn't known the Muggleborn girl was a Ward of House Black and that he'd deliberately selected somebody semi-expendable whose wellbeing wasn't his responsibility. Otherwise he might have chosen somebody else despite Victor rather obvious attachment to Hermione following the Yule Ball.

"Would it perhaps assuage your concerns if the Enchantments were placed by someone in particular?" Dumbledore ventured eventually, following a long pause in which he had gazed at her disappointedly and Dorea had refused to entertain even an inkling of shame. "I could perform them if you preferred?"

"I would prefer them to be cast by Professor Moody," Dorea said calmly, well aware of the insult she was offering the headmaster of her school, "as I know that he has the wellbeing of his students as a primary concern. Following the events of my first two years here I find I do not trust you as much as I would like, Headmaster Dumbledore."

Dumbledore seemed to age before her eyes at this pronouncement. "Very well, Miss Black, if that is your preference I will ask Alastor to do so. Will you be requesting that he swear an oath?"

"Naturally; I also expect to be present at the time that my Ward is enspelled so I can accept his oath in person," Dorea said pleasantly. "Will that be all Headmasters, Mr Bagman?" When none of the three responded she rose to her feet. "Then I shall take my leave. Good evening, gentlemen."

After taking Not-Moody's oath the next morning that Hermione would be spelled against any harm that could feasibly come to her while underwater in the care of the Merfolk and seeing the other girl Enchanted, Dorea went back to her dorm for a book before making her way out to the stands above the lake. In true 'Idiot Wizard' fashion there wouldn't actually be anything to see during this task, so wrapping up warm and having something to read was the only sensible option. Dorea took a German novel she'd been given for Christmas, since she didn't want her extracurricular reading to come to her teachers' attention. Seeing her with a book prompted a large number of her fellow snakes to go back to their dorms and do likewise, the OWL and NEWT students in particular. Seeing so many Slytherins carrying books sent a solid percentage of badgers and ravens in search of reading material as well, which was all the better.

Dorea barely noticed the beginning of the task, so engrossed was she in her reading, and when it ended a little over an hour later she only glanced up for long enough to see how the champions had scored before setting her book aside and leaving the stands. It was cold, windy and unpleasant sitting around outside in Scotland in mid-February and she wasn't going to do it for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

* * *

It was Easter when Dorea finally wrote to her father, explaining about her ever more insistent instincts and how she wanted to take more than just her Runes OWL come June. Specifically, Dorea intended to take Muggle Studies, Charms and Transfiguration in addition to Ancient Studies and Music. Art was assessed based on the works she had produced, and her Art Professor had already told her that she had a sufficient portfolio to gain an O, should she chose to submit it. Music was performance based and Dorea was confident in her skills, so that at least would be easy. Transfiguration would give her the most difficulties, but she was certain she would pass and that an E was not beyond her skills, though she was unlikely to gain an O. However the urgency she felt was such that Dorea was unwilling to wait the extra year required for a perfect score; an E would be sufficient.

Arithmancy, Herbology and Defence would have to wait, but Dorea was not overly concerned by that. Self-study would get her ahead in the first, the second was more of a recreational activity than anything else and the last was not really a proper subject at all, covering a mishmash of offensive spells, legalities and creatures considered 'dark' rather than being a class on Battle Magic as it was supposed to be. The discreet combat classes held in the Slytherin Duelling Halls and occasionally the Hogwarts Armoury were closer to the original class the founders had instated than the current Defence course.

Dorea explained her intentions to her friends in the study hall on the sixth floor she'd appropriated and Charmed against intruders. Parselmagic was highly effective in guarding locations, as well as in medicine, fertility magic and truly unpleasant curses. Each of her friends had a charm that let them in to the East Wing in conjunction with their own specific Soulfire affinity, which was as effective a precaution against theft as Dorea could manage. Despite her extra studies, some spells were still beyond her.

Neville, Susan, Hannah and Ernie had been the most difficult to crate charms for, as unlike the rest of her friends their Soulfire was attuned to Earth rather than Sky. Most Soulfire –if people had it at all– was Ethereal, in that it held the qualities of the air. It blended slightly towards fire at one end and heavily towards water at the other, but air was what all seven types had in common. Earth-natured Soulfire was much rarer, with a subdued fire leaning at one end of the spectrum and a moderate water one at the other. It was also denser, harsher and harder to call into motion. Dorea was heavily orientated towards pure Air, placing her in the middle of the Sky spectrum with an affinity for Harmony. This meant she could theoretically sublimate her own Soulfire to match any of the other types, but making her charms resonate with the heavier Earth flames took a great deal of effort as it was. That she couldn't hold onto her flames for more than a few seconds at a time was beyond frustrating.

Dorea suspected that being Earth-natured also had effects on a person's magic: those of her friends with Earth-type Soulfire were not very good at all at the simpler Charms requiring little power and fine control, but were coming into their own as the magic they were being taught required greater power and slightly less finesse. There was also a general trend towards being skilled in Herbology, leading Dorea to wonder if Helga Hufflepuff had been an Earth-orientated Soulfire adept.

Hermione couldn't understand why Dorea would want to take her OWLs before she was really ready for them, but agreed to help her study nonetheless. Dee, Trey and Zee were all supportive, Theo wanted to know if she was thinking of skipping fifth year altogether and Luna just agreed that Dorea could easily get enough OWLs this year to not have to return to Hogwarts come the following Autumn. This raised a bit of an outcry, but it died down quickly when Sally-Anne shared that following her OWLs her parents would be marrying her off to Gabriel Truman, who had graduated from Hufflepuff at the end of their second year. Sally-Anne would not be sitting her NEWTs unless her husband paid for a private tutor –which he probably would considering he was a badger– and even then her studies would come second to the children she was expected to provide.

Padma then explained to an outraged Hermione that it was rather normal for girls of lower-ranking Magical families to drop out after their OWLs, as in many cases they had only been admitted to Hogwarts in order to find a decent husband and integrate into the upper classes a bit. Lily Moon in Ravenclaw was another such, as was Megan Jones, and there were many more such girls in the years below them. Dee then stepped in to explain firmly that the parents of these girls wanted the best for them, but the Wizarding World did not offer many jobs for women beyond being governess, nursery maid, seamstress, shop assistant, secretary or researcher, none of which were really 'respectable' for the noble yet only moderately wealthy. Large, established and affluent families could afford to let the womenfolk of the main branch do as they pleased –the Blacks being an excellent example– but otherwise personal freedom was only available to the working class and the comfortably middle-class lacking in upwardly-mobile aspirations.

Dorea then gently explained to Hermione that the reason the Weasleys had been allowed into Hogwarts was that they were the latest generation of the very noble and upper-crust Prewett family. Their mother Molly Weasley née Prewett was the only one of her siblings to have children –or indeed live long enough to marry– so her children had inherited the 'right' to attend Hogwarts despite their father being a fourth son. Unless they made it big by themselves and could afford to pay the fees, none of the children of the current generation of Weasleys would make it into Hogwarts. Ginny was expected to marry well, but was unlikely to find herself in a marriage contract due to her parents' rather disturbingly lax attitude towards traditions. Not that a contract was a _good_ thing, Dorea hastened to add, but ignorance of tradition would put off a lot of people where Ginny was concerned as it was seen as not respecting the social niceties and ignorance was never attractive, for all that she and her twin brothers had picked up quite a bit over the past year or two.

Hermione then asked what _she_ had to look forward to after Hogwarts, at which point Dorea had to come clean on the whole 'Ward of House Black' thing and what that actually _meant_. In this case, it meant that Hermione could do whatever Dorea sponsored her into doing, since Dorea was the heir of an Ancient and Noble House and people would be tripping over themselves to do her favours. Hermione would only be limited by her own ambitions and Dora's goodwill. Not even Dorea's own father could limit Hermione's choices, because it was Dorea, not Lord Black, who was her sponsor.

The Muggleborn girl looked utterly gobsmacked.

"Taking in Muggleborns as Wards of Houses is a very old tradition," Dorea went on a little nervously, "and rather popular a until few centuries back as it kept the power concentrated in the Ancient Families and brought in new blood without diluting the traditions. However when a lot of families started losing money back at the end of the nineteenth century sponsorship started to dwindle, and the Grindelwald War pretty much put an end to it. I'm hoping that by sponsoring Hermione other families will take up the practice again, as it ensured that Muggleborns were properly educated and supported within our culture and got the positions their education made them suited for."

Hermione's eyes shone with unshed tears as she lunged at Dorea, hugging the taller girl around the neck. "Thank-you, Dorea," she hiccupped, "_thank-you_. I'm going to go into Law. That way I can sort through all the old, forgotten legislation floating around and make the system more comprehensible so things actually _work_."

Dorea patted her friend on the back. "That sounds like a wonderful idea," she said sincerely. "Would you like me to find you more books on Law?"

Hermione pulled back, wiping her face with a handkerchief. "Yes please," she sniffed. "I am going to ensure the legal system is clear enough that people _can't_ wriggle out of their responsibilities!"

Dorea honestly couldn't wait to see what kind of chaos Hermione threw up in her wake. It was bound to be massively entertaining.


	36. Chapter 36

Beta'd by the admirable InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of discoveries and dying will **

Studying for the OWLs her father has agreed to let her take, keeping up her recreational reading, sparring and trying to access her Soulfire did not take up _all_ of Dorea's time: she was still looking for the Hogwarts Lumber Room after all so time was set aside to that in addition to her other responsibilities. She was fairly certain it would be in the upper reaches of the castle, because the best place to store things you did not need right now was well out from underfoot. Hogwarts was built at the very end of the tenth century, but it wasn't built all at once: her books had told her that much.

There had been three major construction phases, two before and one after Slytherin left. The first phase had built the Great Hall, the basement and the first three floors of the main castle, not including the windows which were a much later addition. The original windows had been much smaller. The second phase had added in the extended dungeon levels, the outer courtyards, most of the towers including those for the dormitories and the fourth to sixth floors of the main building. The seventh floor had only existed as a flat stone roof edged with battlements.

The third phase had been what turned Hogwarts from a fortified military outpost where children were taught into a proper school, and it had been almost entirely Rowena Ravenclaw's work, largely because she had been the only founder still in residence at that time. Well, the only founder still _officially_ in residence. A proper roof had been put over the top storey, covered walkways had been added in between buildings for ease of access, the Main Staircase had been installed and dozens of extra passageways had been put in. The passageways made fortifying the castle interior against invaders practically impossible, since you could get everywhere and anywhere within five minutes if you knew all the secret ways, but it did turn what had been a military installation into an educational establishment. The trick steps, moving stairs and unreliable doors were Rowena's response to the reduced security, but they would not help against an enemy who knew the building. Then again, Hogwarts had originally been fortified to protect the students from Muggles, not other wizards.

There had of course been multiple later building regimes, such as the one that put the massive gothic windows in during the fourteenth century and the most recent in the late eighteenth century, when the plumbing system and bathrooms were installed. However it was the original third construction phase that interested Dorea, as installing a roof meant having an attic and attics were a traditional location for storage. The seventh floor had later been turned into a proper school level with ceilings rather than just exposed rafters, but it was still technically the attic. Hence Dorea ambling along a seventh floor corridor, thinking about where a room for things no longer in use might be in between taking note of the tapestries.

It was as she was walking past the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy for the third time that Dorea saw a door that had not been there before. Pausing, she approached it and tried the handle. It opened easily and her instincts did not seem to suggest she was in danger, so Dorea walked inside.

It took her a moment to compose herself: she had found what she was looking for! It was also much, much larger than she'd expected, so multiple trips would likely be necessary to properly evaluate its contents. For one it was easily the size of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and for another the entire space was divided up into corridors by the piles and piles of junk that stretched out like stacks in a library, higher than she could reach and further than she could see. Looking around curiously at badly damaged furniture, books of all ages and states of disrepair, cauldrons, decaying clothing and a wide variety of banned items like Fanged Frisbees, some of which were still hovering half-heartedly above the walls of forgotten possessions.

Deciding to explore methodically, Dorea produced a notebook and quill and started walking down the front of the 'stacks', headed for a wall. As she walked she scribbled down the 'corridors' she passed, noting down particularly distinguishing features as she went. Hopefully the room's interior did not move about much, so mapping it would actually be a worthwhile activity. While she had persuaded Remus and her Papa to teach her the Mapping Charms they'd used for their map, she had not actually created her own full Hogwarts map and instead simply plotted out the various parsel-locked passages.

* * *

She was about halfway down the fourth walkway from the far left when her forehead prickled. Tensing, Dorea set her half-sketched map away in her shoulder bag and closed her eyes, feeling for the source of the disturbance as she tentatively shuffled in various directions. Judging the Horcrux –because there was nothing else it could be– to be at least one stack over to her left, Dorea hurried up to the next junction then back down again to where the feeling was strongest.

It was stronger, but another stack over still. Dorea repeated the manoeuvre, pausing in front of a cupboard that had been badly damaged by someone throwing potion over it. On top of the cupboard was a singularly ugly bust wearing a dusty old wig that had to be at _least_ two hundred and fifty years old. Neatly set upon the wig was a tiara. Actually, a diadem: Ravenclaw's Diadem. It was also the source of the evil her Ward could sense.

Dorea stared hatefully at the horrid thing, her mind running around in circles. She had lost Grandpa Arcturus _and_ Great-Auntie to these abominable things, so just pocketing it, hiding it in her trunk and taking it home would inevitably lead to the death of Auntie Lucretia or Uncle Iggy. She could take it down to Baz, but that would destroy it and Dorea was actually rather interested in _studying_ another founder's heirloom. The Cup had proved to have a number of intensely interesting and unique Enchantments on it pertaining to the neutralisation of poisons, all of which Uncle Iggy had documented and was working out how to replicate. The Diadem had supposedly provided wisdom, but Dorea suspected it imbued the wearer with additional senses, like empathy for instance, and possibly something similar to her own peculiarly accurate instincts.

One thing was certain: the soul fragment _had_ to go. Even if it killed her, it _would_ go!

Even as this resolution settled in her mind Dorea felt a prickling in her fingertips and forehead that was entirely different to the angry sting of the Blood Ward: looking down, she glimpsed pale orange flames dancing over her hands.

Soulfire.

Dorea did not even pause to think: she palmed her holly wand with her left hand even as her right reached up to grasp the diadem, yellow-edged orange flame dancing over the relic as she set it on the ground in the confined space between the stacked junk. Dorea then traced the only Exorcism Ward she knew around the tiara, both magic and Soulfire emerging from the gently smoking tip of her wand to burn fiercely on the grey stone.

Taking three careful steps back, Dorea focused her resolve, gritted her teeth and began the identification and unravelling process she had watched her Great-Aunt carry out three Christmases ago. The magic from her wand burned orange rather than pale silver, but Dorea barely had a moment to notice that before the howling, shrieking cloud of black seeped from the diadem like pus from a wound and pushed at her magic in a way that made her stomach roll and her legs tremble. The Ward roared higher, searing yellow across her skin as she narrowed her eyes and pushed back, wand twitching through the patterns of untangling and unravelling.

It hurt. It seared across her skin like nothing she had ever experienced before, burning and sapping her strength and eating away at her mind. Dorea ignored the pain and the loss of faculties, focusing doggedly on the task to hand.

_I will unravel this Horcrux if it is the last thing I do_.

The orange flames burned brighter and more intensely, turning a dark, almost reddish shade as they spiralled out away from her wand tip to fall across the surface of the Diadem. The soul shard screamed, writhing away from the brightness as Dorea continued onward, her instincts now bright and crystal-clear. Her smoking wand danced in her fingertips, the spells imprisoning the soul fragment in the diadem unravelling before her eyes. The shrieking rose higher into a terrible wail, then the Exorcism Ward flared and vanished, taking the soul shard with it.

Dorea stared stupidly at the diadem, then stumbled forwards as her exhaustion hit her all at once. As she fell forwards her wand disintegrated in her hand, the wood melting away to ash and sliding through her fingers. The phoenix feather that had been at the wand's core floating in the air for a moment, a fiery streak of red and gold above her orange-wreathed hand, then dropped down onto her skin.

If unravelling the Horcrux had hurt, this was worse. It felt like her hand had been cut open and set on fire. She couldn't even scream; a faint wheezing gasp echoed in her ears as she tumbled to the ground and curled up on her side, cradling the injured limb. The orange flames were snuffed out, leaving behind the familiar yellow of the Ward dancing over the livid scarlet burn running over her left hand from the tip of her forefinger to halfway along her forearm.

As the comforting yellow flames receded so did the pain, leaving Dorea trembling and almost hyperventilating in the wake of the experience. Where the burn had been was now a thin, feathery pink scar and she felt as though she'd had all her magic scooped out with a ladle. Hands trembling and feeling unnaturally cold, Dorea clumsily shoved the now Horcrux-free diadem into her bag and stumbled off towards where she knew the exit to be. She'd have to stash her bag at the top of one of the parsel-locked passages so as to prevent anybody taking her prize, but she really, really needed to get to the Hospital Wing before she passed out.

As it happened there was a convenient passageway that ran from the seventh floor to very near the entrance to the hospital wing, so Dorea dropped her bag at the top and stumbled down it, breathing harsh and legs shaking at every step. She had to keep moving; falling over here would result in her never waking up again, she _knew_ it with the same certainly that applied to gravity. If she stopped here nobody would find her before her body was long gone to bones and dust. Putting one foot in front of another down the staircase was quite possibly the most challenging thing she'd ever done, surpassed only by the effort involved in avoiding the trick step four stairs from the bottom of the flight.

Stumbling out from behind a statue, Dorea tripped over the edge of the carpet, swayed drunkenly and staggered towards where she knew Madam Pomphrey was. The doors to the Hospital Wing were right there…

Dorea passed out just as she touched the doors, falling forward through them to land heavily on the floor. She was oblivious to the matron hurrying to her aid, the diagnostic spells cast and the summons sent to Professor Snape; not even the castle collapsing about her ears could have woken her then.

* * *

Neville sat in the Hospital Wing, hands clenched tightly around the book he was trying to read and eyes darting between his current page and the pale, still form of his cousin Rhea lying on the bed next to his chair. He and the rest of the study group had been summoned to the Hospital Wing by professor Snape right after his cousin had been admitted and the Professor had demanded they tell him everything they knew about how Dorea had wound up magically exhausted with most of her sleeves burned off. None of them had said a word about Soulfire of course –it was after all _illegal_ if not technically dark– but every last one of them had a blistering lecture in mind for when their friend and leader woke up again.

They'd all known Dorea was having difficulty calling on her inner flames for more than the smallest of tasks, but it wasn't like she was the only one: Tracy was struggling to call on more than a faint glow, Daphne didn't seem to be able to call hers out at _all_ and Luna had the opposite problem in that her flames kept on springing into life when she wasn't paying attention and muddling her perception of reality. What they were doing was in no way easy for _any_ of them, but they'd all been careful not to push themselves too far.

Except for Dorea, who had clearly overstrained herself and nearly died. Her school uniform was missing half its right sleeve, all of its left sleeve and a portion of the left shoulder, as was the blouse she had been wearing underneath. Her wand was missing –possibly it was with her also-missing schoolbag– and she had a new scar on her left hand that looked much older than was plausible. Her skin, usually so warm, was faintly cool to the touch and with her vibrantly green eyes closed her face looked empty and much younger than usual. It was her hair that bothered Neville though: Dorea usually sported a mop of almost unmanageable curls that she kept tightly braided down her back, leaving just a few bangs to bounce around her face. Those bangs were currently lying almost flat, falling down the pillow in gentle waves and looking much longer than usual.

She had been unconscious for two whole days and the rumours about what had happened to her were getting wilder and wilder. Neville had never really put together the number of people Rhea chatted to on a regular basis, but seeing a solid two-thirds of the school visit her bedside in clumps and groups was rather sobering. Even those who didn't know her personally had detoured past to peer in, though that may have been morbid curiosity rather than genuine concern. The gifts gradually piling up at her bedside were another clue: instead of the usual mountain of sweets there were small, stylish gift boxes of expensive chocolates, a large bunch of flowers in a vase and a neat stack of envelopes that probably contained notecards bearing condolences and well-wishes. There were a few cheery cards and a single box of sugar quills, but they looked slightly out of place among the more subdued and tasteful offerings.

All in all, it was very clear that the people concerned for his cousin were all people who knew her, knew what she liked and had taken pains to find things she would enjoy. Considering how much those chocolates cost, Neville suspected her friends had pooled their sickles in groups of eight or ten so as to be able to buy just one of those elegant little boxes.

Neville briefly glanced from his cousin's face to the headboard, where her owl was perched. According to Madam Pomphrey, Moros had arrived in the Hospital Wing even before Professor Snape and had since refused to leave, the huge and frankly intimidating bird eyeballing all of his mistress' visitors and keeping watch over her stack of correspondence. Fizz, Rhea's snake, had not been with her at the time of the incident, being nearly eight feet long and a bit large to be carried around everywhere nowadays. However the boomslang had spent the past two days hanging over one or other of the Weasley twins, usually George, and looking caught somewhere between concern and exasperation in so far as that was possible for a snake. Currently said twins were being Prewetts One and Two, but that may simply have been due to their snake-sitting and preventing people from connecting George with Jerry Prewett, as it was 'Jerry' who usually had Fizz hanging over him.

Since Fizz was not insisting on guarding his mistress as Moros was, Neville suspected that whatever had happened was properly over, with no loose ends lying around to come back and bite them. However the business of the missing wand _did_ bother him, as his cousin usually kept it in her sleeve. Had she accidentally destroyed it? Some varieties of Soulfire were more destructive than others, as Ginny had proven by accident when she disintegrated half her history textbook beyond all hope of repair.

After the fiasco at the first task Neville had been one of a dozen students in need of a new wand, the purchase of which had been subsidised by the Ministry since the failure of the wards on the stands had been their fault. His new wand worked much better for him that the one he'd inherited from his father ever had and his performance in class had shot up accordingly. His new wand was cherry wood and unicorn hair and it felt much better in his hand than his father's wand ever had.

Neville was drawn from his musing by his cousin stirring slightly. She'd done this several times over the past few days, eyelids flickering as she shifted into a new position, but this time was different: her breathing had changed. Neville quickly set aside his book and leaned forwards.

"Rhea?"

Brilliant green eyes blinked hazily before focusing on him. "Neville?"

Neville glared at his cousin. "What on _Earth_ where you doing that depleted your magic like that? You nearly died! Never do that to me again!"

Dorea's jaw dropped slightly. "Neville?"

"I mean it!" The Longbottom heir stormed on, all of his frustrations at his cousin's secretiveness coming to a boil, "We're your _friends_, Dorea! Your _family_, even! You can _tell_ us things and we'll _support_ you! Always! I don't care _what_ you're getting up to when you sneak off so long as you _never_ do this to me ever again!"

His cousin shuffled slowly into a sitting position, her expression mildly chagrined. "Sorry Neville," she said meekly.

"Does that mean you'll stop hoarding secrets?" He demanded, looking her firmly in the eye.

"Er, yes?"

"Is that a question or a statement?"

Dorea's lips twitched feebly. "A statement. I'll tell you everything that's not being kept secret to protect other people, okay? You and those of the others prepared to swear secrecy. I can't tell everyone because not everyone knows how to defend their mind."

Neville decided that was good enough, at least for now. They had after all covered the basics of Occlumency in their study group, mainly in the interests of improving recall, but it had the happy side-effect that they would all notice intruders in their mind. That Dorea considered her secrets too dangerous to share might just have been Black paranoia, but then again it might not. After all, a lot of people _were_ out get her for any number of reasons.

"Fine," he said, "I forgive you then. But Daphne, Blaise and several of the others want to yell at you as well. What in Merlin's name were you thinking Rhea?"

Rhea looked a bit embarrassed. "Neville," she said in tones of mild horror, "I don't think I _was_ thinking!"

Neville blinked, considered this admission of flagrantly Gryffindor behaviour, glanced over at his cousin's expression of abject mortification and burst out laughing.


	37. Chapter 37

Beta'd by the educational Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of truth and preparation**

Dorea was not allowed to leave the Hospital Wing for another two days, time in which both Madam Pomphrey and Professor Snape attempted to guilt her into telling them what had happened. Well, Madam Pomphrey tried more than once; Professor Snape just glared at her and gave her detention after her initial refusal. Dorea spent the unexpected downtime going over her friends in her head and deciding which ones she trusted with the secrets which had to _remain_ secret and how to tell the secrets which she had kept simply because she didn't think they'd be well received, the true identity of Voldemort being an example of the latter. Telling them flat was out of the picture, but if she worded it just right they'd forget all about her dramatic collapse and Hospital Wing stay, as it would be old news.

By the time she was released from durance vile –ahem– bed rest Dorea had come to a decision. She would tell the combined study-group –all forty or so of them– about the true identity of the Dark Lord and his crimes against magic. That would distract the younger students and the gossips, enabling her to gather her core group of close friends, get their oaths and tell them about her heritage, the unnecessary prophecy and her family's plans for Wizarding Britain. After all, she actually _had_ a plan now.

Her Papa knew something of her plan, as he had recently amended his will to state that Dorea would be permitted to select her own husband and that said husband would have to take on her names in all matters pertaining to British Magical Society. Said husband would be Lord Potter –as the Potters were all about sharing responsibilities– and Consort Black, because Blacks did _not_ share. He would however get an allowance, access to all Black assets and properties and a say in the Family's investments. With a bit of luck Dorea wouldn't need to marry until she was twenty at least, but it was good to be prepared considering that starting from her next birthday proposals would be flying thick and fast. She'd be fifteen and of marriageable age then.

Dorea hoped to find a man she could fall in love with, but if not she was prepared to settle for someone who accepted her and was willing to treat marriage as a working partnership. If it came to it she could always marry Rence, as he still obviously loved her for all that said love was completely platonic and more 'knight to liege-lady' than 'husband to wife'. Blaise was her brother so marrying him would just be _wrong_, never mind that the very _idea_ of marriage gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies. Blaise's aversion was perfectly understandable, considering his mother had been widowed for the sixth time –shortly after Christmas– due to her husband dying of an unexpected allergic reaction to dittany. Draco was far too closely related to consider –plus he didn't see her that way– Theo was too cold and hands-off to be a good father to eventual children and both Weasley Twins had their eye on other girls.

Hopefully Hermione would get over Victor's sincere but not genuinely romantic admiration of her person soon and notice that George was smitten with her. Fred was still dating Katie Bell, but Dorea wasn't sure that would last considering how invested both twins were becoming in her study group and social circle. Katie preferred to have nothing to do with Dorea and was possibly holding a grudge over the whole Prewett business. Katie had not been happy when her Quidditch team-mate had dyed his hair and hidden in Slytherin house, far away from his friends, when the other twin had been Petrified. That Dorea didn't think Katie knew which twin it was who had done so didn't seem to matter; the older girl still resented the Black Heiress for the trust both twins had in her. Dorea didn't really understand the continued resentment, but chalked it up to alien Gryffindor thought processes.

* * *

Blaise wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting when Rhea called together everyone belonging to both study-groups, her relatives and friends in the upper years for an 'explanation'; he certainly hadn't expected a potted history of the Dark Lord. Or, as Blaise decided to refer to him in future, the Dark Idiot. The Zabinis had a long and colourful history that included no small number of Dark Lords and Ladies, but none so stupidly short-sighted as Tom Riddle. The concise explanation of his heritage, upbringing, career and attempt to escape death was all in all somewhat horrifying, especially when Rhea made it clear that Dumbledore could have taken steps to eliminate him before he ever became a problem yet had refused to dirty his hands.

He had to admire his best friend really: she had certainly won the crowd over with her description of the Dark Idiot as 'a Muggle-raised madman with daddy issues, no respect whatsoever for our culture and values' as well as pointing out that he was 'so utterly terrified of dying he broke the most fundamental tenet of our society: the sanctity of the soul'. It was all such juicy gossip, so outrageous that just about everyone forgot to ask what this had to do with Rhea winding up unconscious in the Hospital Wing in favour of hurrying off to write home or tell their friends. His friend had likely planned it that way, something most of her acquaintances wouldn't realise as Rhea was usually rather open and direct about her manipulations.

"So," Blaise asked once only himself, Dee, Trey, Theo, Hermione, Padma, Susan, Hannah, Ernie, Neville, Roger, Sally-Anne, Ginny, Rence, Fred, George and unexpectedly Odile Witt remained in the room along with Dawn, Deborah, Gregory, Stephanie and Leo –as Anthony Black's friends had taken to calling him– who as Rhea's Black relatives could tell when something fishy was going on. Draco had left, no doubt to write to his father. Draco was, according to Dorea, far too Malfoy to notice subtleties in his other relatives and far too dependent on his father's opinions.

"Why is the true and scandalous blood-status and identity of the Dark Idiot relevant to your passing out of magical depletion?"

Rhea closed the door of the Armoury, which had been the only easily accessible room both large enough for this discussion and entirely lacking in portraits. "I mentioned that Riddle had split his soul in the pursuit of immortality; he then put the pieces in Soul Traps, so as to anchor himself to the physical plane. I found one of these Soul Traps in Hogwarts and destroyed it."

"By _yourself_?" Blaise couldn't help the anger that coloured his voice. "_Mio dio_, Rhea, what were you thinking!"

Rhea huffed. "I was thinking that I've already lost two relatives to destroying the damned things and I wasn't going to watch anybody else die!" She retorted sharply, hands clenched into fists.

Ginny gasped. "The diary! It was… I was possessed by a piece of V-v-voldemort's _soul_?" Her elder brothers immediately moved closer and hugged her tightly.

Rhea bowed her head. "Yes," she said quietly, "and I knew it from the moment the Chamber was opened. My family have destroyed four between them, costing me my grandfather and my great-aunt. Now I have destroyed a fifth, meaning there is only one left and then the Dark Lord will be fully mortal. If he is still incorporeal when the last Soul Trap is unravelled he will simply leave this plane, but if he is corporeal he will be mortal and just as killable as everybody else. More so, in fact: being broken in soul will limit him both mentally and magically and makes him incredibly vulnerable to Soulfire."

"You mean to kill him," Dee said quietly.

Rhea lifted her head; Blaise heard several gasps as her eyes glowed with orange fire in the dim room. "House Black has sworn to see him dead for his crimes against the Family," his best friend said in tones of terrifying gentleness. "If it be by my hand, then so be it."

"But why are _you_ so invested?" Odile Witt asked, eyes slightly narrowed. "Your father I could understand; he is after all Lord Black. Why is it your family has given _you_ the necessary knowledge and skills to defeat the Dark Lord?" Odile was one of Rence's fellow sixth-years, Pucey's fellow Slytherin Prefect and both brilliant and secretive without any actual friends. Blaise wasn't quite sure why she was still here, beyond her being far too canny to be distracted by gossip and having a bit of a fixation with knowing what was going on around her.

Rhea paused, turned and _hissed_ at the door, waving her left hand. The scar across it briefly glimmered before fading away again, giving the Italian an inkling as to what might have happened to his friend's still-missing wand.

"Before I tell you that I need secrecy oaths," she said flatly but unapologetically. "Just as a precaution against Legilimency, Veritaserum and other slip-ups, of course."

* * *

"So," George said after oaths had been made and Rhea had meticulously explained everything, "you are secretly the Girl-Who-Lived and the Dark Twit wants you dead for witnessing his undignified demise, never mind that you were a toddler and it was your mother who actually killed him."

"And there is a prophecy that, despite not actually fitting the situation, Dumbledore is convinced pertains to you and Voldy," Fred went on, "so if he finds out about you he will try and push you into facing the Dark Bastard on your own, despite divination being a load of hippogriff shit. Oh, and you're a parselmouth and the real heir of Slytherin as well."

"That about sums it up," Rhea agreed, fingers twitching nervously.

"Right then," George said grimly, "we'll just have to make sure that when the time comes we're ready to back you up. Fred and I will start working on a few more, ah, _offensive_ pranks for personal use in addition to working on the Soulfire. Mist is more a backup skill that directly offensive, but your tactics books all talked about controlling the terrain and we can do that once we know how. We'll brush up our duelling too: can we visit the Slytherin Duelling Halls?"

"Sure," Rence said easily, cutting off Rhea before she could open her mouth. "Just make sure you come as Prewetts, okay? It's a bit late to get you started on weapons but footwork and some hand-to-hand shouldn't be too hard to teach."

"Thanks Rence," Fred said with a smile, tapping his chin with a quill. "You know, having the scope to create _lethal_ pranks is going to be new and rather interesting. I wonder how we can test them."

"I would suggest the Acromantula," George said, "but they've all vanished."

"Basilea ate them," Rhea said casually. "She said they were crunchy and delicious though."

There was a pause.

"Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter," Deborah said repressively, "do you mean to tell me that there _is_ a Basilisk in the school?"

"Currently yes," Rhea admitted meekly, "but I'm trying to find a trunk that opens out wide enough that I can put an Undetectable Extension Charm in it so I can bring her home with me this summer. She doesn't eat much but her options are pretty limited up here."

Trey covered her face with her hands. "And to think I thought the black mamba was bad enough!" she moaned.

"Hey, Baz is a total sweetheart!" Rhea protested. "Perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but definitely smarter than Goyle. Much less cruel too." Goyle had a worrying sadistic streak that Crabbe lacked altogether.

Blaise chuckled. "Look on the bright side," he offered with a grin, "she's never going to bring home a bigger or more dangerous snake than _this_ one."

"Besides," Rhea said primly, "it's not illegal to own a Basilisk, just to breed them. I checked."

Dee burst out laughing, much to the confusion and surprise of all present. Daphne _never_ laughed like that. In fact, the usually sedate and controlled girl was whooping and rolling on the floor, clutching her ribs. Rhea blinked down at her friend's antics, then looked up to meet Blaise's eyes.

"Zee," she said conversationally, "I think this is a sign of the end."

Blaise honestly couldn't bring himself to disagree.

* * *

As much as Dorea would have liked to focus her efforts on improving her skills with Soulfire and getting used to how the phoenix feather embedded in her hand enhanced and refined her wandless skills, she had slightly less than three months left until she had to take her OWLs and they had priority. Then there was the heavy duelling tournament Dawn organised for the older Slytherins and the Durmstrang students that she had to participate in –the Baron made it compulsory for all the students who took Combat classes– and a few pick-up Quidditch games that Rence coaxed her into joining in with. Dorea discovered that she was actually pretty good on a fast broom despite her distaste for them and proved to have a good eye for Bludgers. She had a good arm too, probably as a result of having to swing a sword around four times a week. Batting Bludgers was unexpectedly soothing, for her at least: those she played against apparently found it nerve-wracking.

However as the exams grew closer she spent more and more time in the Music Room, pouring her worries out into music and practicing the visualisation exercises in _Fluidity of Form_. She had needed to read the entire book three times to properly understand what it was saying, but her Ancient Greek was now better than it had ever been –pronunciation included– and she was beginning to understand how the more outlandish and extreme kinds of self-transfiguration could be achieved without loss of mental faculties.

'Modern' transfiguration, which wasn't really modern at all but firmly grounded in medieval theory, had as a basic rule when a living creature was transfigured into something lacking corresponding senses then the original being would not be aware of anything that happened to it while transfigured. So while a human being transfigured into, say, a ferret –seeing Not-Moody do that to Draco had been rather amusing– would be aware of just about everything due to ferrets and humans both being mammals, a human transfigured into a tree would be blind and deaf to everything until changed back.

The original Greek transfiguration theory and method was drastically different: it held that transfiguration was actually a kind of physical illusion, so a transfigured sentient would always be fully aware of what was happening to them and able to exert a measure of control over themselves regardless of form unless cursed otherwise. Because belief was such an important element of casting magic effectively, the theory a witch or wizard learned actually affected the efficacy of their spells. Dorea, having been taught Classical magical theory by her Great-Aunt before Hogwarts, had a much wider and more flexible view on magic and what was possible than most other British Magicals.

Dorea was nowhere near practiced enough for full-body transfiguration to be possible, but she was getting much better at turning chickens into pot-plants and mice into mugs while keeping them aware of their surroundings. She hadn't attempted Human Transfiguration yet, but she was certain she'd have the skill and confidence for it eventually.

The reason she was pursuing the subject so avidly was that it was her best hope for freeing Remus from the Curse of Lyacon, as his affliction was properly called. He would likely go on transforming into a wolf under the full moon for the rest of his life –there was nothing she could do to change that– but a properly-tuned ritual and an appropriate potion would probably free him from the cannibalistic urges that accompanied the change, as well as the total loss of control. Lycanthropy was technically a Vengeance Curse gone horribly wrong, or depending on your view horribly right, as the original victim certainly deserved what the long-dead caster had done to him. Unfortunately however said caster had been among Lyacon's first victims, so there was no original documentation pertaining to it in existence. Dorea was hoping that by familiarising herself with the same information the creator of the curse had access to, she would be able to break it down and partially neutralise it.

* * *

Dorea did not enjoy sitting her OWLs. Partly due to the stress of so many written exams taken one after another, but mostly because roughly half of the questions in the written tests were based on theory she knew to be incorrect but still had to write about because otherwise the examiners wouldn't give her the marks. Dorea despised misinformation, so being required to regurgitate it made her irritable. On the bright side, she did well enough in her practical tests that even if she barely got Acceptables in the theory she would still get Es overall. She was certain she would do better than that however, despite not being able to debunk the flawed theory because nobody would give her marks for it.

In the end Dorea hadn't been the only member of the study group taking exams early: all of her close friends wound up joining her for the Charms OWL, even Luna. Hermione had decided to take the Muggle Studies OWL as well, claiming it would be 'good practice' so she would know how the exams were laid out for fifth year. Dorea was just glad for the company; despite taking Ancient Runes with the fifth-years, she wasn't really close to any of them except her cousins. Stephanie said they felt threatened by her intelligence, which was a bit dumb in Dorea's opinion but hey, you couldn't have everything.

The Runes OWL turned out to be unexpectedly easy, even with Dorea livening up her practical by doing something much more complicated than was strictly necessary, while Charms was straightforward enough that Dorea was pretty sure she would be getting an O. Muggle Studies was even easier but Ancient Studies was rather more challenging despite Dorea having been allowed to move up a year back in the previous spring. Dorea had to work hard just to finish the exam in the time provided, let alone write down everything she thought was necessary to get the highest possible marks!

Transfiguration however was the hardest of her exams, simply because she had to use the theory she no longer believed to be accurate in order to answer the questions on the written paper. The practical was easier, as she could use her new and more informed view to improve her performance. Fortunately for her nobody had yet noticed that she was using a different wand, but she was sure that sooner or later a professor would spot the change as both the wand length and wood type were different. Dorea was hoping she could explain it away as having lost her wand after her 'accident' and her father having sent her a Family wand to replace it, but she still wanted to go through the other heirloom wands back at the manor over the summer and pick out a spare. Having two wands made getting caught in misbehaviour much less likely, as she could offer up her 'official' wand for Priori Incantatem and use the other one for illicit activities. Being reduced to one wand –despite not needing one at all now even for delicate or accurate work– was rather unnerving.

Her Music OWL was actually rather pleasant: she was let into a specially Warded room with a piano, given a piece of music then left alone for an hour to practice it before the examiners came in to listen to her perform it. She had two tasks: first she had to play the piece through as it was written, then for extra marks she could embellish it. Dorea did both and was congratulated on her performance afterwards by the examiners, who assured her she would be getting an O for her efforts.

Her Art OWL required no work at all, as she had already done it: all the pieces painted by this year's OWL students were hung in one of Hogwarts halls for everyone to see and the examiners had to mark each painting individually. The paintings did not have names next to them, just numbers, and after all the scores were completed the marks would be averaged for each student's paintings to give them a final grade. Dorea knew she wouldn't be getting her marks back until the last week of July, but she was fairly confident that she had done well.

However Hermione was being distressingly irrational about her performance, which took a bit of straightening out. She was a Ward of House Black, she would do brilliantly and wailing and stressing like she was doing happened to be both unbecoming and foolish!


	38. Chapter 38

Beta'd by the precious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of abduction and ritual depravity **

To be perfectly honest, Dorea wasn't really interested in the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. Her OWLs were over and done with, she'd succeeded in doing rather well in the Potions NEWT Professor Snape had forced her to sit as 'punishment' for not telling him how she'd injured herself, her instincts had subsided from grim urgency to a dull background murmur and she had finally found a trunk in the junk room on the seventh floor –which the house-elves called the Come and Go Room– that could be modified to open out wide enough for Basilea to fit inside it. All in all, Dorea was quite happy to spend the last two weeks of school lazing around, experimenting with her enhanced wandless skills and increasing her control over her Soulfire, but unfortunately attending the Triwizard Tournament had been made compulsory so she had no choice.

Whingeing about the situation would be unladylike, so instead Dorea made sure she had her wand and three knives stashed on her person, wrapped Fizz around her upper body and picked out a book in Indian myths written in Hindi so she could at least get a bit of language practice in. As the day's weather was actually rather warm she saw no point in wearing her cloak, so she left the castle with Dee, Zee, Trey, Hermione, Padma and Theo and walked up towards the Quiddich pitch, where Rence was saving them seats. The sixth-year had complained bitterly about the horrific damage being done to the Quidditch pitch by the hedges that had been growing on it for the past month and had been seen plotting with the Prewetts; Dorea suspected Bagman would be getting heavily pranked for his misdemeanour. Even after Bagman left Hogwarts he might not be safe, as the twins would certainly have no issues with breaking into the Ministry.

Dorea was actually hoping that she could slip away halfway through the task, as then the teachers would all be distracted and she could levitate her trunk up to the come and Go Room and load it up with some of the less damaged books and interesting contraband she had found there in her various visits. Dee and Zee were sticking closer to her than ever, as was Rence, but they were just as fascinated by the junk-filled space as she was and had been helping. They had already recovered a large number of books –half of them currently illegal, some stupidly rare– numerous weapons, two wands and a large number of jinxed, hexed, cursed or otherwise enchanted items. Zee was also rather fascinated by the stuffed troll and intended to take it home with him, if only to shock his mother. Considering her best friend's most recent letter from his mother included the news that she had 'met someone', Dorea didn't really blame him. Dorea was certain that Zee would try to avoid at all costs the eventual wedding mania that was sure to follow, since as he grew older he found himself liking such things less and less.

"Rhea?" she glanced over at Theo, who had a book of his own tucked under one arm. Since her revelation about Voldemort he had been sticking a bit more closely to her group of friends, to the point that maybe she'd be able to call him a friend in a few months rather than just an acquaintance.

"Yes Theo?"

"Can I visit you again during the summer?" The lanky, brown-haired boy asked quietly, not meeting her eyes.

Dorea considered what she knew of Theo personally, what she'd picked up about his home-life from listening to gossip and the fact that he'd been among the first to swear the Secrecy Oath in the Armoury. "Of course; House Black would be pleased to host Heir Nott," she said lightly.

Theo's feet nearly stumbled as his head shot up so he could look her in the eye, his own muddy green eyes painfully hopeful. Dorea hadn't really noticed it before, but Theo was all tied up inside and terribly afraid of people not liking him, which might explain why he'd never really made any friends. She suspected it was his Death Eater father's fault and hoped he would be able to escape following in said parent's footsteps.

That Dorea would be of marriageable age come the summer would certainly persuade Theo's father to allow his heir to visit Black Manor; she'd noticed that all the older purebloods were a bunch of gossipy old women where 'respectable alliances' were concerned. At least Zee's mother wasn't pushing him into that kind of thing, but she really was the only one. All of Dorea's other age-mates had received multiple letters from home encouraging them to 'befriend' certain others, be those others their own age, older or younger. Dorea was certain she was on the list of every matchmaking mama with a son in Slytherin, age be damned!

"If you ever even just need to get away, we'd be happy to have you," she added quietly as they ascended the stands. Theo's eyes darted over at her briefly and his shoulders lost a little of their tension.

"Thanks Rhea."

* * *

After about half an hour of staring at hedges and not being able to see anything Dorea decided that enough was enough. Sighing quietly she closed her book and handed it to Zee, got to her feet and moved along the stand towards the exit.

"Rhea?" Hermione's voice floated to her ears over the chattering of conversations around her.

"I won't be long," Dorea said, deliberately deceiving her friends into thinking she was taking a quick trip to the loo. She had no intention of being gone for very long at all, but she really did want a little peace and quiet so she was going to go for a short walk. Not too far, so she'd hear the cheering when someone finally won and be able to return, but a change of pace nonetheless. Fizz hissed approvingly at her from insider her collar; he didn't like crowds either.

Leaving the stands she took a deep breath and smiled, enjoying the cool breeze and warm sunshine as in front of her the school grounds stretched out, completely empty of people as the evening sun slid down towards the horizon.

"What're you doing out here, Black?"

Dorea turned to smile at Not-Moody. "Taking a breather; it's terribly boring you know, sitting up there and staring at hedges. The organisers could have made a bit more of an effort to turn this into a spectacle."

Not-Moody chuckled. "Got a point there, lass. Don't go too far, and remember–"

"–Constant vigilance!" Dorea finished cheerfully, wand twirling between her fingers as she set off towards the Forbidden Forest.

Her restful stroll lasted for nearly twenty minutes, at which point the rise in noise-level from the Quidditch pitch told her it was time to return. Just as she was approaching the stands again her instincts roused themselves, prompting her to duck as a beam of red light –a Stunner– shot over her head. Turning around and drawing her wand, Dorea faced her attacker.

It was Not-Moody.

"So who are you anyway?" Dorea asked curiously, wand not wavering in its aim at his centre of mass. "Beyond a truly excellent teacher, a trustworthy confidant and a highly competent potioneer that is." Polyjuice wasn't easy to brew and Not-Moody had been drinking it all year; that showed both incredible skill and immense dedication. Some parts of the brewing required precise timing and intricate preparation, which Not-Moody would have needed to juggle with teaching, marking and patrolling the school.

Not-Moody grinned at her; on the ex-auror's scarred face the expression was rather terrifying. "Oh, you're a smart one aren't you, Black? I am sorry about this; it isn't personal you understand, but my Master requires your presence at his rebirth."

"Death Eater," Dorea sighed, feeling inexplicably disappointed. "You do realise that I'm not going to just hand over my wand and come quietly, don't you?"

The grin on Not-Moody's face widened. "Wouldn't have it any other way, cousin."

Being called 'cousin' was truly a surprise, so much so that Dorea fumbled her wand and was completely vulnerable when her opponent's wordless Curse hit her full in the chest. Dorea stumbled, her mind abruptly feeling as though it was made of cotton wool. What was she doing again? She barely resisted as a hand gripped her upper arm and a hooking sensation caught her stomach, whirling her away.

* * *

By the time her brains recovered from being rattled by clever use of the Confundus Charm Dorea had been tied to a funeral monument by Not-Moody, whose identity she still hadn't quite unravelled as there was no _way_ he could _possibly_ be Bellatrix and she couldn't think of any other living cousins who were Death Eaters. Cousins-by-marriage possibly –he might be a Rosier or a Gamp– but no actual cousins by blood. Unless he was a Burke? Great-Great-Aunt Belvina had married a Burke and had two sons and a daughter, so it was possible he was descended from that side of the family.

Though Voldemort's Inner Circle was rather elevated and rarefied company, Dorea was rather certain he had more supporters than that. To trust a minor minion to infiltrate Hogwarts for him seemed rather out of character for the Dark Lord though. Maybe he hadn't been able to _find_ anyone else?

The sudden fiery rush from her Ward snapped her attention back to her surroundings: some distance away from her current position was the French Champion Arséne Galet, his pale blue duelling robes torn and blood-spattered and his face white with fury. He was tightly bound to another tombstone and struggling furiously, spitting swearwords at the cowering house-elf clutching a ragged bundle to its chest and at the masked, robed figure that was probably Not-Moody.

Not-Moody was lighting a fire under a cauldron less than ten feet away from the French teen, but Dorea was more interested in how her Ward was telling her that Voldy the almost-soulless was in fact in two distinct pieces, both within sensing range. One was undoubtedly the bundle being held by the wretched, trembling house-elf, but the other was moving freely around the perimeter of the area she and Galet were at the edges of.

Fizz poked his head out of her collar and tasted the air.

"_A snake is circling, mistress; a wretched abomination of a misshapen worm it is too. Not even smart enough to realise it has been enslaved."_ Fizz then retreated back inside her school robes, no doubt using her body heat to camouflage his presence so that a surprise attack would be more effective.

Dorea watched as Not-Moody stepped back, well away from the cauldron and the house-elf moved closer, trembling even more obviously.

"It is ready Master," Not-Moody said, making Dorea blink at the change in how he sounded. Clearly the Polyjuice had worn off, so the cloak and mask now hid his true features.

"Now…" The high, cold voice made Dorea's Ward surge higher, golden flames dancing over her skin and singeing the ropes binding her. Sensing an opportunity, Dorea coaxed the golden flames higher, not really caring about the damage being done to her clothing. Since losing her sleeves to her Soulfire awakening she had treated all her school uniforms and underwear with the alchemical mixture that made fabric resistant to combustion, but her socks and shoes had not been treated and were unlikely to survive. It was a small price to pay for a chance to escape before Riddle managed to pull off the rebirth Not-Moody had mentioned.

The house-elf carefully lowered the thing in its arms into the cauldron, the contents of which was shining like faceted diamonds. Then the little creature scuttled back and Not-Moody stepped forward.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!"

Dorea blinked; so it was _that_ kind of ritual. She supposed the Dark Lord hadn't had much choice, given how Horcruxes were incompatible with the more efficient methods of physical resurrection. This particular ritual would create a body for a spirit inhabiting a homunculus, but that body would be a magical construct dependent on said spirit's magical power and will. While Voldemort did not lack magical power he would be rather short on will, since Will as a magical component was mostly formed from the soul. Therefore Voldemort's new body would only be capable of using spells grounded in causing destruction, pain and suffering, as that was all the miserly sliver of soul that remained to him could comprehend. Even a simple Levitation Charm might be beyond him.

She really needed to kill his snake and escape before the ritual was completed. Concentrating hard, she willed the Ward flames to intensify under the ropes.

Not-Moody then handed a knife to the house-elf, which raised its trembling voice to speak the next part:

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive y-y-your m-m-m-m-master!"

It had gazed desperately at Not-Moody as it stammered the last word, but the man had not given a single sign or caring. The house-elf then cut off its own left arm at the elbow, sobbing as it did so, then gave the limb to Not-Moody who tossed it into the cauldron after the bit of bone that had been summoned from the grave to which Galet was tied.

Dorea was actually grudgingly impressed by the use of a house-elf in such a ritual: house-elves had a powerful magic of their own that was wholly bound up in serving their masters, so its flesh would provide Voldemort with an innate power that would otherwise be beyond his reach, considering the tattered state of his soul.

Not-Moody then approached the furious, spitting French champion, knife drawn and a silver bowl in his other hand. The redhead swore colourfully and spat in the Death Eater's masked face; Dorea really had to wonder what kind of family history Galet had to hate Voldemort's followers quite that vehemently.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!"

Dorea did not look away as Not-Moody slit the older boy's throat; she would bear witness to this atrocity and carry the story back to Madame Maxine, so that Galet's parents would know their son had died defying the Dark Lord with his final breath. She continued watching until Not-Moody tipped the blood into the cauldron and its contents flared bright white, blinding her.

At this point the ropes binding her gave way so Dorea quickly set about putting as much distance between herself and the frothing cauldron as she could, picking the direction that also led away from the Horcrux-snake. Unfortunately she'd barely managed to go a dozen yards when the maimed house-elf appeared next to her with a crack.

"Winky is not letting M-m-miss Black leave," the still-bleeding little creature gasped, "M-m-miss Black is n-n-not to leave until N-n-new M-m-m-master says so."

Dorea felt herself hoisted into the air but did not struggle, instead using magic to slide one of her knives from its sheath and into her hand. Of her three knives only one was poisoned, since only a goblin-forged blade could hold poison indefinitely and the Family didn't actually have many of those left anymore. However since that blade was tainted with Basilisk venom, Dorea knew she barely needed to scratch her captor to kill it. Her. Winky was a female elf.

The cauldron at that moment erupted a cloud of steam, obscuring everything. Dorea would have stabbed the house-elf but Winky wasn't standing close enough for it to be worth attempting, so she bided her time. Being dumped back on the ground by the monument she had originally been tied to was rather undignified, but Dorea was more concerned about her continued survival right now. Her instincts were lying low, suggesting that for now she just had to sit tight and go with the flow.

Having a poisoned blade in one hand and not needing a wand to cast magic with the other made it rather easier to stay still than might otherwise have been the case.

Through the steam Dorea could just about see a skeletally thin silhouette standing by the cauldron.

"Robe me," came that high, cruel voice again. Dorea found herself pondering whether those high tones meant that the Dark Lord was a eunuch; considering what he'd done to his soul, it was entirely possible he didn't see the loss of his masculinity and reproductive capacity as all that relevant. He had been no more than a wraith for well over a decade so any form might be seen as an improvement over possessing animals and the occasional person. As the steam cleared Dorea got her first look at the new body Voldemort inhabited.

It was as pale as a grub that had never seen sunlight, spindly as a spider and its face lacked both hair and a nose. Eyes were scarlet from edge to edge, inhuman and slit-pupilled. The black robe it wore only exacerbated its inhumanity. All in all, Dorea felt that Voldemort looked far too much like a cartoon villain such as those she had seen on television while visiting her cousins.

However disgusting and cliché Dorea found the Dark Lord's new body, the man himself seemed quite delighted by it, considering the way he was admiring his hands. He then drew his wand and Dorea realised belatedly that she was probably supposed to be scared. The thing was, she wasn't. It might have been the golden flames that now enshrouded her completely or the knowledge that she was armed and dangerous, but the fact remained that she did not fear the abomination standing across the graveyard from her.

She did not consider him her enemy either: enemies were respected. Voldemort was simply an obstacle, a cowardly fool with no understanding of the true nature of power. Him and Dumbledore both, now that she thought about it, meaning that for her plans for the reformation of Magical Britain to go ahead, both men had to go. Dorea rather doubted either would be willing to retire gracefully though. Death would be the only way to get rid of them; a true permanent death.

The Dark Lord finally stopped admiring himself and turned to the masked Not-Moody. "My most faithful servant," he said quietly, his voice holding a sibilant undertone, "hold out your arm."

Not-Moody silently did so and the Dark Lord pulled back his sleeve to reveal a Dark Mark, the tattoo livid red against pale skin.

"It is back," Voldemort said softly, "they will all have noticed it… and know we shall see… now we shall know…"

He pressed a finger against the tattoo.

Dorea's Ward shivered, the golden flames wrapped around her intensifying and casting light all around her, illuminating the graveyard as though she were standing at the heart of a bonfire. Not-Moody swayed where he stood and as the Dark Lord released his arm Dorea saw that the mark on his arm had turned jet black.

Dorea had read of such marks in the old, dusty books in the Black Library: they were Thrall marks, slave brands by any other name. A person marked by one owned nothing except on their master's sufferance, not even their own bodies. The Blacks had used them extensively at various points in history, but since the Statute of Secrecy there had been fewer opportunities for them. Both her father and Grandpa had likely known this, as they had cast Bellatrix out of the family as swiftly as possible. Since she was no longer a Black, Voldemort had no claim on the Black monies and heirlooms through her.

Of course, that she had allowed herself to be enslaved was cause for disinheritance all by itself: Blacks bowed to _no-one_ except their own Head of House, and he or she only bowed to a rightful king. England hadn't had a rightful king for over five hundred years, not since Richard of York had been slain, so it had been a long time since any bowing had taken place.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" The Dark Lord whispered, turning to face Dorea. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

Dorea noticed that he kept a good distance away from her; good. He likely had no idea that she could harness the Ward offensively and had no intention of enlightening him to that fact. Well, she might risk it if his snake came close enough for her to destroy it, but not otherwise.

"The Frenchman who so generously participated in my revival stands upon the remains of my late father," the Dark Lord said conversationally, his voice a low hiss. "A Muggle and a fool… very like your dear mother." Not true; Dorea's mother had been a witch at the very least and had slain Voldemort with her own magic and cunning. However Dorea saw no point in interrupting when the Dark Lord was in a chatty mood.

"But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child… and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death…" He laughed, then turned around to pace the open space in the midst of the graves. The snake finally emerged from the darkness to slither along beside him, keeping far away from Dorea. The house-elf was standing the closest to her and the unfortunate creature was leaning heavily against a tombstone, gasping its last. Clearly now that its part in the resurrection was complete both men had completely lost interest in it. They hadn't bothered to stop the blood spilling from the wound so the poor unfortunate was dying of blood loss.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? Or should I call you Black? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in the village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was… he didn't like magic, my father…"

Dorea had to call on all her Occlumency training not to snort. How very sanitised and romanticised. Voldemort's mother had been a borderline squib, not a properly trained witch, and had ensnared his father with a love potion. Grandpa and Uncle Iggy had been very thorough in collecting evidence, not that Dorea was surprised that the Dark Lord was delusional. As Papa had said, Voldemort had major daddy issues.

"He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Black, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage… but I vowed to find him… I revenged myself upon him, the fool who gave me his name… _Tom Riddle_…" He continued his pacing.

More evidence of delusions: since his father had never even seen him before Riddle murdered the older man, it could only be his mother who had named him. That she had chosen to name him after his father was unfortunate, but in no way said Muggle's fault. Dorea kept her face as smooth and superior as though this were a society ball and Voldemort an overly familiar personage she could not politely be rid of.

"Listen to me, reliving family history…" he said quietly, eyes darting over to where Not-Moody was still standing by the cauldron like a puppet awaiting his next orders. "Why, I am growing quite sentimental… But look, little Rose! My _true_ family returns…"

Voldemort considered his thralls, his _slaves_ to be family, despite his treating them as less than nothing? Dorea had known intellectually that the Dark Lord had no understanding of emotional attachment and love, but to hear that his perception of family was so skewed made her feel slightly sick. She would have felt sorry for him had it not been abundantly clear that the only way to free him from his delusions was to put him out of his misery.

All around her came the sound of Apparating wizards and swishing cloaks. They were all hooded and masked, like in the old newspaper photographs, and approached cautiously in a half-circle that had Dorea at one end and the Dark Lord at its centre. Dorea had a feeling that the masked man standing closest to her was Malfoy; she had been absent from Hogwarts for well over half an hour and had been away from her friends for another twenty-five minutes on top of that; Dee and Zee would definitely have noticed she was missing by now. Both knew about her emergency mirror, so they might well have contacted her father over it. Considering Papa was not remotely subtle or patient where her safety was concerned, it was possible that Uncle Lucius had already been shaken down by an irate Lord Black over her abduction.

Dorea noticed the gaps in the half-circle as the Death Eaters spread out to form a ring, guessing that Voldemort had a very _specific_ expectation of how they were to stand and who went where. The gaps would be for the dead and imprisoned.

Dorea tried not to think about how many of her friends and school-mates' parents were standing around her. That was a direction it was better not to go in. She barely noticed that Not-Moody had not joined the ranks around Voldemort until she realised that he had moved to stand near her, barely four feet from the edge of the Soulfire dancing fiercely around her. Under her bare feet the ground was scorched black and she was rather certain that the parchment and quills in her pockets had long since been reduced to ash; it was a good thing that she'd left her book behind with Zee.

Her instincts were gradually rising as time passed, warning her that the longer she stayed here the less likely it would be that she would be able to return. She still didn't know why Voldemort wanted her here to witness all this pointless theatrics –why she was present at all was obvious: he wanted to kill her– and suspected that he had a sinister plan in mind. He wouldn't be killing her himself, as if he'd researched Blood Wards at all he'd know that any attempt would end exactly like the last one, which meant he was going to order one of his minions to do it. It would probably be Not-Moody or Lucius, as they knew her best of those present. If Snape was here –which Dorea rather doubted– Voldemort would have him do it, but he wasn't and Dorea was glad for that. She also rather hoped she could get away without killing anyone, as the Ministry rather frowned on murder no matter your motivation.

It was with only half a mind that she picked up on and remembered the names that Voldemort uttered every now and then as he examined his servants: Avery, Lucius Malfoy, the absent Lestranges, Macnair, Crabbe, Goyle and Nott. Dorea had to wonder if he'd deliberately chosen those whom she knew the children or younger relatives of; there was a Heinrich Macnair in the same year as the Carrow twins and the seventh year prefect in her first year at Hogwarts had been a Lestrange.

Voldemort then started talking about 'my most faithful servant', making all the others in the circle twitch. Dorea then realised that none of them had noticed Not-Moody, standing as he was in the shadow of a funeral monument cast by the Soulfire raging around her.

"…and it was through his efforts that both our young friends arrived tonight…"

"Yes," the Dark Lord went on, his lipless mouth curling in a cruel grin, "Rose Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party; one might go so far as to call her the guest of honour. Or should I call you Dorea Black?"

Dorea straightened haughtily and inclined her head. "My name," she said with icy politeness, "is Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, and I am Heiress to both House Black and House Potter: The former through my father and the latter through my mother, who was blood-adopted into the Potter line in the proper manner." She did not mention the 'Heiress Slytherin' bit, because that would cause a ruckus and mindlessly provoking lunatics was not sensible behaviour.

"Dorea Black then," Voldemort conceded easily, clearly enjoying the show he was putting on.

There was a pause before Lucius Malfoy stepped forward –she couldn't think of him as 'Uncle Lucius' right now– and asked:

"Master, we crave to know… we beg of you to tell us… how you have achieved this… this miracle… how you managed to return to us…"

Dorea personally thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but Voldemort didn't seem to notice.

"Ah, what a story it is, Lucius," the Dark Lord said; "one that begins –and ends– with our young friend here." He gestured at Dorea, who really had to wonder how it looked from the Death Eaters' point of view: her standing in a towering golden inferno, completely unscathed despite the heat radiating off her and the angry, red rune of Sowilo standing out on the pale skin of her forehead.

"You know, of course, that they have called this girl's mother my downfall?" Voldemort said softly, moving slightly closer to her but staying well out of reach of the flickering, dancing flames of the fully active Ward. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill her. Her mother died barring me from her –and did so deliberately, as she had delved into the old Blood Magic that the Ministry had forbidden and created a Ward that would feed upon her death to protect her child. It was foolish of me to overlook such a possibility… such things are old magic and powerful… and as you can see, the defence still holds, against myself at least."

Dorea suddenly had a really _bad_ feeling about why Voldemort had wanted her here. It was true that he wouldn't be able to come within six feet of her without the Ward lashing out at him and any spells cast would be reflected back, but if someone the Ward didn't recognise as an enemy attacked her physically the Ward might not actually react until she was very close to dying. If an enemy struck quickly and decisively, she might be dead before the Ward kicked in. Certainly it would be all over for her if they managed to decapitate her.

Calling on her own Flames would probably be a good idea, but she was well aware that doing so drained her quite a bit as she wasn't used to it. She had Fizz, who would be happy to take out the first attacker, and her poisoned knife, which could take out a second and maybe even a third, but there were nearly two dozen Death Eaters present in the graveyard and she couldn't kill all of them. She didn't want to either; how could she ever explain the situation to Draco and Aunt Cissa if Lucius died at her hand?

Dorea wished miserably that her Papa was here. Certainly if she died here he would go on the warpath and nobody with a Dark Mark would be safe unless he and every last living Black were dead before the Death Eaters were wiped off the face of the Earth, but that was cold comfort. She didn't want to die. If only Baz were here, or a Thestral or a Hippogriff or a Griffon or _something_. Moros would be very welcome too; in fact, any number of Omen Owls would be just the thing right now.

* * *

Voldemort was still addressing his minions, talking about his experience as a wraith and how it proved his 'immortality', which was total garbage because according to Gringotts Tom Marvolo Riddle was dead: Dorea could not have inherited the Slytherin Vault and title were he not. He'd died that night in Godric's Hollow and was now undead, meaning he would have to open a new vault and start putting money in it from scratch. Dorea doubted the Dark Lord would be getting a job though; he seemed the type to mooch off his minions.

Though actually since they'd been his minions, or thralls if she was using the proper terminology, before he died that meant that she had technically 'inherited' them along with the rest of Voldemort's belongings after he died attempting to kill her. His being undead snarled the legal process up a bit, but Dorea could probably fix that in short order. Especially since his Horcrux-snake was now prowling around behind the Death Eaters and coming very close indeed to her position.

"And then, two years ago, it happened at last… a servant returned to me: my most faithful who had been imprisoned all these long years since my downfall and who upon freeing himself immediately sought me out. It took him some time to find me, but find me he did and immediately set about assisting me in regaining a body of my own. But he did more than that: he visited nearby villages to keep track of the news, and while doing so one evening encountered a witch from the British Ministry, Bertha Jorkins, who recognised him. However my most faithful was cunning and did not let her escape, instead bringing her to me so that I might make use of her." Voldemort smiled. "Truly, she proved a veritable mine of information, particularly on the subject of the Triwizard Tournament. What an opportunity that was."

Dorea was now focussing very hard on Moros is particular and Omen Owls in general: she _needed_ as many of them as possible if she was going to get away alive. Omen Owls were stronger than they looked, but it would take two of them to carry her comfortably and at least three more to cover her escape. There were eight living in Black Manor, but Dorea had no idea where she was in relation to said location. More Omen Owls lived wild, but most of them nested in Scandinavia and Russia; hopefully there would be enough of them close by for it to make a difference.

"As for bringing Dorea here, well it was simplicity itself for my most faithful servant to do so from Hogwarts. After all, he had managed to gain Dumbledore's trust and was placed in charge of the security procedures, with access to certain key parts of the Hogwarts Wards. He enacted my wishes efficiently and precisely, without a single error. Would that more of my followers were so diligent."

Voldemort turned to face Dorea properly, a cruel smile on his face. "However I find that little Miss Black is a most unwelcome obstacle in my plans, being the object by which her mother orchestrated my demise. While I will concede that she is no unwitting pawn for Dumbledore, nor truly responsible for my suffering, I will not allow her to continue to thwart me as she does simply by existing. So which of you, my servants, desires the privilege of killing her for me?"


	39. Chapter 39

Beta'd by the harmonious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of miraculously timely getaway strategies **

There was a brief silence as the dark Lord's words sank in, but one Death Eater stepped forwards almost instantly.

"My Lord," the masked man said, "I beg of you, grant me this honour."

Several others quickly stepped forward as well, but did not do more than stand up straight and reach eagerly for their wands.

"Very well Macnair, go ahead," Voldemort said, smiling ever so slightly still. "But your wand will be useless, so you will have to resort to brute force."

The other Death Eaters seemed slightly hesitant at that, but the masked Macnair just strode forward eagerly, drawing a long, wide blade like a machete from his robes as he came. Dorea did not move, feeling Fizz shift inside her collar.

"_Leave first blood to me, little mistress,_" the boomslang hissed softly. Dorea dipped her chin in acknowledgement, sliding her feet outwards just enough to place her in a solid, balanced stance. Fizz would be using her as leverage when he struck, so she would need to be well grounded.

Macnair easily entered the outer limits of the snapping, flickering Ward, blade raised high, but when he was still over a metre away Fizz reared out of her collar and struck lighting quick, sinking his fangs deep into the Death Eater's neck before retreating and then lunging again, landing another bite before retreating properly to balance on Dorea's shoulder, body held in the 'S' shape typical to his species.

Boomslang bites were not usually immediately fatal, Dorea knew, but Macnair had already dropped his machete and was clutching at his heavily-bleeding throat, eyes bloodshot and feet unsteady. Dorea then belatedly remembered that the primary characteristic of Sun Flames –such as made up her Blood Ward– was Activation: it seemed that the Ward was exacerbating the snake venom's speed and efficacy. That was something to remember for future confrontations, for safety's sake.

The Death Eater staggered backwards and toppled over, dead. Fizz hissed triumphantly, unwrapping more of his body from under her robes to coil loosely around her shoulders in full view of their audience.

Voldemort was no longer smiling; Dorea was very, very grateful that the Blood Ward protected her from spellfire, because if it hadn't she'd likely be writhing under the Cruciatus curse right now. While clearly delusional, the Dark Lord was at least smart enough not to repeat a showing of the very thing that had got him killed in the first place. Hence his ordering his minions to do away with her in a mundane manner.

"A most unusual pet you have there, Dorea," the Dark Lord said coldly. "I am surprised at your foolhardiness, hiding a venomous snake inside your clothing."

"_Little mistress is not foolish!_" Fizz hissed furiously. "_She is mine to protect, mine to defend! She entrusts her allies to me and knows I will strike down her enemies! She is generous with food and warmth, favours my company and admires my beauty! Mistress is without equal and there is certainly none superior to her!_"

Such an eloquent defence of her better qualities as seen from a reptilian point of view was moderately embarrassing, for all that only Dorea herself and Voldemort understood what Fizz had said.

"_So bold,_" Voldemort hissed in amusement. "_Come here, venomous one._"

"_I refuse to abandon the little mistress! Especially not for a white maggot that stinks of carrion!_" Fizz sassed back, coiling himself over Dorea's right shoulder. Voldemort twitched ever so slightly and Dorea took care not to let it show in face or highly Occluded mind that she had understood the insult.

"It seems that Macnair has failed," the Dark Lord said instead, turning to his followers with an expression of musing disappointment. "However I see that several others are you are keen to prove your worth. Goyle, do strangle her for me."

The massive man lumbered forwards, much taller and broader than Macnair had been but also slower and more ponderous. Dorea stiffened her spine, grimly resigned to causing the death of the father of a school-mate this time rather than just that of the uncle of one.

"I am Heir Black, of House Black," she said in a tone that would carry her words clearly, "those who move against me move against my House and we do not forgive such enemies easily. The self-styled Lord Voldemort has already earned the enmity of my House and as Heir I declare that House Black will see him dead, his property confiscated, his heirlooms seized and his name shamed. Thus House Black declares against the self-styled Lord Voldemort, that those who serve him will know no mercy, those who support him will be struck down and those who stand by and do nothing will be remembered for their cowardice. So I say, so shall it be remembered, so it shall be."

Mr Goyle paused as even he in his inbred weakness sensed the power she had invoked, the Ritual Declaration of Enmity and Feud she had committed to. Every last Black would have felt it, heard it and embraced it or else courted madness in defying it. Every last relative who considered themselves a Black now had a decent idea of her location in relation to theirs as well, which was a perk.

"Kill her!" Voldemort snarled, his chalk-white face a rictus of rage.

Mr Goyle lurched forwards, right into the fangs of Fizz as he leapt right off her to sink his fangs into the massive man's throat again and again, buttery yellow Flames dancing over his scales. The massive man managed to rip the snake away from his neck and toss it away into the darkness, but he was too late to save himself and collapsed, choking on his own blood as he too expired. Fizz was both incredibly fast and highly accurate when attacking.

"Lucius." Voldemort's voice was a low, venomous hiss. Dorea watched as the man who had welcomed her into his home and lavished many expensive gifts on her over the years stepped forwards, masked face slightly bowed and shoulders squared.

"My Lord…" he inquired, "is this truly wise? To needlessly antagonise one of our most Ancient and Noble families… Sirius Black has seen sense since his release from Azkaban and has ceased to support the machinations of Albus Dumbledore in favour of following his family's traditional alignment–"

"Are you defying me, Lucius?" the Dark Lord asked silkily, fingering his wand.

Lucius Malfoy stopped instantly. "No, my Lord," he murmured apologetically, "I am not. I would not. Forgive me my forwardness."

Voldemort inclined his head ever so slightly. "Stop procrastinating and kill the girl, Lucius," he ordered flatly.

Dorea curtsied politely as he paused just out of arm's reach beyond the Soulfire surrounding her. "Lord Malfoy. How fares Aunt Narcissa?" She was a Black and she would make this as painful, embarrassing and difficult for him as possible.

Lucius paused, clearly remembering –as she had intended him to– that his wife was a Black and so was now his enemy by Family Writ. He bowed back with equal respect. "Heiress Black and Potter; she is very well." He drew his wand, easily conjuring a stiletto before putting the wand away again. "How unfortunate that we should meet under such trying circumstances."

Dorea smiled, her own blade imbued with Baz's venom still hidden in her sleeve. "Unfortunate indeed, but promised made and allegiances forged must be kept; without such things the fabric of our society would be torn apart." Which was as far as she was willing to go to tell him she understood his position and to lull him into a false sense of security; killing relatives-by-marriage was not something she had ever wanted to do and she didn't think Lucius had either.

Her words clearly resonated, as Lucius lunged forwards with the conjured dagger in his wand hand. Dorea dodged easily, accidentally trampling the cooling body of the house-elf as she darted away from her attacker and past Not-Moody towards the body of the Triwizard Champion as it hung slackly in its bindings. Dorea drew another knife, this one having a long, clean blade, and allowed her opponent to see it firmly gripped in her own wand-hand. That she was now visibly armed gave Lucius pause, but not for long: he glanced sideways at the Dark Lord then lunged again, trying to trap her against one of the large gravestones.

The other Death Eaters scattered as she moved slightly too close to them for comfort, but they were now shouting encouragement and urging Lucius onwards. Dorea ducked a stab aimed for her neck, slashed open her attacker's arm and danced sideways again, catching a glimpse of gold in the corner of her eye. Half-tripping over an urn and stubbing her bare toes Dorea realised that it was the Triwizard Cup, likely what had brought the late Galet here in the first place. It must have been a Portkey. In fact, it probably was still a Portkey because it was easier to modify the Portkey spell to add in an intermediate destination without attracting attention than it was to change the destination itself; the trophy had probably been intended to bring the Champion out of the maze and before the judges.

It was a potential escape route.

Dorea's proximity to Galet's body was starting to affect it: the ropes binding it were smoking, as were its clothes. Since he had been wearing dragonhide duelling robes they weren't affected much, but the ropes was definitely not going to survive much longer.

She dodged again, forwards this time, dropping down and rolling forwards between Lucius' legs and severing a tendon in the back of his knee on her way past. The man dropped heavily to the ground with a cry of pain.

"Pathetic," Voldemort said grimly. "Crucio!"

Lucius screamed, his entire body spasming under the torture curse until it was lifted. The Dark Lord opened his mouth to speak again but before he could there was a sound from another quarter:

"_Whoooo…_"

"_Whooo… whoooo!_"

"_Whoo!_"

Dorea glanced sideways to see Omen Owls alighting on the gravestones around her, three, four, six, seven, nine of them. A tenth landed on the stone angel right next to where Lucius was lying; the prone man froze, clearly knowing _exactly_ how dangerous the owl perched less than four feet from his face was.

"Owls?" Voldemort scoffed. "Pathetic." He raised his wand.

Two Omen Owls silently lunged at him from separate directions as the half the rest assaulted the Death Eaters with all the terrifying fury that had been bred into them. Dorea ignored the screams and unpleasantly meaty tearing sounds, dashing back to Galet's body and easily slicing through the scorched ropes. She then dragged the corpse towards the trophy, the bright, glittering gold easily visible in the light cast by the Flames surrounding her.

"Stop her!"

A spell bounced off the Ward just past her elbow, then another just shy of her shoulder. Using all the brute strength years of swinging a sword had granted her, Dorea tossed the corpse in her arms at the cup and sighed in relief as it vanished in a flash of blue. Then she turned to survey the scene behind her.

It was carnage. Voldemort had Disapparated, about half of the Death Eaters had successfully escaped as well –for the time being at least as the Owls could easily hunt them down later– but most of the rest were lying on the ground, dismembered, whimpering and bleeding out. Three more were standing back-to-back and trying to curse the Owls but the canny birds were dodging half the spells while the other half had no effect whatsoever. Their defiance was short lived as the birds that had been savaging those on the ground also took to the air and joined the final assault, tearing the Death-Eaters apart between them in a mind-boggling display of brute strength.

An Omen Owl alighted next to her, eyeballing her disapprovingly.

"I apologize sincerely for allowing myself to be abducted," Dorea said contritely, ducking her head. "You have my sincerest thanks for your timely intervention."

The stately bob of the head indicated that her thanks, while welcome, were unnecessary and that those present had been pleased of an opportunity for a spot of extreme violence against enemies of the Family. Her carelessness was also forgiven in light of her repentance and the good sense she had shown in turning to them for assistance in this matter.

"Might I be escorted home?" Dorea asked next, politely and determinedly ignoring the sounds around her of Omen Owls feasting upon their fallen foes. "Papa will be terribly worried." Her Ward had guttered out, the threat from Voldemort no longer being immanent and she was feeling tired and cold.

"_Don't forget me, mistress!_" Fizz piped up, slithering out from behind an urn and coiling his way up her leg. Once her pet was firmly wrapped around her middle Dorea held out her arms and did not flinch as two more Omen Owls swooped down on her, bloodied, dripping claws closing around her upper arms as they easily lifted her up into the air and away into the dark.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy landed in an undignified, sooty heap on the floor of the Drawing Room, his knee a bloody, useless mess, his wand-arm bleeding sluggishly and his nerves singing from having barely evaded the cruel claws of the Black Owl that had lunged at him. Lucius had a long and unfortunate familiarity with the birds used by his wife's family –Arcturus, Cassiopeia and Sirius all used them exclusively– and he knew very well that they were stronger, smarter and far more devious than any owl had any right to be. He would be putting up Owl Wards as soon as he could stand up properly.

"Lucius!" Narcissa pushed open the parlour door then stopped dead as Lucius drew his wand and pointed it at her.

"Get out of the house," he said sharply, "and don't come back."

"Lucius–"

"Out!" Lucius bellowed, wand-hand trembling slightly. He knew the Dark Lord would be most displeased with him for his failure to murder Dorea, but the very least he could do was ensure he bore that displeasure alone. Dorea cared for his son, so she would likely prevent Draco from returning home at all when Hogwarts ended for the summer.

Narcissa vanished in a crack of Apparition and Lucius sagged in relief.

"Dobby!"

"Master calls?" His house-elf was neatly attired in a pillowcase and uninjured; since seeing the condition of the Black elves and hearing Draco natter as a child about how Lord Arcturus Black said that the conditions of one's servants reflected on a person, Lucius had forbidden his own house-elf from punishing itself and ordered it to dress well, eat properly and speak clearly. The subsequent improvement in the quality of service had been highly gratifying.

"Fetch me a blood-replenishing potion," the Lord Malfoy said shortly, dragging himself up into a sitting position and sealing the shallow cut on his arm before pointing his wand at the deep knife-wound behind his right knee. A quiet crack told him Dobby had left so Lucius set about the task of cleaning the injury and knitting his tendons back together.

It would have shocked all of his fellow Death Eaters to learn that well over half the Malfoy Family Magic related to healing; Lucius had in fact been something of a disappointment to his father Abraxas for having so very little aptitude for it. In fact, he had originally been betrothed to Andromeda Black specifically because she had both a talent and a strong inclination towards Healing. Her elopement with the Mudblood Tonks had been a terrible humiliation and incredibly inconsiderate of her: if she hadn't wanted to marry him she could at least have said so to his face! Fortunately however Narcissa had been willing to substitute for her sister and despite her being more socialite than healer, their son Draco had all the natural aptitude Lucius lacked. His father had been delighted and had started training Draco as soon as he was old enough to pay attention for more than ten minutes at a time, which had filled Lucius with both pride and a degree of hurt.

While his fellow purebloods would likely mock his Family Magic as a common, unworthy thing, Lucius knew better. A person versed in Healer's spells who had taken no oaths was a deadly opponent, as the magic used to heal could so easily be twisted to harm and destroy by inches. The Malfoys had built their power and wealth upon their magic and despite his mediocrity in the Healing Arts, Lucius could fix himself up very handily whenever necessary. His father had taught him to never reveal weakness to anyone who was not family and being able to heal one's own person of physical injury was a vital part of that family philosophy.

The soft crack of Dobby returning did not distract Lucius from his delicate work; the elf would set the vial down within reach and leave again. Tendons were finicky things and needed great care and attention to detail to fix properly. Dorea had succeeded in dealing him a crippling but not even slightly fatal injury and he was very, very grateful to her for that mercy, especially when he knew –from Draco's letters – that she always kept at least one poisoned knife on her person.

When Dorea had declared war on his master Lucius had been forced to do some very quick thinking. His first realisation was that his wife was a Black, so she would be obliged to act against him or court insanity. Lucius loved his wife and seeing her reduced by inches to crazed, animal viciousness directed and controlled solely by the Lord Black would break him, hence her banishment from the manor.

Secondly, that his son might also be touched by the ritual and that regardless of how this night ended Draco _must not_ come face to face with the Dark Lord. Draco was very Malfoy indeed but he had inherited his mother's bluntness with none of her years of acquired finesse, so his son would only get himself killed.

Lucius' third thought had come to him as the Dark Lord called him forth to slay the Black Heiress and it was that, should he succeed, Sirius Black would utterly destroy Lucius' entire family in vengeance for his daughter's demise. Lucius was well aware of the Dark Lord's crimes against magic –Draco's March letter had been rather disturbingly enlightening on the subject– but he was Marked and therefore trapped in service to a madman. However killing Dorea would drive Sirius Black mad with rage, as the man's entire life was bound up in protecting and supporting his daughter and through her ensuring the continuation of House Black. An irate Sirius Black would be bad enough; a violently furious Lord Black with the magical might and political weight of his Family behind him was an enemy Lucius did not think even his Master could defeat. Calling that down on his own family was not something Lucius was willing to do, hence his procrastination and half-heartedness in attempting murder.

The last time the Blacks had declared war on somebody had been in the eighteenth century following the murder of an heir, and the family responsible had been made entirely extinct within two years of the declaration being made. Blacks did not mess about when it came to exterminating their enemies; instead they were violently, gleefully and excessively thorough.

He was certain Dorea had noticed –she was sadly far more Slytherin than Draco in that respect– and that he was not more severely injured supported that belief. This way even if the Dark Lord killed him for his disobedience the Malfoy line would continue to dominate Magical Society through his son.

His injuries finally healed, Lucius downed the Blood Replenisher the elf had placed at his side, rose stiffly to his feet and headed for the Owlery. First he needed to write to Draco so that he would know to stay at Black Manor over the summer, then he really _needed_ to adjust the Wards so that only Family owls could get in. The Great Greys the Blacks used had always given him the creeps, but he now had actual evidence to back up his paranoia the urge to keep them far, far away from him had increased dramatically.


	40. Chapter 40

Beta'd by the cherished InsaneScriptist.

I now have a part-time job in addition to college, so my writing time is going to take anosedive while I adjust to working for a living. My buffer of pre-written chapters is also running low, so I will likely be taking a break from updating in about a week so I can build up the buffer again without feeling pressured. Muse is still in fine form, so the show will go on!

* * *

**Of tragedy, urgency and commitment**

When Bagman announced that Arséne Galet, the French champion, had won the Triwizard Tournament, Blaise noticed that Rhea had been gone for a while and decided to go looking. When upon getting up he noticed that, contrary to expectations, Galet had _not_ been Portkeyed directly to the Minister's Box to be awarded the grand prize, Blaise had given up on manners and started shoving his way through to the nearest exit, Dee, Trey, Rence, Theo and the rest belatedly following after him. The stupid tournament had clearly been sabotaged _again_ –or at least the security had– and his best friend and oath-sister was out there alone.

He had almost fallen down the stairs in his haste but despite moving more quickly than he remembered ever doing outside of combat practice he had barely been in time to see Dorea swaying dizzily, eyes blank and puzzled, as Moody discarded his wooden leg and magical eye before grabbing her and vanishing in the faint flash of blue denoting Portkey travel. Blaise was no fool: it was clear now that Moody hadn't been Moody at all –the genuine article wouldn't have left his prosthetics behind since he couldn't walk without the leg– which meant Rhea had been Confunded and abducted by an impostor.

There had been outcry among the group and confusion over what to do next until Blaise took charge and flatly ordered everyone to shut up and listen. He ordered Trey and Luna to fetch Professor Snape, left Neville and Roger to guard the scene of the crime then ordered Hermione, Padma and Rence to break into the Defence Professor's Office and see if they could find any clues as to the impostor's identity. He then dashed off to the Slytherin dorms with Theo and Dee to find Rhea's emergency mirror so they could tell her father what was going on, because the sooner the Lord Black knew what had happened to his heir the sooner he could raise Cain over the outrage.

Blaise could get into Dorea's trunk because as her oath-brother he had a certain responsibility for her welfare, which meant privileged access to certain parts of her life. He couldn't open the trunk itself, but he had been keyed into one of the outside compartments in case of emergencies. Grabbing the mirror and hurrying back to the common room, Blaise activated it even before he got there.

"Sirius Black!"

There was a pause, then the palm-sized mirror stopped showing the Italian boy's own face and revealed Lord Black's concerned visage.

"Blaise? Is Dorea alright?"

"She's been abducted from the grounds," Blaise said quickly, trying to keep his speech both coherent and in English since unlike his daughter Sirius was not fluent in Italian. "I think Moody was an impostor –possibly from the very beginning of the year– and he grabbed her. The Triwizard Champion is missing too –the French chap won– so I think there's more to this than a random ransom attempt or an inheritance thing."

Usually cheerful grey eyes narrowed alarmingly as Sirius Black's face set in an expression of highly-controlled ire. "Right. Thank-you for telling me this, Zabini; I'll contact Madam Bones and send Ignatius up to Hogwarts to examine the Wards on my behalf. Keep the mirror with you and let me know if anything else comes up."

"Call us if you find her first," Dee said, her tone more demanding than requesting.

"Of course." The mirror blanked out, once again showing only Blaise's reflection.

* * *

The half-hour that followed Blaise's hurried call to Lord Black was the longest one of Theo's life; not even Binns' droningly monotonous lectures on goblin rebellions could compare. With every minute that dragged past Daphne's face grew ever stiller and colder, Blaise's eyes ever chillier and his smile more cruel. Professor Snape arrived barely ten minutes later to demand and update, which Daphne provided in three icily concise clipped sentences. Their Head of House then hurried off upstairs to join in with the breakers-and-enterers, leaving Tracy and Luna to join them on the sofas and fidget. Tracy's nerves showed in how her facial expression shifted between rage, terror, hope and impatience and regularly bounding to her feet to pace restlessly across the dimly lit room; Luna sat perfectly still, face uncharacteristically solemn and eyes gazing blankly into space.

What felt like an eternity after Snape had left but was actually barely another fifteen minutes Deborah and It's-Leo-not-Anthony careened into the common room, the former whooping and cackling with such evident malice that it made all the hairs on Theo's arms stand on end.

"Deborah? What–"

"Heiress Black has declared war on the self-styled Lord Voldemort!" Leo burst out, somersaulting over a sofa and landing on his feet with a wild, bloodthirsty grin. "Those who serve him will be shown no mercy, his supporters will be crushed and those who try to claim neutrality will be branded as cowards! We go to war!" The third-year badger whooped in violent, animalistic glee, black eyes gleaming.

Deborah was still laughing like a lunatic, which was so disturbingly uncharacteristic for the usually quiet, mild and raven-like seventh-year that Theo had to wonder if all Blacks were insane and some were just better at hiding it than others.

"So Rhea lives still and her abductor was a Death Eater," Daphne said calmly, smoothing her robes over her knees and folding her hands in her lap. Theo did not trust the calm façade; Daphne possessed a temper as vast, cold and furious as an arctic blizzard. She was simply very picky about whom she vented said temper upon and finding an appropriate moment to do so.

Five minutes later the crazy giggling had died down to the occasional hiccup and Stephanie burst in, dragging Roger Davies behind her. Her eyes were also alight with the same manic energy as the rest of the cadet Blacks but at least she wasn't cackling, or at least wasn't cackling now.

"The Triwizard Cup finally reappeared, but with Galet's body draped over it," she reported breathlessly. "He's had his throat slit and looks a bit singed, but that was all so it definitely wasn't anything in the maze that did him in. The Aurors showed up ten minutes ago and are processing the scene; Madam Bones wouldn't let the Old Bumblebee fob her off with platitudes and tore a strip off him for not calling her himself."

Davies picked up the story from there. "I reached the centre of the maze second so when Arséne showed up dead the Minister tried to give me the prize, claiming that Arséne must have been dying when he found the Cup so he didn't count." Tracy's older brother looked quite furious at such callous dismissal of the facts. It offended his Ravenclaw sensibilities. "I told him right out that Arséne had earned that money and that whatever had killed him had done so _after_ he won the trophy, meaning that he'd died as a result of poor security and that I refused to take the victory away from him. Madam Maxine was still shouting at him when Steph dragged me off." He looked entirely too pleased about that.

The hidden door to the common room opened again, this time to admit Rence, Hermione, Padma and an elderly wizard with hair that had more white than red remaining and wearing trim, practical robes in olive green.

"We found Moody locked in his own trunk!" Hermione blurted out as she stepped inside. "Professor Snape said the impostor must have been using Polyjuice!"

Rence said nothing, which was deeply alarming because Rence was usually the first person to crack a joke or make a dry comment to lower the tension. Glancing at the older boy's face made Theo very nervous indeed, as Rence's habitual small smile was altogether absent, making the sixth-year look uncharacteristically homicidal. Everyone in Slytherin knew that the older boy would have followed Rhea around like a puppy if he'd been able to, but seeing him now made Theo wonder if the younger girl accepted Rence's single-minded devotion out of fondness for him or because she knew how very dangerous he would be without an acceptable outlet for his obsessive tendencies. It was probably both, considering how shamelessly devious Rhea usually was.

* * *

Theo had thought that nothing could match the tension of the half-hour between Dorea vanishing and the dead Triwizard Champion's return; he had been wrong. The hour that followed it was _worse_. Dumbledore, the barmy old goat, packed them all off to bed claiming curfew was still in effect. It was a stupid move really: it just ensured all the Houses got together to discuss what in Merlin's name was going on. Rence abruptly came back to life as accusations starting flying in the Slytherin Common Room and managed to explain the entire situation from Dorea's abduction –by some unknown Death Eater who was quite possibly new to the cause– through to her declaring War on the Dark Lord, his minions and associates. Blaise then stepped in to state that, as Rhea's oath-brother, he would be supporting her and her House. Daphne then stood to assert that she too would be following the lead of House Black, which set off a cascade of Pledges and requests for shelter. Many no doubt wished to avoid going home due to the risk of coercion, forced recruitment or other more prosaic difficulties.

By the time the younger students had been packed off to bed Blaise had got the mirror out again, this time to contact Remus in his capacity as Potter Estate Manager to see about housing various students who, having experienced first-hand the peril of going against the Blacks, didn't want to be associated with Death Eater relatives and sympathisers. Some of them also wanted to rescue their mothers, but Blaise had wisely not handed out any promises on that one. As for himself, Theo wasn't going home this summer. Not at all. His father couldn't break into Black Manor to get him and if it came to it Theo would pledge allegiance to Rhea. Going home now would be _stupid_ and that was something Theo _wasn't_. This was his chance, his one shot at getting out from under his father's thumb and even if Dorea wasn't even half as kind as she acted, even if she was twice as manipulative as he'd seen her be, it would _still_ be better than home.

Theo just hoped Dorea wouldn't mind him sticking around permanently, because even if his father died, he wasn't _ever_ going back to Nott Court again. Not if it was the only house left standing in all of Europe.

* * *

Blaise had been lounging on one of the sofas in the common room, quietly discussing logistics, lines of communication and training with Dee, Rence and Dawn when the mirror buzzed. The Italian almost dropped it in his haste to activate the screen and seeing Rhea in the glass he couldn't help what came out of his mouth next:

"You are never going anywhere ever again without an armed escort, do you hear me Rhea! Never again!"

Her soft laughter and sheepish apology were a balm to his soul. Blaise had to recognise then that he was doomed: he'd be following Rhea around for the rest of his life, trying to keep her out of trouble in between enjoying the chaos that sprung up in her wake. She was the little sister he'd never had and always wanted, the leader he'd be following until he died. Never mind that he was the Heir Zabini and would be Prince Zabini when his Nonno eventually kicked the bucket; Rhea was practically a princess by British Ministry standards and princes always followed princesses anyway, if only because princesses inevitably attracted dragons. Though since this was _Rhea_, Blaise suspected she'd wind up marrying the dragon when he showed up. She was unpredictable like that.

Blaise let Dee clamber into his lap so she could see the glass and shifted so Dawn and Rence could look over his shoulders, not wanting to stop drinking in the wonderful sight of his sister looking slightly tired but entirely whole. He let Dawn and Rence explain the whole Pledges business and how she would be hosting at least a dozen kids of various ages plus potential mothers and younger siblings, with Dawn chipping in to warn then that there'd be more oaths coming in from people in other Houses soon enough. Hermione had probably taken a few already, since as Dorea's Ward she could accept Pledges on her sponsor's behalf. Leo, being a Black in his own right, could also accept Alliance Pledges on behalf of the Family; Blaise privately suspected they'd have all of Hufflepuff behind them by the morning. Dorea was popular and very well-liked despite her family's reputation.

* * *

For Rence, the last week of the school year passed in a distant haze. Dorea's encounter with the newly reborn Voldemort and her declaration of War against him occupied his mind in every waking moment, alongside his own indecision about what to do next. What was he going to do? He had another year of school left before he finished his NEWTs –though he was already seventeen– but Dorea probably wouldn't be coming back to school. She had been abducted from Hogwarts once already, by the man who had taught them Defence all year, so her father probably wouldn't let her out of the house. Not that Rence could blame him for that; knowing that Rhea was safe was a large part of what enabled him to sleep at night. She was just such a trouble magnet! Hogwarts had never had so many near-disasters and tragic accidents taking place in it before she showed up.

However if Rhea was at Black Manor while Rence was at school, he wouldn't _know_ whether she was safe or not. He wouldn't be able to check by slipping up the corridor past the girls' dorms and glance through the barely-open door to make sure she was actually in bed like he had been doing at Hogwarts since her first year. Ric had asked him to keep an eye on the girl for him and Rence took that kind of thing seriously; it was in no way creepy or inappropriate at all, no matter what Ingrid had said that time!

He could drop out of Hogwarts, since he was of age, but if he did that, what would he do? He had been interested in the possibility of becoming a jeweller or an Enchanter ever since Dorea had mentioned it, but the Hogwarts Library didn't have much on either subject and he'd read all of it already, even taking extensive notes. What _did_ interest him was Alchemy, as Transmutation seemed to offer a great many benefits since it could incorporate numerous Enchantments, Wards and such-like without needing to bother with all those fiddly Runes, but even including the Restricted Section the Library had a grand total of three books on actually practicing Alchemy and one of them had been on the creation of living chimeras rather than something useful.

The only way he could get hold of enough Alchemy books to determine if the subject held what he was looking for he would have to Pledge Service to one of the Ancient Houses and hope their Family library help the kind of material he was looking for, but then he would have to serve _them_ and wouldn't be able to protect Rhea. It was all so horribly complicated! An apprenticeship would have been just the thing, but there _weren't_ any Alchemists in Britain, hadn't been since the eighteenth century! It was all so _irritating_!

Terence Higgs was unaware that his misery and frustration was causing his already curly blond hair to throw off tiny green sparks and curl even more tightly.

* * *

George needed to talk to Rhea; talk seriously, urgently and in depth. So did Fred, in fact Fred probably needed to talk even more than George did. They'd both heard Dorea's War Declaration even as she'd been making it, had felt the exhilaration and fierce wildness of the Battle Madness that was said to haunt the Black Line. But they weren't Blacks. Grandma Cedrella was, but Dad was Weasley all the way through so they'd always considered themselves to have inherited their more provocative tendencies from Mum's side of the family. However it seemed that no, all the Black bits that had skipped Dad had come to them instead. Well, them and Ginny: she'd heard the Call too and had embraced it vigorously, giggling like a crazy killer all the way back to the common room.

The idea of Ginny being more Black than Weasley filled George with completely rational terror; female Blacks were about ten times scarier than their male counterparts.

However Ginny's newfound scariness wasn't the most pressing issue, which was instead what the twins were going to do about supporting the Black War Effort. They were both seventeen now, so their parents couldn't make them come back to Hogwarts next year if they didn't want to, and the mail-order sales that Great-Uncle Iggy had organised for the prank products they'd invented were going incredibly well. He and Fred would easily be able to afford to rent a shop front in Diagon at this rate, as well as hire someone to man the sales desk whenever they were busy inventing new things. They weren't going to mass-produce any of the more dangerous or easily-misused ideas they were coming up with for Rhea to use against Lord Mouldy Warts, but they still had to produce them and do a bit more testing than had been possible at Hogwarts. Some things couldn't be tested on each-other or the brave and ever-willing Neville, who really was far too noble for his own good.

But still, having a good long sit down and chat with their dear, deadly and adorable cousin Dorea was something that they really needed to do as soon as possible.

* * *

Tracy was not at all brave and she was quite happy that way. She was short and curvy like her mother, not very good at improvising and despite having an excellent memory and being very good with a wand, she wasn't all that interested in creating new spells either. But she did love her friends, all of her friends, and she had remembered something that Rhea had said back in the spring that really needed to be dealt with.

Namely, the Basilisk waiting under the school for Rhea to take it home with her. The Enchanted trunk with its special extra-wide opening mechanism was all ready up on the sixth floor, but Rhea wasn't here. Dee was up to her neck in helping Zee, Hermione and Dawn organise everyone into something resembling order which meant that Tracy would have to do it herself. She could ask Ginny to help, since the younger girl had shared with Tracy about her run-in with the cursed diary, but she really wanted a solid, reliable presence to accompany her so she didn't feel so wobbly inside.

Tracy then noticed Rence moping over by the door to the library and realised that her little self-assigned mission would be just the thing to coax the older boy out of his funk. Really, his Rhea-centric view of the universe was completely adorable but he could be a bit dense at times. Armed with the communication mirror –so that Rhea could open the Chamber for them– Tracy marched over to the only boy she knew who should have been born back in the middle ages so that his relationship with her friend would actually have been considered admirable rather than just creepy, determined to make this work. Rhea wanted to take her giant snake home for the holidays, so Tracy would ensure the giant and deadly snake reached her friend. That was all there was too it.

Despite Tracy really not wanting to go _near_ a giant reptile capable of killing people by looking at them, she would do it for Rhea. Even if Rence had to catch her when she fainted.

* * *

Sirius stared at his daughter in abject horror.

"You want to _what_?"

His daughter stared back at him, her facial expression disturbingly similar to the one Great-Aunt Cassie had always worn when she thought he was being silly for arguing with her over something he had no control over.

"I am going to marry," she said patiently. "Right after my birthday, if possible. Definitely before the start of the next school year."

"But, but, _why_?" Sirius knew this was the abject chaos and disorder he'd always known his Dorry-Rose was capable of coming back to bite him after he had been lulled into a false sense of security; but why _marriage _of all things? It was like she'd deliberately picked the one thing he wanted her to do the _least_!

His daughter sighed, giving him Cassie's patented 'you are very slow today' look of fond tolerance. "Because I have taken enough OWLs for spending next year in Hogwarts to be pointless unless I skip ahead, which I don't want to do," she said patiently, "and once I am married I will be Lady Potter and recognised as fully adult, meaning that you won't be running around trying to keep up with all the Family responsibilities by yourself while also hunting down Death Eaters."

"You'll be barely fifteen!" Sirius protested. "That's not old enough to marry!"

"Sally-Anne will be marrying as soon as she completes her OWLs," Dorea said firmly, "as will several other girls. Aunt Lucretia married right after her OWLs too. Besides, you _really_ want me to be in Hogwarts come September when the Minister is so fervently denying Voldemort's rebirth? They passed off Galet's death as 'a nutcase with a grudge' and claimed the 'upstanding citizens' discovered in full Death Eater regalia had been killed by a rogue Creature!"

Sirius had to admit that he did not want Dorea back in Hogwarts come the autumn, especially not after Dumbledore had tried to persuade him that his daughter had a duty to save the Wizarding population from their own cowardly ineffectiveness. The old fart had somehow come to the conclusion that Dorea was the Prophesied Chosen One, which was all garbage and proof he was going senile. That a _Death_ _Eater _had been teaching Defence all year was ample evidence that Dumbledore needed to have retired _years_ ago.

"You don't have to marry for me to keep you out of school!" he retorted.

Dorea sighed again. "Papa, my instincts tell me I _need_ to get married, the sooner the better," she said softly. "Not just for myself, but for my future husband's sake."

Sirius paused. His daughter's instincts had gotten quite terrifyingly accurate in recent years, more so than James's had ever been. It had been James' idea for Lily to delve into the Potter grimoires for a way to protect their daughter and it had worked beyond their wildest dreams. James had also had a number of ideas come to him out of nowhere that had proved to be utterly brilliant in retrospect and had sometimes pulled deductions out of nowhere that had saved both their lives during the War.

"Dorry-dearest, you're _sure_?"

His daughter smiled, not protesting the baby name. "Absolutely, positively and unavoidably certain. I'm going to have Luna, Hermione and Dee help me set up the Ritual properly and be my attendants, along with Dawn to ensure we don't make any mistakes."

Sirius sagged. His baby girl was getting _married_. At _fifteen_. And he wouldn't even get to veto the husband beforehand!

"Just… please, darling girl, make _sure_ he will respect you and care for you always, even if he doesn't love you as you deserve," he said, stepping forwards so he could hug her. She was barely an inch shorter than he was now; the little girl he'd fallen in love with as a baby and again at four was all grown up. He could feel a prickle of tears in his eyes and tried to stifle them; he wasn't going to cry!

"I promise," Dorea mumbled into his neck, hugging him back tightly. Sirius then realised that she was just as nervous about the whole idea as he was and resolved to support her as much as he possibly could. There was paperwork he could do to endorse this, he knew there was, and backdating covered over a multitude of sins. It he could make this look less hurried and desperate it would only benefit his daughter in the long run.

"I love you," he murmured into her hair. "I don't care who you marry, so long as you don't leave your aging father all alone to manage the Family without you."

He felt rather than heard her giggle. "I promise not to move out until I've provided both my houses with an heir of the appropriate gender, if ever" she muttered back. "That should take a few years and give you time to get to know my eventual spouse."

"Deal," Sirius said firmly, hoping this would work out for everyone involved. Voldemort was out there and they needed to kill off his pet snake before any direct confrontations would be worthwhile.

Of course, Sirius had all manner of plans for Riddle's supporters, oh yes indeed. Narcissa was proving a goldmine of information and was well worth the hassle of hosting her and eventually Draco in one of the Family houses. It was time to dust off some of the nastier Marauder prank ideas that Remus had succeeded in vetoing back when they were at school and see if he could give them a Black twist.

* * *

Edit 29 January '15: amberpup pointed out an accidental inconsistency in plot, which is now corrected. Thanks there!


	41. Chapter 41

Beta'd by the fastidious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of devotion and having faith **

Despite not being allowed to leave the grounds of Black Manor, Dorea was still kept very busy on the days following Hogwarts letting out for the summer. She helped Remus sort out which of the Family's new dependents would be going where, which house-elves would be caring for them and what they would be required to do in return for the House of Black's hospitality. Her father wasn't running a charity after all, so everyone who was of age was required to be useful. Most of the women being sheltered were the wives of supporters and sisters of actual thrall-marked Death Eaters, but they also had Rabastan Lestrange's wife and three children, who were now residing in the town house on Grimmauld Place with Narcissa and Draco.

Hildegard Lestrange, former Hogwarts Head Girl and still unmarried at twenty-one, was the eldest of those children, her younger twin brothers being both newly sixteen. Randall and Rigel Lestrange were both as thin as their elder sister but had already surpassed her in height, making them look disturbingly skeletal. All three younger Lestranges were old enough to remember a little of what life had been like during the previous war and none wanted to go through that again; Hildegard had actually seen the Dark Lord once and had been terrified by him. She had a Ministry job and didn't want to lose the life she'd managed to build for herself. Randall and Rigel had been younger and remembered less, but they did remember hearing the screams of someone their Aunt Bellatrix had brought home to torture once. The entire family would much rather avoid the Dark Lord if at all possible, even if that meant never seeing their father or husband again.

Once everyone was settled in and Theo, Dee, Hermione and Zee had claimed rooms in Black Manor alongside the newly-graduated Dawn and Deborah, Dorea called the little group together so they could hash out what needed doing.

"There are basically two main areas we need to work in," Dorea explained. "Setting up for the War the House has declared and the Ritual I need to do in order to find a husband. And yes Hermione, I do really _need_ to marry as soon as possible, but the ritual can be tailored so that only someone who fits my requirements will be deemed suitable. I need Dee and Dawn for the ritual and I'd like Hermione to help as well, as well as Luna who is coming to visit after she's spent a week at home with her father.

"Prewetts One and Two will be over in a few days, so I was hoping that Theo, Zee and Debs would be willing to work with them on creating instant communication methods, decoys, escape plans and so on. My father says that only those who are of age are allowed to join the battle proper, but the rest of us can still get involved with planning, defending, healing and all the other equally important bits."

"Sounds good to me," Zee said easily. "Are you expecting anyone else?"

Dorea thought about it. "Trey said she'd be over this week, since she's got Baz in a trunk for me to take off her hands, Rence said something about wanting to talk to me and I expect the rest of my cousins and Ginny will be visiting since they all felt the Call. I don't know what the adults are doing since Papa's in charge of them, but everyone else who is underage will be looking to me to tell them what to do."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Dawn said brightly.

* * *

Trey and Luna joined them the very next day, which led to Dorea having to introduce Luna to Basilea as the young raven was quite insistent on seeing Slytherin's Basilisk for herself. Baz obligingly wore a Charmed blindfold and answered Luna's questions as Dorea translated them. Unlike Fizz or even Bise, who despite being a grumpy recluse did understand English, Baz only understood Parseltongue. Dorea suspected that was a deliberate security feature, which was irritating as it meant the only way to get a smart basilisk would be to breed one and that was highly illegal, not to mention fiddly. Yes, everyone knew about the whole 'chicken's egg hatched beneath a toad' thing but that was like saying that wizards flew on brooms: while true, it did not really give you an idea of the number and type of spells that went into making such a thing possible. Omen Owls took well over fifty different spells applied over three generations of birds at specific points in their development, spells which thankfully did not need renewing over time.

Trey joined the 'War' group while Luna joined the 'Ritual' group with Dorea; they had taken over the Heir's Parlour on the first floor of Black Manor with their books and notes and the various journals that Dorea was using to support her theories. They actually had the bare bones of the ritual already mapped out, but had run into difficulties as all her friends had different ideas of what kind of man she should marry. Hermione insisted on intelligent, because Dorea would be bored stiff otherwise, Dee said pureblood to consolidate her position, Dawn insisted on his being no more than ten years older than she was and Dorea could see that this argument was just going to run and run because she didn't really know what she wanted in a husband herself.

Taller than her would be nice, but wasn't really essential. Her match in power would be best, as that way he wouldn't feel threatened by her. Self-aware was really important, because her Occlumency meant that she knew herself intimately and she couldn't _stand_ people who lied to themselves. Capable of defending himself was also important, since she had so many enemies, and she secretly wanted a husband who would protect _her_ even though she didn't really need it. Luna had pointed out that her husband had to want children, which was important because she needed to have at least two of them to inherit her own Family titles without even going into providing heirs for her husband.

But what she really, truly wanted was someone who _understood_. Who knew the kind of pressures she was under as an Heir, didn't see her responsibilities as competition and would help her if she asked but otherwise left it to her discretion; a _man_, not an immature little boy. Most of all she wanted someone who could look at her and see her for who she really was, see the pain she'd grown through, the burdens she'd shouldered and the resolutions she'd made and look past them to her heart, guarded and hidden as it was. She was Heir and so she led, but she really was happiest when somebody else was making the big decisions and she just had to make the small ones, like making sure that everybody ate, the businesses were running smoothly and everybody had the necessary equipment to escape a Death Eater ambush. She wanted to be _cherished_.

But seeing as how she'd likely be marrying someone she'd never even before, she would have to settle for someone willing to shoulder her battles as his own, support her in politics, father and raise her children with her and respect her as a person. Hopefully it would be enough.

Moppet appeared by the fireplace with a small crack, catching Dorea's attention and causing the ferocious debate over her potential spouse to stop so the house-elf could speak.

"Mistress Dorea has a petitioner," Moppet said gravely. "Petitioner is waiting in the Small Hall."

Dorea quickly got up and hurried downstairs; for the petitioner to have gotten _inside_ the Manor meant it was one of her closer friends, suggesting something rather drastic had gone wrong with their home-life . She really hoped it wasn't Sally-Anne; if it was that would mean the marriage arranged for the following summer had fallen through somehow and the other girl would be a complete mess. Maybe it was Astoria; as Dee was no longer heir her friend could only pledge herself and Dorea knew Lord and Lady Greengrass considered it their duty to set up appropriate matches for their children. Their view of 'appropriate' might not mesh well with their younger daughter's though.

* * *

As it turned out, the petitioner was Rence, who was waiting patiently by the Floo in the emerald green dress robes she'd bought him for the Yule Ball with two trunks stacked up neatly beside him. He didn't _look_ distressed; if anything he looked as contented as Dorea had ever seen him, eyes staring into space and habitual small, dreamy smile in place.

"Rence?"

The seventeen-year-old instantly removed his hands from his pockets and walked towards her, dropping on one knee in front of her and taking her hands in his.

"Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, Heir Black and Heir Potter," he said in the measured tones of someone taking a solemn vow, "I Pledge to you my life and service, to use as you see fit, for as long either of us draws breath. This I swear to Magic, that I will serve you freely, willingly and with all my heart." Dorea felt the Oath take, the power shaking her all the way to her bones. Rence smiled sweetly and kissed her hands.

"Rence… why?" Dorea croaked, completely taken aback. She'd never asked for anything like _this_ from anyone; she didn't think she ever would either. Pledges were binding but Rence seemed to have gone out of his way to find one of the most stringent, personal and limiting oaths out there! What in Merlin's name was he _thinking_?!

"Lots of reasons," her friend –her liegeman now– said lightly. "First of all because you desperately need someone watching your back and this way nobody can prevent me from doing just that. Secondly because I really, truly and desperately want to be an Alchemist-Enchanter and you are probably the only person with access to the books which will let me do that who will actually let me _read_ said books. Thirdly because there is nothing I would rather do with my life than serve you."

Dorea was forcefully reminded yet again that Terence Galahad Higgs had been born in entirely the wrong century; he would have been much more at home in the court of King Arthur a thousand years ago.

"Do your parents know about this?" She had to ask. If he'd been underage she would have owed his parents a lot of money for giving up their son and heir, but since he was an adult Rence could sign his life away as he chose.

"Yes; well, my mother does. I told my father that the only way to study what I wanted to would be to Pledge to one of the Ancient Families so I could use their library and he said that you seemed the most trustworthy and well-read person to turn to." Dorea wanted to laugh, but didn't. Rence's father was middle-class. Muggleborn and probably knew nothing at all about oaths.

"Get off the floor," she said with a helpless smile, "then go and tell my father about this. Moppet?"

The house-elf pattered into view from where she'd been waiting in the corridor. "Yes Mistress Dorea?"

"Rence is now my dependent; see that he is moved into an appropriate suite then take him to my father."

"Yes mistress," the elf snapped her fingers, making the trunks vanish. "This way please, mister Rence sir."

Rence got up, brushed off his knees and followed after Dorea's personal elf. Moppet was learning from the now too elderly to work Tansy how to manage a household, just as Wispy had long since taken over for Tansy in the kitchen. Dorea suspected she'd be getting a replacement maid-elf at some point, but thus far Moppet was juggling her duties just fine.

Wandering dazedly back up the stairs to her parlour, Dorea really had to wonder what other surprises this summer had in store for her.

* * *

Dorea's fifteenth birthday party was, as expected, the largest and most extravagant yet. She suspected that part of that was Papa trying to distract himself from her upcoming marriage and the rest was him doing his best to _support_ said marriage by being as traditionally Pureblood as possible. This meant her gown for the occasion was full-skirted and short-sleeved in peach-coloured Acromantula silk and she was wearing _all_ her ivory pearls: earrings, bracelet, tiara and all the graduated pearl necklaces from the choker to the pearl rope. Her hair was done up on the back of her head for the first time –as an young lady it was no longer appropriate for her hair to hang down her back– and she felt very, very beautiful.

As it was her fifteenth birthday it doubled as her coming-out party, but since House Black was the only family to stage proper balls at the moment just about every other family invited with a child between fifteen and twenty had dressed said child up to the nines as well. Dorea suspected that the matchmaking matrons would be watching the dance floor like hawks and investigating the young men who caught their granddaughters' eye. Of course that went both ways: there were a lot of young men in smart robes present as well, most of whom were very pleased for the opportunity to flirt with sumptuously dressed girls they'd only ever seen in school uniform before, if said girls had graduated before last year's Yule Ball. The Hogwarts uniform was about as flattering as a burlap sack.

As belle of the ball, Dorea had to dance with certain people for politeness sake. Fortunately no Death Eaters had been foolish enough to attempt to attend –the Wards would have bounced them back into the Floo and off somewhere random– but there were still irritating and self-important snobs out there who weren't allied to Voldemort. Zacharias Smith was one of these, but at least it was only one dance. She also got to dance with Rence, Blaise, Theo, Draco and Neville, who had entirely grown out of his childhood clumsiness, as well as Ernie Macmillan and Anthony Goldstein. Cedric Diggory also claimed a slow dance, during which he quietly informed her that Hufflepuff house stood behind her and House Black in the liberation of Magical Britain from the Dark Lord.

Dorea had asked in return that he ask his fellow Hufflepuffs to come up with a theoretical government system that would maximise efficiency and function while minimising corruption and paperwork, as if they could design it she would support a Ministerial candidate willing to implement it. Cedric seemed quite taken with the idea as he became very animated, abandoning her at the end of the dance to go and discuss the matter with a handful of Hufflepuff alumni standing over by the windows. Not really minding, Dorea had availed herself of the buffet table and a glass of champagne, sitting out the next dance and debating family history with Cousin Gregory.

All in all the party had been a resounding success, though it was followed the next morning by a screaming argument between the various factions involved in setting up her Marriage Ritual due to them all being tired and exhausted. Dorea had eventually exploded a vase of flowers and shouted at the top of her lungs that the only person who had a say in the matter was _her_, because _she_ was the one who'd be getting married. This resulted in a half-day détente leading to quiet apologies over dinner, so on the second of August Dorea went to Potter Manor with Dee, Luna and Dawn to draw the Ward. She would have taken Hermione as well, but the Muggleborn was going on holiday with her family and had done very well indeed to be able to stay at Black Manor all through July. As it was Hermione had thrust an inch-thick wad of notes at Dee, entreated Rhea to "please, please be careful" and ordered Luna to tell her _all_ about it afterwards.

* * *

Laying out a Ritual at any time was precise, nerve-racking and back-breaking work; laying out a Ritual that would see one of your best and closest friends married to whoever it wound up selecting –provided the man on the other end agreed, which was pretty much a given considering what a catch Rhea was– just made it all worse. Daphne had never doubted that Rhea trusted her implicitly, but if she had, this would have been proof. This level of trust was mind-boggling really; ensuring she lived up to it was going to be the hardest thing Daphne had ever done.

Despite Rhea being the one with the final say in all the ritual's components, she had listened to everyone's suggestions –however poorly conceived some of them were– and made a scant handful of allowances. Daphne had been the one to persuade her friend that her husband needed to have both parents born of Magical lines; Luna's contribution was that said husband both wanted to have children and was prepared to assist in raising them. Hermione's contribution had been that Dorea needed a husband she could respect, which was startlingly perceptive of her really, and Dawn's insistence on the age limit was one that Dorea had included right from the very beginning. No lady wanted to marry an old man, especially if he was of an age to have daughters older than his own wife!

The girls had not been the only ones to make suggestions: Rence had pointed out that her husband needed to understand Dorea's responsibilities and the nature of the relationships she had with those Pledged to her; Dee could see how easy it would be for a more middle-class Wizard to mistake Rence for a live-in lover rather than a vassal. Blaise's observation had been more profound, as he had pointed out that, in order to keep in line the eventual Black children, her husband would need to be innately fierce and authoritative. Daphne agreed wholeheartedly with that observation; it really would not do for Rhea to marry a man who was meek. None of the Blacks could ever be described as meek; as introverted or detached from reality as some of them were, they were nonetheless a family of very passionate people which translated into lots of unruly behaviour as children.

Lord Black's only observation was that his son-in-law needed to have a sense of humour, be honourable and prepared to fulfil _all_ his responsibilities to Rhea as her husband. Which covered a great deal of ground, all things considered.

Fitting all this into a single Ritual layout was a challenge and a half, as Rhea insisted the wording not be too tight. Magic would always find a way, so trying to tie it too closely to any particular outcome would warp it in ways that could only be detrimental. Better to keep things loose, so that the magic could flow freely towards the best possible outcome.

Rhea's personal contribution to the Ritual had been deceptively simple: her husband had to be of the same Soulfire Affinity as her, in a comparable fundamental mental and emotional condition and sharing similar long-term goals to her own. Dee found that incredibly clever: even if the other peripheral conditions fell through, her friend would marry a man of similar overall temperament to her own, sharing her vision and able to empathise with her situation.

* * *

The Ritual was not ready to use until lunchtime on August 3rd, but Rhea decided to put it off until they had had a chance to eat and properly prepare themselves. Rituals were very sensitive to the mental state of those participating, which was the whole point of long, complex preparations beforehand.

Dawn, Luna and Daphne herself would be washing and dressing in undyed silk robes for their roles as Handmaidens, while Dorea would be taking a full bath and putting on the silk and lace wedding-dress-nightgown hybrid that was traditional for this particular ritual. She would also be wearing a _lot_ of heirloom jewellery and holding the Potter House Rings which had in fact been created for use in this very Ritual some six hundred years previously. The then-heir of House Potter had been an Alchemist and had been looking for a bride who shared his interests, so had created a very particular set of rings that changed their shape according to the family background and identity of the Lord and Lady Potter wearing them. As they had not been used for over a century the rings were currently plain gold, each set with a large, delicately faceted orange sapphire larger than Daphne's thumbnail.

At seven o'clock Daphne stood on her point of the seven-pointed star, Luna opposite her in her own designated spot and Dawn off to her left, doing her best to stay calm and composed. Then Rhea finally entered the large, open basement area they had commandeered for this purpose and suddenly it all came on Daphne at once that by this time tomorrow her friend would be _married_. To a man she'd likely never even _met_ before and who might not even speak English. Why hadn't they put 'speaks English' in as a condition?! Of all the things to miss! She could only hope the oversight would be covered by one of the other conditions, as a marriage where husband and wife couldn't communicate clearly would be off to a very poor start. At least it was impossible for her to end up marrying somebody who was already in a relationship; that was ingrained in the Ritual's basic structure.

Then Rhea stepped into the centre of the star and gracefully began the steps of the dance that set the Wedding Ritual in motion. It was too late to back out now, so Daphne focused on pouring her power into the Runes spiralling out around them and concentrating resolutely on their shared purpose. Her friend, the daughter of an Ancient and Noble House to whom she had Pledged her allegiance and had stood beside her for as long as they had known each-other, _would_ find the best possible husband to stand beside her and support her! Daphne would not have it otherwise!

As Rhea glided smoothly through the steps Daphne could feel the power rising higher and higher around them in way that was both utterly focused yet thrillingly wild. There was Soulfire threaded through it as well, adding potency and shaping it in strangely beautiful ways. Then Rhea stopped moving and for a heart-stopping moment the whole world seemed to groan under the strain.

Then the Magic was gone and Rhea with it, leaving behind three girls all breathing heavily and a seven-pointed star traced on the stone floor that glowed a steady, shining orange.

"Well, it worked," Dawn said wearily, "but we won't know how well it worked for another twelve hours."

"So in twelve hours Rhea will be summoned back here?" Daphne specified.

"Yes: her and the jewellery at least," Dawn clarified; "the dress might not make it since silk is a very poor magical conductor. We'll need to have blankets ready just in case." The older girl sighed heavily. "Of course, then we'll have to hunt down her husband the hard way, but Dorea will at least know his name and family so it shouldn't be _too_ hard."

Daphne hoped Dawn was right, but with Rhea things rarely went as planned. That they had even resorted to this ritual in the first place was evidence enough of that.


	42. Chapter 42

Beta'd by the inventive InsaneScriptist.

So many reviews... I have awesome reviewers! Thank-you, all of you!

* * *

**Of passion and fury **

In the new and still not entirely familiar master bedroom of the Varia Headquarters, Xanxus paced across the marble floor, a half-empty wineglass cradled in one hand. It was almost ten months since he had discovered he would never –_could_ never– inherit the Vongola and in that time his fury at being so betrayed had not cooled in the slightest. Instead his rage had sharpened, becoming ever more honed as he used the burning sense of purpose the discovery had instilled in him to put himself in a position to strike deep into the heart of the Vongola. He had made a name for himself, not just as the most intelligent and dangerous of Nono's sons –which he had already been considered to be– but as a brilliant, ruthless and devious killer. He had acquired personal followers, men who were loyal to him first and the Vongola as a whole second, and completely taken over and restructured the Varia in less than four months.

He now had everything he needed to take his revenge on the old man who had lied to him about everything and led him around by the nose, dangling the title of 'heir' over his head when it was forever beyond his reach. Xanxus hated being lied to, loathed with a burning passion trash who made empty promises and offered up prizes they never intended to deliver, so he was going to show the old bastard why _nobody_ played Xanxus for a fool, _nobody_.

Not even the Vongola Nono got to do that to him.

In a flash of wild rage, Xanxus was briefly tempted to throw his wineglass across the room and see it shatter against the wall, but reined himself in with a mental reminder that anger without control was a weakness. Instead he set the glass down firmly on the side-table beside the mostly empty bottle, sat down on the bed and took out his X-guns. He'd been working on the prototypes for a while, but these were his final models and he had built them himself from scratch in the week following the unwelcome discovery of his complete lack of Vongola heritage. They worked very well, but having used them for over half a year Xanxus already had a mental list of improvements he intended to put into his next pair, which would also be bigger so they could take a larger calibre of Dying Will Bullet.

Not that he needed larger calibre bullets, but larger bullets meant more Flame could be stored in them, which would in turn mean larger explosions. He could already turn a man's head into so much floating ash from over 100 metres away –more than double the range of normal handguns– but while impressive, it still wasn't quite enough. He wanted to be able to have the same effect on a person's entire body, leaving nothing but dust behind.

Cleaning his guns was therapeutic for Xanxus, for all they didn't need it as much as normal weapons did. Wrath Flames burned very powerfully, so there was very little residue left in the gun barrel after shooting. However proper care of firearms had been one of Xanxus' earliest and most fondly-remembered lessons, so he never skimped on cleaning his weapons if he could possibly help it.

* * *

Xanxus had fully disassembled, cleaned and reassembled both handguns and reloaded both with new clips when his intuition twitched. Not in a bad, 'duck before the bullet goes through your eye' way but in the more subtle 'pay attention because here is an opportunity' kind of way. Like it had when he almost got knocked over by Lussuria right after the older teenager had been officially reprimanded, or when he'd walked into the front lounge that morning six weeks ago to find an eight-year-old boy with a crazy grin throwing knives at the wait staff.

Then there was a sudden feeling of pressure and Sky Flames flashed across the room, sealing the doors and windows in an unusual application of Harmony. Xanxus stilled, X-guns held easily in both hands but otherwise relaxed. The Flames, while unusually pure and not belonging to anyone he'd ever met or sensed before, were soft, dispersed and not remotely aggressive. Quite the opposite: they hummed invitingly to his senses, Sun flickering lightly across the surface and Storm threading through the depths like veins in rock.

It was a truly encompassing Harmony, wider than he was used to feeling from the old man and pleasantly deep without being suffocating. The Vongola might have been the Family with the most experience of Flames and training Flame-users, but that didn't meant the people in the Vongola were actually getting the most out of their Flames.

In fact they usually weren't, since all the Mafia-trained Flame users were primarily taught how to use their Will in ways that were practical and beneficial to their respective Famiglias and what was good for the Family was not necessarily good for the individual. Lightnings in particular got the short end of the stick as they were usually trained to be reckless, self-sacrificing meat-shields or borderline-suicidal assassins. Just because the role of the Lightning Guardian was to draw fire away from the rest of the family didn't mean that teaching Lightning users to have no self-preservation whatsoever was a good idea; it was in fact a fucking stupid idea since a Flame user with no real sense of identity was a Flame user with no drive to better themselves and no imagination whatsoever. Xanxus found it damnably irritating as his Lightning Squad was both the smallest and least flexible in the Varia despite their easily meeting all of his expressed standards. Lightings tended towards obsession regardless, but the way they were trained before they become Varia was maddening to work around.

The foreign Flames filling the room intensified for an instant, blinding him. Xanxus had both guns pointed at the intruder who'd just appeared out of nowhere even as he blinked the spots from his eyes; how the fuck had they done that?! It wasn't an illusion and the room was still sealed, which meant teleportation and that shouldn't be possible. Well, clearly it _was_ possible, which meant that as soon as the intruder was dealt with he needed to start looking into ways to prevent people from randomly teleporting inside the Varia Headquarters. Security was important.

Once his eyes were working properly again Xanxus could see the intruder in his bedroom was a woman. Well, a _ragazza_ about his own age, probably about a year younger, tall and wearing ivory lace and silk with black curly hair piled on top of her head and draped in enough jewellery to fund a small war. Very fine, high-quality jewellery at that: her tiara had orange sapphires as large as the end joint of his thumb. She was tall too, barely fifteen centimetres shorter than he was, and had eyes in the most virulently vivid shade of poison green that he'd ever seen in his life. She was also one of the strongest female Skies he'd ever met –not that he'd met many as Skies were few and far between anyway and female ones were rarer– and as she focused on him his instincts went from humming happily to dropping the world's biggest ever info dump between his ears.

Suddenly he _knew_ the chick. She was an heir to an old and important family, like he'd been raised to be, and was being targeted by a bunch of overly controlling old men who wanted to take away from her everything she'd ever worked for. She had people relying on her, loyal followers needing her to direct them, business interests to manage, would-be allies to keep in line, enemies to kill and standards to meet. She cared deeply for the Family, put it before everything she did, but she was having to deal with trash who didn't give a shit about anything except their own agendas and it was pissing her off.

Like him, she was angry about what a bunch of old farts had done to the Family she loved. Like him, she had a personal agenda to shake her world to its foundations so it could be rebuilt better and stronger. Like him, she was waging war against weakness, complacency and permissiveness masquerading as love and compassion.

And like him, she needed a partner.

* * *

There were a number of basic requirements for being considered as a potential candidate for the position of next boss of the Vongola. Firstly and most importantly, you needed to have the bloodline and be a Sky. Only Skies inherited. The reason Ottava had got the job despite having another six siblings was that out of four sons and three daughters she was the _only_ one of Settimo's kids with Sky Flames.

Secondly, to be an heir candidate you needed a full complement of guardians or at least potential guardians. Out of the old fart's four kids all three sons were Skies, but only the youngest –Federico– had a full set of guardians. Enrico, the eldest, had five and Massimo only had two who were willing to deal with his shit. That one of those two was a Lightning said a lot about what a pathetic piece of trash Massimo was; Lussuria had been a prime candidate for Massimo's Sun Guardian but had been turned down not because he was in any way incompetent but because Massimo was homophobic and at their first meeting Lussuria had flirted with him.

Xanxus had since learned that Lussuria flirted with everyone to begin with then stopped if he actually liked you as a person, because Lussuria mothered the people he considered to be important to him. Massimo's point-blank refusal to consider him and complaint against the Sun's personal habits had earned Lussuria a reprimand, which Xanxus had wilfully ignored when he offered the slightly older teen a place in the Varia. Now firmly entrenched as a senior Varia Officer, Lussuria had become even more cheerfully blatant in ramming his flirtatious behaviour and personal flamboyance down other people's throats; he'd also lost most of the singing tension in his shoulders and the guarded look in his eyes, which meant that anyone complaining to Xanxus about Lussuria's attitude would be told to suck it up and get over themselves.

Thirdly, both the current boss and the head of the CEDEF had to approve of you as a boss candidate. Those were the only official requirements any would-be heir had to meet in order to be considered, but there were a number of other very important factors that had to be taken into account in order to separate out the acceptable candidates from the good ones.

For instance, a _good_ boss candidate had to be respected by the Famiglia's allies and feared enough by their enemies that when they did actually gain the boss position there wasn't a free-for-all as everybody tried to attack the Family at once. A change in leadership was always a weak point, so a boss candidate had to be _personally_ feared so that any would-be attackers would hesitate to antagonise him or her.

A good boss candidate also had to command the loyalty of their underlings, which meant being highly respected, slightly feared and knowing all the important things about the people under your command. You couldn't get the most out of your subordinates if you didn't know their strengths and weaknesses after all. Xanxus knew the sixty-odd people currently under his command much better than he appeared to, as despite not having ever had an actual conversation with anyone other than Squalo he still had a damn good idea of what was going on inside each individual head. As boss, that was a big part of his job.

However in the Vongola as in every other established Famiglia, a rather major point to be considered in selecting an heir was the matter of succession. A boss needed to have kids, so that one of those kids could become boss themselves one day. None of the old man's sons were married or even engaged; Federico went through women like wine but none of his relationships had ever been remotely serious. Enrico had women tripping over themselves to simper at him while batting their eyelashes but none of those pathetic bits of trash would ever be suitable wives for a Vongola Don. It said a lot about how shallow all those gold-diggers were that even Massimo had a following.

Xanxus had a following as well, though it had always been smaller since the snooty pampered trash looked down on him for being Nono's supposed bastard child. Since he'd taken over the Varia the following had shrunk further as he had proven he wasn't one to suffer fools and was perfectly willing to shoot women if the job required it. The few scum who still tried to catch his eye wouldn't even give him the time of day if his lack of Vongola blood ever became public, so Xanxus didn't give a shit about them.

Xanxus knew in his heart that he could never become Vongola boss and that his rebellion would likely cost him dear, but it did not deter him. The old fart was slipping up in his old age, making poor decisions because he was tired of leading rather than out of genuine benevolence, so for the Famiglia's sake Xanxus was going to do some serious shaking up before the complacency destroyed everything he loved about the Vongola. Of course he wasn't telling people his actual reasons: even Squalo thought he was attempting a coup so he could take over control of the Vongola for himself. Just because he knew his subordinates inside-out did not mean they knew him at all; they only knew what he showed them and he was better at hiding than they were at ferreting things out.

However since he was passing it off as a coup Xanxus had to plan his every action as though he really _was_ plotting to take over the Vongola, which meant he needed to consider the matter of succession and find a woman who wasn't trash to settle down with. Unfortunately women like that were vanishingly thin on the ground and few of them had the qualities a boss's wife needed to have. It made finding someone suitable, particularly someone he could honestly respect, a near-impossible task.

* * *

In his heart of hearts Xanxus did actually want to get married, but his early childhood in the care of his whore of a mother had strongly affected his views on intimacy, love and sex. Xanxus did not consider sex to be intimate. Sex was just something else that people did together and sometimes did for money, like cooking, eating and killing. Similarly, flirtation and seduction were not intimate either: they were all about convincing the person you were using it on that they could trust you, regardless of whether or not that was actually true. At nearly seventeen Xanxus hadn't actually had sex with anyone yet due to spending most of the past year obsessively plotting his revenge, but he knew a lot about it from listening to more experienced individuals and had done several assassination missions which had involved seduction. Knocking out or even killing the stupid, gullible trash after gaining entrance to somewhere he shouldn't be or being given the information he'd needed was actually rather disturbingly easy for Xanxus, something his early childhood experiences were likely responsible for.

Love however was special. Love was about trust earned and returned, being able to be yourself without even the smallest risk of betrayal. Xanxus had loved the man he believed to be his father and that he had been lied to for all of his life by that same man really burned. But that was just filial love, which a lot of people managed to get by without, so Xanxus could write the old fart off as a loss without too much trouble. Romantic love however was an entirely different animal, one he had no experience with whatsoever. Ottava always said that he'd recognise it when he encountered it because there would be nothing else it could possibly be, but Xanxus hadn't quite believed her.

Until now. Now he was staring at a girl whom he had never met, whose name he didn't even know, yet he knew all her deepest, most personal secrets and she knew he knew them. He was pretty sure she could see right through him like he'd seen right through her, yet she wasn't shocked or disgusted or outraged. Instead she was _smiling_ at him, a small, fond smile that made his heart clench in a way that was completely alien to him. Xanxus lowered his X-guns, setting them aside before stepping closer to the stranger.

"_Sposami_," he demanded huskily. Learning her name could wait; her marrying him was more important.

The girl's eyes widened and she beamed at him in mingled joy and relief, opening her clenched hands to reveal a pair of matched Sky rings which she offered to him. Xanxus walked right up to her to examine the rings more closely, then picked up the slightly more delicate one.

"Do you have any conditions?" his wife-to-be asked in respectful and lightly accented Italian. Xanxus judged her to be British; well-bred British at that. Interesting.

"What kind of conditions?" he asked instead.

"I am Heir to two Families, so I need to have two sons to inherit them," she explained, "but I would like more than just two children."

"I would like ten children," Xanxus admitted; it had always been a secret wish of his to have a large family and ten was his favourite number. However he did understand that women did all the hard work in pregnancy and childbirth, so a wife did get veto.

She didn't laugh at him or make fun of his dream. "How about I agree to ten pregnancies, then after that we see how we feel about things," she offered with a small smile. "Anything else?"

"I get to kill your enemies; as your husband your safety is my responsibility," Xanxus said bluntly. While a degree of independence was good, he didn't want the kind of wife who fought with him over every little thing just to prove she was her own person. As her husband he would be responsible for her welfare and he took his responsibilities seriously.

"Acceptable," she conceded, "provided I am allowed to defend myself and my children with lethal force in your absence."

An eminently agreeable condition; good to know he was marrying a women who wasn't afraid to do her own dirty work. "Granted. Do you have further conditions of your own?"

She paused, nibbling on her lower lip. "I ask that you not interfere in the running of my family affairs unless they clash directly with your own professional interests, and that even then you inform me of the matter and we reach a compromise between us. I will of course consult you, but as they are my inheritance I have ultimate authority."

"Deal." He wouldn't want her interfering with Varia matters either. "So, what's your name?"

Her cheeks went slightly pink. "Sorry. My name is Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter and I am Heiress Black and Heir Potter."

"I am Xanxus of the Vongola, Leader of the Varia," he told her. A year ago he would have called himself 'Xanxus Vongola', but he had no right to the name. The old fart hadn't even adopted him properly, simply taking him in and claiming him unofficially. Had he actually been Nono's son it would have been enough, but he wasn't so Xanxus really had no rights to anything at all. That was in many ways worse than being denied the Boss title; he was Vongola entirely on the old fart's sufferance and the next boss could toss him out if it suited them. "I take you, Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace. I will love you, honour you and cherish you all the days of my life."

Taking her left hand he slid the ring on her third finger.

"And I take you, Xanxus of the Vongola, to be my husband," Dorea reciprocated readily. "I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace. I will love you, honour you and obey you all the days of my life."

As she slid the ring onto his finger Xanxus felt something in the air change, as though the Flames still humming around them had taken note of the promises made. However rather than ponder that he bent down to kiss his wife full on the lips; it may have only been nine o'clock in the evening but it was his wedding night and he fully intended to make the most of it.


	43. Chapter 43

Beta'd by the adorable InsaneScriptist.

And can I just say how blown away I am by the number of reviews I'm getting? Thank-you readers!

* * *

**Of details and adjustments **

Dorea awoke slowly, perfectly content to bask in the warmth surrounding her, the morning light shining in through the room's one, small window and the strong arms wrapped possessively around her upper body. She was married; last night had been her wedding night and the husband Magic had selected for her was everything she had hoped for and more. He was even taller than her!

There was a low, incoherent growl by her ear and the arms around her tightened, her new husband drawing her closer and nuzzling at her neck in his sleep. Dorea smiled, letting her eyes flutter closed as she enjoyed the low hum of Xanxus' Flames synchronising perfectly with her own, their strength and activity indicating he used them regularly and knew them intimately. She was married and it was wonderful. She'd been a bit nervous about her wedding night, but it had turned out that her husband didn't have much more experience in that area than she did and had been perfectly happy to take things slowly. It had been nearly midnight before they finally had intercourse, but Dorea had discovered that sex was quite possibly one of the best things _ever_ and that she was a bit of a wildcat in the bedroom. Her new husband had scratches all over his back, a few more on his upper chest and bite-marks along his shoulders.

Not that Dorea was in much better shape herself: after discovering that his bride had managed to maul him Xanxus had grinned at her and then thoroughly held her down for the next round. She had faint bruises on her wrists from struggling, more bruises scattered lightly over the rest of her body from where foreplay had degenerated into erotic wrestling matches a few times and any number of hickies and bite-marks of her own. She was also pleasantly sore all over, especially in places she'd never really been aware of before. Not that she minded in the slightest.

However she only had twelve hours with her husband before the Ritual would whisk her away again, which since they'd only fallen asleep somewhere around three in the morning meant that she'd had barely four hours sleep –if that– and would be leaving in a little over two hours time. Which was far too soon and the very idea was already threatening to ruin her mood.

"_Already awake?_" her husband's deliciously low voice rumbled in her ear, his tone lending a certain dark suggestiveness to his liquid Italian purr. "_You really are insatiable, aren't you, wife of mine?_"

"_It's all your fault; I was never like this before marrying you,_" Dorea responded teasingly, rolling over so she could see Xanxus' face properly. "_Unfortunately however we don't have much time._"

"_Why?_"

"_You remember how I got here?_"

"O_bviously,_" her husband said, eyes now slightly narrowed in expectancy. Dorea had learned that the man she had married was not much of a talker, but his body language and the way his Flames shifted more than made up for his dislike of uttering more than a single sentence at a time.

"_It was magic,_" Dorea said bluntly, not being worried about breaking the Statute of Secrecy when she knew her husband definitely had two magical parents. He might not remember them –he probably didn't considering he'd not seemed to think he had a surname– but he was still Wizard born and so telling him was fine even if he happed to be a squib, which was still a possibility. "_I did a ritual to find myself a husband who was my match and it brought me to you. But the ritual only keeps me here for twelve hours; then I get taken back home and we have to find each-other again._"

Judging by his facial expression her husband didn't believe in magic, but he didn't say as much. Dorea had a feeling he'd seen all manner of really weird things in his lifetime and was willing to accept 'magic' as a temporary explanation until more precise details could be found.

"You're British, aren't you," he said in fluent, unaccented English.

"Yes, I am," Dorea agreed in the same language. "But you could spend a year looking for me in the public records and never find me; Magical people are very secretive."

Xanxus snorted. "Not so different from the Mafia then."

Dorea blinked. She'd married a Mafia man? Blaise was never going to let her live this down, she knew it; all the princess jokes about her marrying the dragon instead of waiting to be rescued were never going to stop amusing him. Never mind that Xanxus looked rather startlingly similar to her best friend and oath-brother, which suggested her husband was at least half Zabini. The Zabinis bred true, with their traditionally Italian yet alluringly exotic appearance and Blaise only differed in having slightly darker skin and faintly curlier hair. The feathers in her husband's hair also supported that theory; Zee's mother wore feathers too and had told Dorea they were a tradition that was almost instinctive. "I didn't know the Mafia trained its members in using Soulfire," she said instead. Abraxas' book had included biographies of Mafia members with Soulfire, but there had been no indication of it being systematic rather than coincidental.

"Soulfire?" Xanxus dragged them both upright, the sheets dropping to fold around their waists. "We call it Dying Will Flame." He did not answer her question, but Dorea didn't mind. She could keep her nose out of what he did for a living if that was what he wanted.

"_How soon do you want me to hunt you down? My father will want to meet you,_" she said instead, reverting back to Italian.

Xanxus frowned. "_I'm in the middle of something risky, so how about two weeks? I'll meet you in the portico of the Cathedral of Palermo at noon on Thursday the fifteenth._"

Dorea nodded, not voicing her disappointment at how very far away that felt. Her husband had commitments and it would be selfish of her to expect him to put them off for her. Slipping out of Xanxus' arms she got off the bed, paused as she took in the deep, jagged tears in the bodice of the dress she'd been wearing and instead appropriated the crumpled dress shirt she had stripped off her husband the previous evening. It was very large on her but at least that meant she would be able to do up the buttons at the front.

"_What are you doing?_"

Dorea turned around, raising an eyebrow at her husband's distinctly lustful curiosity. "_You ruined my dress,_" she said blandly, "_so I think I'll wear this._" She reached for the buttons but Xanxus was off the bed and upon her before she could do more than fumble for a buttonhole, his red eyes alight with hunger. Pinned to the bedroom wall, Dorea had no objections whatsoever to her husband's choice of morning activity.

* * *

Much as Xanxus would have liked to continue finding new and intensely enjoyable ways of making his wife scream, she had less than fifteen minutes left and that really wasn't long enough. So instead he knelt over where she was sprawled on the floor and carefully buttoned up his shirt over her heaving chest. It was very gratifying to see her lying there so dazed and trembling, her legs having given out the moment he let go of her. As she gasped for breath, hands shaking even as they braced against the floor as though she was afraid of falling off it, Xanxus carefully walked around the room looking for all the jewellery she'd been wearing the previous evening. Necklace on side table by the wine glass, bracelet kicked under the wardrobe, girdle lying slightly under the bed, earrings in two different corners of the room and tiara dropped between the bed and bedside table –on his side of the mattress. By the time he'd found everything –all still miraculously intact– his wife had recovered slightly and was levering herself into a sitting position.

"_Eccoti,_" he said shortly, dumping the fortune in gemstones into her lap. He wasn't sure how he felt about all this now. Oh he loved his wife –she was perfect from what he knew of her thanks to the major infodump from the 'ritual' the previous evening and a night spent in her company– but he was very likely to die in the attack on the Vongola Headquarters in a week's time and widowing her would be a betrayal of her trust. He also hadn't given her anything at all and it didn't sit right with him. She'd even provided the wedding rings, for God's sake!

However the room was sealed and it wasn't like there was anything in the Varia Headquarters that would make a suitable gift for his new wife anyway. He would have to order something specially, or perhaps make something for her himself.

Then Xanxus' eyes fell upon his X-guns and inspiration struck. The guns were pretty small, easily small enough to fit into his wife's hands, and the recoil was pretty much non-existent. They would do as a first gift, since just because their engagement had lasted all of the five seconds it took to name and agree to conditions didn't mean she didn't deserve to get a proper betrothal gift. He was going to make himself a new pair anyway, so they were ideal!

As his wife set about putting her jewellery back on Xanxus fished his spare clips out of the pockets of the jacket hanging on the back of the door and retrieved the metal suitcase from the bottom of his wardrobe that contained all the rest of the ammunition for his X-guns. Since the new pair would use larger calibre ammunition he had no use for any of what he had here, so he might as well give it all to his wife. Putting the spare clips back in the case, he snapped it shut and carried it over to his gorgeous bride. She had managed to put her earrings back on, as well as the necklace and the tiara which looked very fetching on her loose, tousled curls which were hanging down her back to her waist, but the girdle was now wrapped casually around her upper arm and she was still fiddling with the bracelet. Her heart still hadn't settled back to normal either, which gave him a warm, smug feeling.

"_Here; these are for you,_" he said shortly as she looked up at him, dropping down into a crouch and handing her the guns. "_The case has specialised ammunition in._"

"_Specialised how?_" his wife asked curiously, handling the X-guns in a practised and capable manner. It was a relief that he wouldn't need to teach her basic firearm safety when they only had about five minutes left. Britain had stringent laws against firearms, so it was a rare Brit who knew how to use them.

"_It will absorb and channel your Flames,_" he explained succinctly, lifting her to her feet and dragging her over to the slightly open window. "_Watch._"

Taking one of the X-guns off her he sighted on a pigeon perched on a nearby spire, called up his Wrath Flames and fired. The bird vanished in a flash of red-orange, completely vaporised. "_The guns channel the Flame into the bullets, which store it until you fire and expend it on impact. I'll make you more bullets later, but these will be enough for a few weeks._"

She accepted the X-gun back, clutching both weapons to her chest with one hand as she took the suitcase from him with the other. "_Thank-you,_" his wife said earnestly, going up on tiptoe to press a chaste kiss against his lips. "_Until Thursday after next, husband mine. I love you._"

Then there was a whisper of Sky Flame and she was gone. Xanxus stared irritably at the empty space were she'd been standing; okay, _now_ he believed that this 'magic' thing she had mentioned was more than just Flames and psychic powers and as soon as the 'coup' was over and done with he was going to make his wife explain _everything_ to him so he could learn do that too. Any underground society would need a strict and heavily-enforced code of secrecy in order to _stay_ secret, but since 'magic' had brought her to him that implied _he_ had magic too, or at least the potential for it. Learning what it entailed and working out how to use it could only benefit him and the Vongola in the future, even if he couldn't actually tell anybody about it.

* * *

Kicking about in Potter Manor for twelve hours, waiting for Dorea to return, was not really restful despite the house-elves bringing them hot chocolate and sleeping on some of the most comfortable beds known to Wizardkind; Daphne for one slept rather badly. Somewhere her friend was getting married and _having her wedding night_ –Daphne couldn't help blushing in confusion at the implications of that idea– with a man whom they hadn't even been able to investigate beforehand. She did eventually drop off, but she awoke early and rather than lie staring at the canopy of the four-poster she got up and wandered downstairs for breakfast.

Despite it being six in the morning both Luna and Dawn were already up and dressed and there was a lavish spread on the table of the Breakfast Room. They had probably slept equally poorly. Daphne murmured a scant "morning," to them both and availed herself of the French croissants sitting in the middle of the table; Dorea favoured a continental breakfast outside of school, not being at all partial to greasy fried food early in the morning, which to Daphne's mind was highly civilised and something Hogwarts ought to take note of. The one good thing about the Triwizard Tournament was the diversity of food that had been available at mealtimes throughout the year, including at breakfast. Unfortunately the diversity had vanished with the visitors, informing Daphne that the stodgy, traditionally British diet they were limited to was something the elves conformed to out of obedience rather than lack of experience. Something else to blame Dumbledore for.

"Two more hours," Dawn said quietly, staring down into her cup of tea as though it contained the secrets of the universe. If Dawn really did have Seer talent, it actually might.

"I'm sure Rhea is just fine," Luna said serenely. "She's probably having some last-minute energetic fun with her new husband; they might even be making a baby. I'd like to help her look after a baby; I've always wanted younger siblings."

Daphne choked on her tea.

* * *

At ten to eight all three girls were back downstairs in the basement, but while Daphne was fretting and Dawn seemed altogether distracted, Luna was wandering around trying doors and investigating the potions laboratory she'd found through a door that looked like an alcove unless you were paying attention. Daphne was just glad Luna was no longer talking about sex; it had been embarrassing and she hadn't known what to say to the younger girl. Not that sex was in any way taboo, but it was private and not something girls were supposed to talk about over breakfast. Not even girls that were of age aired things like that over meals, though Dawn had apparently missed Luna's indiscretion due to her own ever-increasing distraction as the morning dragged on.

Luna had picked up on a lot of the little social cues and standards that all the girls in Dorea's group adhered to, but just because she knew what was socially appropriate didn't mean she was going to abide. She had come a long way from the shy dreamer Rhea had dragged into their study group back in second year, but she was still Luna Lovegood and the cheerful eccentricity was not about to go away any time soon. That Luna had sat a number of her OWLs already and passed them with flying colours indicated she wasn't going to be left behind simply because she was younger; the letter that came with her results had revealed that her request to be allowed to skip a year had been granted and she would be starting fifth-year alongside Daphne come the autumn.

Five minutes to eight. The seven-pointed star drawn in orange flame continued to pulse gently as though in time to a slow heartbeat. Daphne wondered how the Soulfire had affected the ritual, because she had no doubt that it had done so. It was not magic for all that it flowed along the same lines and followed some of the same basic rules. It was spiritual, not born of blood and mind but something more ineffable and in many ways more potent. Magic was all very well –if more flexible than Hogwarts' professors portrayed it– but Soulfire was all about who you _were_. It was your very will enforced directly on the world without a medium to soften the blow, a raw interaction between the soul and physical reality.

It staggered Daphne sometimes how _willingly_ Rhea's friends had taken to the subject, almost heedless to the dangers involved. True, she hadn't hesitated either, but unlike the majority she did know the risks. Soul Magic was one of the least understood magical disciplines, the knowledge usually passed down from master to apprentice and consisting largely of anecdotal evidence of what had worked, what hadn't and cautious speculation as to why. But the others hadn't cared about that: all that had mattered to them was that Rhea was learning it and had offered to share the knowledge with them.

The orange glow from the ground briefly increased in intensity before flaring up and dying away, revealing Rhea standing in what would have been the middle of the star. Daphne blinked at her friend's dishevelled appearance: her hair was tangled and hanging down her back, her jewellery was crooked and she was wearing a partly-buttoned Muggle dress shirt that barely covered her behind. Daphne then noticed the hickies, small bruises and teeth-marks and flushed scarlet; was that what she thought it was that dripping down the inside of her friend's leg?

Luna then hurried over with a vial in one hand, dropped down and used her wand to scoop up the dribbling white… fluid… into her vial before waving her wand over it a few times.

"There we are; against future need," she said brightly. "Is it nice being married, Rhea?"

Rhea laughed, the sound so wonderfully free and joyful that Daphne's heart leapt in her chest.

"Being married is wonderful," she said honestly, "but I think I need a shower. Oh, and I really must put my wedding gifts somewhere safe where nobody will try and fiddle with them."

"Wedding gifts?" Dawn raised an eyebrow at the guns. "Your husband gave you guns?"

"He wants me to be safe and wants to be the one keeping me safe," Rhea said happily, her smile filling her face as she almost bounced in glee.

"Good," Daphne said, her taunt nerves finally unwinding a little at her friends sustained and unstinting joy. "I'm so pleased for you Rhea!"

The new Lady Potter giggled, hugging the two Muggle weapons to herself. Time spent with the extended Black family and Hermione out on the Long Lawn had at least informed Daphne of how startlingly dangerous modern Muggle weaponry could be, which had likely been the point. "He's _perfect_ for me," she confided, "but I think there's something funny going on in his family background, so we'll have to do some digging. He looks far too much like Zee for it to be a coincidence but didn't claim the Zabini name."

"Ooh, a mystery!" Luna chirped as they hurried up the stairs to the nearest bathroom. "How exciting!"

Daphne just hoped Rhea's new husband wasn't as prone to being the focus of unexpected conspiracies she was.


	44. Chapter 44

Beta'd by the illustrious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of decisions and keeping promises **

Xanxus had known, intellectually, that marriage changed people. He had seen his foster-sister Maria-Chiara get married and how both she and her husband had been different afterwards. Having kids had changed them both further, but in good ways. Big sister Rika had gained a softness that had balanced out her ruthlessly utilitarian personality that was unusual for a Rain and her husband had grown a spine and learned to think before speaking. Of course, both of them had also become _very_ proactive in ferreting out and disposing of threats to themselves and their kids, which was the bit Xanxus had approved of the most because threats to Nono's daughter were by definition threats to the Vongola as a whole.

However he hadn't really _understood_ how marriage changed a person until he found himself married and then having to deal with the changes without his wife. It had taken him less than a day to start missing her, for God's sake! Okay, a lot of that was definitely lust now he'd been introduced to the sheer enjoyment that could be found in sex, but there was something more fundamental to it than that. He missed the Harmonising of her Flames with his, which he'd barely even noticed until she wasn't there anymore and it felt like a gaping hole had opened up under his heart. Admittedly he'd only felt mildly uncomfortable until he took off his wedding ring so it was his own damn fault for doing so, but he didn't want Lussuria noticing –because Luss _would_ notice– and given the precariousness of his current position letting it get out that he had a wife would only place her in danger, member of a secret magical society or otherwise. While _he_ hadn't previously been aware of the existence of said secret magical society, that didn't mean that others within the Mafia and maybe even the Varia were ignorant of it. If the news got out some of his enemies might be motivated and informed enough to find her.

He'd placed the ring on a chain around his neck, hidden inside his shirt to lie against his heart. It did help a little, but the nagging feeling that he wasn't honouring his new bride as he should be still made him very irritable.

There was also the matter of the wedding dress, which had been more of a wedding nightgown than the kind of dress a lady should really be wearing in public. The bodice seams were entirely gone, but that was because Xanxus hadn't had the patience to deal with the fiddly little buttons and had instead used a tiny, impeccably controlled tendril of Wrath Flames to dissolve the stitching holding the seams together. Nothing had actually ripped, so if he wanted to see his wife in the dress again he'd just need to have it mended, or else fix it himself. He was certainly no tailor but seams were not exactly what you could call difficult. Boring yes, but not hard; probably no more than a few hours work on the outside.

Having a _dress_ is his wardrobe would definitely attract unwanted attention, but Xanxus couldn't bring himself to destroy it no matter how sensible that would be. Eventually he turned it inside out so none of the lace was visible and hid it at the back of his wardrobe with the various traditional costumes of other nations that had somehow survived the undercover missions they had been bought for. Even if someone found it there it could easily be passed off as having been put in there by accident by the servants.

Another unexpected hitch was that in planning his strategy to assault the Vongola Headquarters he found himself considering what contingencies he should take for his wife's benefit. However as soon as these came to mind he was instantly reminded that he _couldn't_ name her in a will because that would bring her to the Mafia's attention without him there to protect her, couldn't transfer money to an account for her because he had no way of getting in touch and couldn't order his men to seek her out and serve her in his stead because they wouldn't be able to find her. All this pissed Xanxus off further and he resolved not to die no matter how badly his 'coup' went, as he would not betray his wife like that. It was bad enough that he'd not be seeing her for most of two weeks; who knew what could happen to her in that time, armed with his X-guns or not. He didn't even know if she had Guardians to protect her!

Not having his guns did get noticed, but only Squalo had the temerity to ask why and after Xanxus threw a half-empty bottle of wine at his head for the question nobody else mentioned it. Stranger was that nobody had noticed that he'd been sealed in his room for twelve hours or mentioned hearing his and his wife going at it all night and in the morning as well. This was more evidence to the existence of magic and it being something he really needed to learn about, because being able to hide sound and somehow keep people from noticing things would be an incredibly useful thing to learn. It clearly didn't need constant focus to work, which put it above Mist Flames since he could only use those while concentrating on the task to hand, which made using them to hide the fact he was intimate with his wife impossible. Magic was clearly some kind of area effect and could be programmed on a timer –as the ritual had been– which would be incredibly useful on missions.

Keeping himself from dwelling on his wife and how he was already failing as a husband was however something Xanxus had to go on doing, because it was less than a week until the big day and making sure none of the old fart's Guardians got suspicious was vitally important. Especially Visconti; the Cloud Guardian was a canny old bastard and the only one of Nono's Guardians not to have gotten soft and complacent in recent years. Xanxus' plan involved targeting the Lighting and Sun Guardians separately so they couldn't protect their Boss, then having his men pick off the other Guardians while he went after the old fart in person.

Squalo would probably stick with him, but Xanxus was certain his own Guardians could handle the unprepared Cloud, Mist, Storm and Rain so long as they weren't matched up against their counterparts. Instead Bel would be up against against the new, green Rain, Mammon against the experienced Cloud, Levi against the Storm with the metal prosthetic arm and Luss against the strong but inexperienced Mist while Ottabio, his Cloud and the former Varia Leader's second-in-command, coordinated the squads and kept their line of escape open. Not that Xanxus was intending to escape, but he did have to plan this properly and that meant preparing for all possible contingencies no matter how unlikely.

Xanxus didn't actually like Ottabio very much as the man was a coward under his obsequiousness, but the man was the strongest Cloud in the Varia and was terrified enough of his new leader to do as he was told without question. It wasn't perfect but it would have to be enough.

* * *

Dorea didn't like waking up alone after her marriage. Before it had been normal and not even worth noticing, but every morning since that languid and wonderful awakening in her husband's arms it hurt a little bit inside to open her eyes and be alone in bed. It probably wasn't the best start to a marriage, to have to forgive your husband every morning and evening for not being there. She had to remind herself that her husband had not expected to be married when she showed up in his room and life without prior warning and had already had a life which involved schedules needing to be kept.

To distract herself Dorea got drawn into Alchemy with Rence and took on an Enchanting project so that she would be able to communicate with all her friends face-to-face despite them having to go back to Hogwarts. Her plan for this was simple: mirrors. Not easily-damaged glass mirrors like the little hand mirror Dorea used to get in touch with her father in emergencies, but decent-sized polished silver vanity mirrors that could be put in leather cases and disguised as notebooks. The enchanting process was rather long and slightly tedious, as it had to be repeated for every single mirror with no divergences in the Rune Arrays, but it was engrossing and exacting and that was what she needed right now.

Dorea ended up doing most of the work on the mirrors simply because Rence had dived headfirst into the Alchemy books she'd handed to him and could not be dragged away from them. Part of the problem was that despite her vassal's extremely respectable reading speed he had a _lot_ of material to cover: the Potters had built their initial wealth and influence upon Alchemy, later increased it with Enchanting and only in the most recent three hundred years had let themselves slip into being 'merely' Transfiguration Masters, Warders and political leaders.

The Potter family had started out with the son of a druid who, when the Romans invaded, rather than get himself killed fighting back chose to lie low and apprentice himself to a potter. The young Briton had then applied his basic magical skills to producing better pots, developing glazes and imbuing his creations with certain properties. This was Alchemy at its most basic: permanently altering the nature of something. His sons had developed his techniques further and one of their children had been noticed to have magic and been taken on as an apprentice by a Roman Wizard. That young man had later applied his Magical education to further invest in the family pottery and as well as branch out into metalwork, particularly jewellery. He had also been the first Potter to be literate, so he had written down everything his parents, uncles and grandfather had discovered for his successors alongside his own achievements. That Potter was only the beginning of over one and a half _thousand_ years of Alchemical tradition in the Potter family, with the grandmother of the famed Nicholas Flamel having also been a Potter. That long and distinguished heritage translated into a vast mountain of notes, scrolls, grimoires, texts and heirlooms, many of them written in pre-medieval dialects.

Rence was fluent in Latin and literate in Old and Middle English, so he was highly reluctant to drag himself away from the unexpected feast of information. That it would likely take him _years_ to read and properly categorise everything was part of the problem, despite several previous Potters having clearly gone over everything themselves to translate, expound and clarify at different points in history. However it was equally clear that nothing had been read or updated since the time of the Statute of Secrecy, which was a long, long time ago. Many new scientific discoveries had been made since them and would affect the interpretation of many things the medieval Potters had documented. Not just on the magical side of things, as chemistry and related disciplines had really bloomed on the Muggle side, especially in the last two centuries.

Dorea didn't really mind Rence's obsession; it was better than him fawning over her and helped them establish a new routine as Liege-lady and Knight-vassal, which was very important as Rence was no longer her equal. He had Magically set himself a step beneath her, which had to be acknowledged and integrated into their routine. He was no longer a close friend, the boundaries between them had been moved and settling into the new normal was vital. Especially since Dorea was married now and her husband could –rightly– take offense if her vassals were overly familiar.

His being obsessed with Alchemy also kept him from fussing over her when she moped, since he failed to notice it at all. Dorea knew that wouldn't last as he would soon settle into a less consuming routine, but for now and probably the whole of the coming month, Rence would have his head in a book, scroll or packet of parchment, taking notes and trying to get a feel for the subject.

Dorea had fun with the mirrors: she Enchanted them to be able to communicate with her Master mirror and with all of the other mirrors, then added Privacy Wards so other people wouldn't notice them being used and wouldn't be able to overhear what was being said. Then she Enchanted the cases so they could be made to resemble textbooks and added Wards against theft, damage and general notice; nobody would attempt to leaf through the 'book' in search of information even if they were looking for a copy of the text whose cover the mirror case mimicked.

Part of the basic enchantment was a tricky bit of Runework that enabled her to talk to more than one person at once, but that was only possible if the Master Mirror was active. Dee could call Trey _or_ Zee, not both, but she could call Dorea and have _her_ then get in touch with the other two if necessary.

Within a week of marrying Dorea had made twenty five mirrors to go with her Master Mirror, judging that to be enough for the time being. Only practice and experience would enable them to work out the kinks of her new invention and come up with ideas to improve them. As many of the Enchantments used were proprietary Potter ones, this was not something she could delegate to the ingeniousness of the Twins, but she was sure they'd come up with plenty of ideas for her to implement.

* * *

Xanxus was fighting for his life against the old fart, actually having to give it his all to avoid getting plastered across one of the columns holding up the basement of the Vongola Headquarters like so much chunky paste.

It was fantastic.

"I never knew you had it in you… you senile old fart," he gasped out, a manic grin on his face as he stood opposite the old man, Squalo huddled behind a pillar a good distance away making an effort to stay awake and keep his entrails on the inside where they belonged. That wound had been dealt by Nono himself, as up until that point the damn shark had remained unscathed and only slightly blood-spattered.

The assault had been a remarkable success: while there had been more armed members of the Famiglia in Headquarters than he had expected despite his attacking slightly after breakfast was due to begin, his plan to divide and defeat Nono's Guardians had gone off beautifully. The Sun had died almost instantly, the Lightning had been the next to fall and the last he had seen of his own subordinates Bel had been happily slicing up the young Rain despite being nearly twenty years the man's junior while Mammon engaged the dangerous Cloud head-on.

Nono hadn't been there on the front lines –the coward– so Xanxus had needed to hunt him down. He'd blasted his way through most of the upper echelon of the Vongola's non-Flame-capable fighters in achieving just that, Squalo right beside him. They'd found the old fart in his office, which was now more than a little bit wrecked, and had followed the bastard down the secret passages into the basement, where there had finally been enough space to really go all-out.

The columns holding up the roof above them looked like they'd been chewed on by giant rats, some of them having lost more than half of their mass. He might not have built himself a new and improved pair of X-guns yet, but that didn't mean he couldn't deal serious damage bare-handed.

"Iemitsu asked me not to kill you, but with so many sacrificed as the Boss I cannot let you live," the old man said, his sceptre held in front of him with Sky Flames burning at its head.

Xanxus scoffed. Iemitsu wanted him kept alive? What a joke! The new leader of the CEDEF really was a fool. The half-Japanese man didn't know anything about Xanxus beyond what he'd made up to fuel his own delusions and if the old fart in front of him thought that saying that kind of thing would manipulate him into thinking well of the idiot then he really _was_ going senile on top of going soft.

Then Nono moved to land a killing blow and Xanxus finally verbalised all his rage at being betrayed, all his fury at being deceived and his complete and utter abhorrence of everything the permissive and spineless old fart in front of him was doing to the Famiglia. He edited out anything that might clue the old man into the existence of his wife and deliberately ignored the fact that Squalo was well within hearing distance and conscious; if he _did_ die, then his wife would come looking and hopefully find the Shark, who could tell her what happened. It would be a piss-poor cop-out but he owed her that much at the very least.

"… and now you know that, I'll kill you!" he finished, calling up his Wrath Flames around his hands and charging.

He could see that the foolish old fart had divined the _true_ meaning of his words, the _real_ reason he'd staged this coup. The Vongola Hyper-Intuition ensured the old fart had got the message. The way he flinched ever so slightly and his wrinkles seemed to deepen gave Xanxus a vicious feeling of satisfaction. The overly permissive dotard now had his eyes opened to _all_ his mistakes and that meant Xanxus had _won_. Even if Nono killed him like he'd have to in order to not have the entire Famiglia rebel against him, Xanxus had still been _right_ and the old fart _knew_ it!

"I'm so sorry everyone," the old fart murmured as Xanxus leapt for the kill, "I have to do this, after all…"

Damn right you do, Xanxus wanted to say. But instead of searing, burning Sky Flames eating away at him he felt icy, suffocating cold.

"What the hell? What's this technique?" he choked, gazing in horror down at the ice encasing his hands. His manifested Wrath Flames were just _gone_! He could still feel them burning within him, but it was a muted burn and it was fading by the second. Then he made the mistake of glancing up to meet the old man's eyes and he _knew_ what was going on.

Somehow he was being frozen, completely frozen solid: he wouldn't be dead, but he wouldn't get to live either.

The very idea of such an imprisonment filled him with such outrage and bitter betrayal that he couldn't help the roar of animalistic fury that escaped his throat. How dare the _bastard_ do this to him! How _dare_ the old fart chicken out of killing him at the last moment and pick an easy way out! How dare he force Xanxus to _break_ his _promise_ to his _wife_!

As the ice closed around his head and the cold consumed him, Xanxus' last thought were for the fierce, cunning and completely worthy woman he'd bound himself to.

_I will protect her! I will slay her enemies! I will not_–

* * *

And this is it for now! I'd apologise for the cliffhanger, except I'm not sorry at all... as I don't have any more chapters written up. I am so tired right now it really isn't funny and Muse is equally exhausted by my abrupt forey into employment. When there are more chapters I will start uploading them again.


	45. Chapter 45

Beta'd by the enchanting InsaneScriptist.

Yes, I'm back! I've got enough buffer for a few weeks of updates even if the Muse dries up on me, so I thought I'd share with all my patient readers. Enjoy!

* * *

**Of suffering and oddly hopeful complications **

It had been breakfast in Black Manor, with Rence reading at the table, Zee talking to Dorea about her husband again in an attempt to tease out more details she hadn't yet mentioned that could be useful in identifying the potential Zabini, Dee sipping tea, Hermione chatting with Trey about the laws concerning Healers –which were startlingly few and disturbingly lax– Lord Padfoot nodding along to Dora Tonks' passionate explanation of how the wizard on the street currently perceived the Black War –as it was coming to be called– Theo just eating and Luna chatting to Fred about Heliopaths, whatever they were. George was happily watching all this, picking up bits of all the various conversations and taking notes in between bites of toast on ways to potentially increase the effectiveness of their first range of weaponised pranks. The Peruvian Darkness Powder had real potential, provided they could find a way to see through it.

Then, at ten minutes to nine, Dorea had fumbled her teacup, spilling its contents all over her half-eaten croissant, and clutched at her chest with both hands, face going a horrible shade of sallow grey. Bolting from her seat and knocking it backwards onto the carpet, his scariest cousin had made a horrible chocking gasp of a sound that viscerally reminded George of something the Bloody Baron had told him once.

"A person stabbed between the ribs does not scream, Prewett," the bloodstained and austere spectre had rasped, "because their lungs have been punctured and they cannot draw breath. They can only gasp helplessly as they desperately fail to draw in enough air to keep them among the living."

Seeing Dorea gasp and shake, wide-eyed and chalk-skinned with horrified tears welling up in her eyes, George _knew_ he was going to be having nightmares about the young Lady Potter being murdered at the breakfast table even several years down the line.

Zee had leapt out of his seat as soon as his oath-sister had stumbled back from the table and had wrapped an arm around her as she all but bent double in evident pain, pleading with her in fluid Italian that George did not understand the words of but could easily divine the meaning to. Like the rest of them, Zee wanted to know what the matter was, probably so he could then go and kill it. Zabini had a vicious streak where 'his' Dorea was concerned, as they had witnessed following her defeat on the duelling stage when the Italian teen had brutally destroyed the unfortunate Durmstrang student who had thought it a good idea to humiliate the Black Heir after disarming her. Zee, both twins had decided then, was not somebody to piss off. Ever.

Rence had also abandoned his book and had dropped to his knees in front of his liege-lady, gently cradling her wrists and keeping his attention fixed on her face. George still didn't understand why Rence had gone and sworn the oath he had, like he didn't understand why the tall blond had to behave differently now. He recognised however that he _needed_ to understand, as otherwise he'd probably put his foot in it at the worst possible moment. Hence why he'd recently written to Great-Aunt Lulu and asked her to give him, Fred and Ginny the full and all-inclusive etiquette training they should probably have had as kids.

George had recently discovered that Dad _did_ know all that formal stuff but Mum didn't, due to Grandpa Prewett dying when Mum was barely six and Granny Prewett then doting upon and smothering her youngest child by turns to keep her mind off her grief. George had got _that_ take on events from Great-Uncle Iggy and it made more sense than Mum's version, explaining as it did Uncle Billius' sharp descent into alcoholism from right out of Hogwarts and how nobody had ever done anything about it.

Teaching the manners was the wife's job, as it was done at home before the children ever went to Hogwarts. Mum however had never learned it and so hadn't been able to teach it, leaving all seven of her children woefully ill-equipped for the upper echelons of Magical Society. As Great-Uncle Iggy and Great-Aunt Lulu had offered to adopt George and Fred as heirs, it would be acceptable for Great-Aunt Lulu to teach them manners. Ginny however had found out and insisted on being allowed to join, which was irregular and therefore being done on the sly. As far as Mum knew, Ginny was visiting Luna. Luna however was at Black Manor and Ginny was actually at Prewett House, learning to be lady-like. George wished Great-Aunt Lulu luck; Ginny may have liked looking pretty and frilly but in several fundamental ways she was a shameless tomboy.

Dorea finally stopped swaying and recovered some of her colour, but then a terrible wailing keen ripped its way out of her throat and she tore herself away from her clustered friends and fled the room. Zee dashed right after her, followed by Dee, Trey, Rence and Lord Padfoot himself; George stayed in the breakfast room with the others, wondering exactly what had happened to have reduced his terrifyingly self-possessed cousin to such a wreck without obvious cause.

* * *

Dorea had known from when she was laying out the Marriage Ritual that she and her eventual husband would be bound more closely than a conventional Wizarding Marriage could achieve. She'd also known that the Potter Lordship Rings would both enhance and ease the connection. She hadn't expected her husband to be Soulfire-active, but that he was had further deepened their bond. That she had been both virginal and his first lover had bound them closer still. Physical separation before they'd really settled into their relationship had hurt, a dull ache under her heart that never went away, but it paled into insignificance beside what she had experienced at the breakfast table.

The seeping coldness, the impotent fury, the sudden fading of something she hadn't even realised was _there_ until it was abruptly stolen from her… could her dragon of a husband have died? Surely God would not be so cruel?

Dorea could feel a cold, hollow ache in her chest, but it wasn't the horrible, tearing pain she had felt when Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had died. That gave her hope that maybe Xanxus wasn't dead, but the only way to check was to investigate the Family Tapestry in the Lord's Study.

The Black Manor Family Tapestry was the original from which the other, lesser family tapestries in the other houses were copied from. The lesser tapestries could be edited; the original could not. The Lord Black could therefore track the entire family, bastards, squibs and all, provided they were within three generations of a person who had donated blood to the Tapestry's Record Stone at any point in time. Spouses of Blacks could not be added directly to the Tapestry, but marriage affected a Wizard or Witch's magic so by donating blood after marrying the name of a Black's husband or wife would appear. Birth dates and death dates were added automatically, so if Xanxus was dead the Tapestry would tell her.

Darting quickly into a room accessible only to those of the Blood, Dorea sunk her teeth into her thumb and smeared the bloody digit over the smooth cold stone set into the wall at waist height before spinning around to study the embroidered fabric displaying her family tree.

It was impressive, more so if you realised that only the latest ten generations were on display but the rest were accessible should the Lord Black desire to see them. The tapestry had been created by an early British Black as a more modern copy of an older version that occupied a wall at Chateau Blac, which was a fresco with similar Enchantments. As it had not been updated in so long that one had gone dormant, making the older records inaccessible unless a Lord Black was willing to spend the better part of a year unravelling it entirely. So far, none had been. Her father was more concerned with helping Uncle Remus, balancing his investments and sabotaging the Dark Lord's followers.

Finding her name stitched in the gold marking her as the Heir, Dorea held her breath as the fabric rippled, a line reaching out from the elegantly scripted _Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter_ and another name stitched itself into the records.

_Alexandro 'Xanxus' Timoteo Zabini_ it read, then after a brief pause the dates beneath stitched themselves in also:

_10.10.1978 AD _–

There was no death date; Dorea breathed out a long, shaking sigh of utter relief as her Papa dashed into the room and paused at the sight of her wobbly smile.

"He's not dead, Papa," she sobbed brokenly, her utter relief destroying her control. "He's not dead oh thank _God-_"

Her father swept her up in a fierce hug, lifting her right off the ground.

"Never do that to me again, darling girl," he whispered fiercely. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

Dorea hiccupped, burying her face in her father's shoulder to muffle her sobs. The worst might not have happened, but clearly _something_ was wrong with her husband even if he wasn't dead. Had he been trapped in some kind of Stasis Ward? She could think of no other reason for his soul to have gone cold without killing him. Even though she had needed to forgive her husband his absence every morning –and most evenings– that didn't mean she hadn't felt a sense of inner warmth telling her he was well and thriving.

"Dorry," her father said, voice strangled, as her tears finally faded away, "I think you need to see this."

She glanced up, wiping her face on a handkerchief as she turned to see what it was that had elicited such an odd reaction in her father.

There was another line on the tapestry, leading down from the line that connected her name to her husband's; Dorea traced it with her finger, feeling stunned. It was a line that really should not be there, unless…

"I'm pregnant?"

* * *

Discovering that she was expecting changed everything for Dorea: she simply could not go gallivanting across Italy looking for her trapped and missing husband. As a wife, an Heiress and a Lady her first duty was to the health of her unborn child, who depending on their gender would either be the next Black Heir –if it was a boy– or an interim Potter Heir –if her firstborn was female. As a pregnant woman she was now even more of a target than before, which nearly led to her Papa confining her to the Manor before Remus thankfully scolded some sense into him.

As her wolfy sort-of uncle pointed out, she had a live-in bodyguard in Rence and the older boy was taking his responsibilities very, very seriously. Dorea quietly gave up on ever being allowed to go anywhere except the bathroom without a diligent, well-meaning six-foot-one shadow and resolved to ask Deborah to become her Lady-in-Waiting. The position boiled down to her older cousin being a live-in attendant and bodyguard, but it would be better than having Rence trying to do all those things Dorea really needed female assistance for, especially now that she was married.

Deborah was calm, unflappable and always armed, her serene and accepting personality hiding her ferocious devotion to the Family and distinctly Slytherin disregard for any rule that didn't benefit her. There was a reason the aloof, blunt and occasionally cruel Audric Avery was so very taken with the quiet, artistic brunette to the point that he had finally proposed in the June just gone. Ric and Debs would be married in the early spring, as that was as early as a proper wedding could be organised by Aunt Drusilla. Squib or not, Deborah's mother was well aware of how such things were supposed to be done and was determined to make it so.

Moppet meanwhile was utterly ecstatic at the idea of a 'littlest master or mistress' to care for, not that any of the other elves were any less delighted. Even Kreacher was lurking just out of Papa's sight, dewy-eyed and beaming most uncharacteristically at her. What with how much house-elves doted on children, Dorea seriously doubted any harm would come to her or her eventual son or daughter. However she couldn't help the melancholy swirling in her chest, the slow-burning rage in her gut or the distracted wistfulness that was already starting to limit her ability to pay attention to her surroundings.

She wanted her husband. Wanted to tell him he was going to be a father, wanted to see his eyes widen in delighted terror, wanted to be doted upon to the point of frustration and see her dragon drive all her friends mad with his snarling and smirking stubbornness.

Having a name and birth-date helped: Zee was already calling his mother on the Floo so she could intensify the search of the Sabina Archives and find out where Xanxus fitted into the family tree. The current steward of the Zabini family, whom Zee called '_Zio Graziano_', was overseeing the delicate investigations into the possible Mafia connections Dorea had admitted to her husband having. She however had not mentioned his position as '_Capo della Varia_' to anybody; she wasn't going to give that titbit away until she knew what it actually meant. Wherever her husband was he was vulnerable now, so she had to ensure no enemies found him before she did.

Unfortunately however, no matter what she did, she couldn't shake the burning rage that had taken up residence in her gut. Well, that wasn't _quite_ true: she hadn't done much to try and dispel it because the simmering swirl of Magic blended with Sky and Storm Flames felt so strongly of her husband that she was clinging to it rather than attempting to get rid of it. However just letting it fester really would not do, so instead Dorea left her family to their plotting, nodded at Rence as he fell in behind her and went to fetch her wedding present.

The matched handguns felt right held one in each hand, the red 'X's over the firing chambers almost shimmering as she stood properly braced on the Long Lawn waiting for Rence to work the Trap for her so she could fire on the clay pigeons. Clay pigeons were not designed to be targets for handguns, but Dorea had seen how accurate the weapons she held were at improbably long distances, on an actual live pigeon no less. As the Trap barked she called upon her fury at having her husband stolen from her and not being able to hunt him down and _destroy_ whatever or whoever was responsible, channelling it into her hands. The guns instantly lit up with ruddy orange flames, far more substantial than her own Soulfire had ever been, and she sighted down one of them to fire at the ballistic clay disc.

There was a flare and an explosion overhead, but despite the pigeon being nowhere in sight no hint of the dye trail usually left by a direct hit was visible either. Had she obliterated it that completely? Changing hands, Dorea waited for Rence to fire off another clay target and fired again.

Another explosion, but again no dyed fragments floating on the breeze. Curious. She felt better for destroying them though: it soothed the fury welling up inside at her current powerlessness.

* * *

Blaise, having finally managed to get off the Floo, went looking for his oath-sister. Upon learning that Rhea was expecting his mother had instantly insisted on coming to Black Manor herself, to care for her '_nuova_ _nuora_' since the new Lady Potter had no close female relatives with any experience of Magical pregnancy. Despite being female and therefore excluded from the proper succession, his mother was still Principessa Zabini and had nominal authority over the family if not the Principality. His Grandfather had all but abandoned his duties following his wife's death, leaving the management of the small Wizarding nation of Sabina under the stewardship of his uncle Graziano. Well, his cousin once removed technically, but he was practically an uncle and had been Blaise' only reliable father figure growing up. After the death of his mother's second husband Blaise had learned not to get attached to his step-fathers; while some of them made more of an effort than others, they never lasted long enough for a relationship with them to be worthwhile.

Now he had to warn Rhea of the incoming whirlwind that was his mother, who would be in full 'doting parent' mode and utterly gleeful at the prospect of impending grandchildren. His Mamma had been delighted to welcome Rhea into the extended family back when he had sworn siblinghood, but now his best friend was a Zabini by marriage –despite keeping her own surname for matters of legal inheritance– and pregnant to boot, there was no way to keep her away. That his mother would be abandoning her current beloved –read prospective victim– in order to ensure that Rhea got properly looked after said a _lot_ about his mother, all of it reassuring. Blaise had entertained doubts in the past, but Mamma clearly had her heart in the right place despite her genuinely disturbing taste in relationships.

He found his Rhea out on the lawn, the guns her husband had given her in each hand and shooting down clay pigeons with Soulfire-enhanced bullets. As the Zabini Heir drew closer he realised that what the guns processed and channelled was not Soulfire alone, prompting him to interrupt his sister as she changed the magazines:

"_Rhea mine, what kind of flames are those?_" he asked in Italian, it having been the language his entire discussion with his mother had taken place in.

"_I'm not really sure; I think they're my husband's though,_" she admitted quietly, setting the guns aside on a small table one of the house-elves had brought outside for her. "_They have his temperament._"

"_Could you show them to me?_" Blaise inquired, wanting to conclusively check whether or not his hunch was accurate.

"_Of course._" Rhea held out a hand, a muscle in her cheek briefly twitching as a ball of actual flickering orange _fire_ coalesced over the palm of her hand. Blaise almost flinched as his sister then flung the ball at a nearby hedge, vaporising a section as large as a medium-sized window.

"_That isn't just Soulfire: there are magical flames there as well,_" he told her. "_You husband is definitely a Zabini and definitely has at least the potential to learn Wizardry, even if he somehow missed attending school. Only Magical Zabinis can call on fire like that and it's actually not all that common outside the Main Family. I can do it, as can my mother and grandfather, but of all my cousins only those with Zabini blood on both sides of the family can do it reliably._"

The Zabinis had running in their veins a thick streak of Siren heritage, a Mediterranean subspecies of Magical humanoids to which the Veela were another, Continental subspecies. Like those with Veela heritage, the Zabinis were passionate, predatory, confident, alluring and had a truly remarkable affinity for fire, with even the Squibs being almost entirely fireproof. Unlike Veela, Sirens had been mostly darker-haired and golden-eyed, something common to many present-day Zabinis as well. Brown and hazel green eyes were almost as common as golden brown, but every now and then red eyes showed up too. Red eyes were generally a sign that the Siren heritage of that particular individual was perhaps a little _too_ thick, so they should be raised strictly, carefully and responsibly then encouraged to marry outside of the family. Too much Siren inbreeding led to inhumanly aggressive tendencies, violent destruction and a basic incomprehension of many of the more permissive human social behaviours. The original Sirens had not been human but Magical predatory birds capable of assuming humanoid form; like other more mundane raptors they were blind to sentiment. They had however died out entirely well before the fall of Rome, leaving behind only their mostly-human descendants among the population of Sabina.

No Zabini had ever been as bad as the original species –the blood had never thickened enough for anyone to so much as sprout feathers in over two thousand years– but the family contained a lot of brutal generals, cunning hunters and discreet killers. Blaise' mother was by no means the only member of the family indulging her more predatory side with human deaths. She was however the only Zabini currently alive to marry her victims; the others tended towards more straightforward methods of depleting the resources of their victims, though some preferred to deplete first and kill later rather than the other way around. What with the family tendency towards pyromania however, evidence of said murders and thefts was usually very thoroughly destroyed afterwards.

Blaise now had not the smallest doubt that Rhea had married a pureblood Zabini; conjured fire and red eyes were a distinctive combination, even without his oath-sister's comment on how much like him her husband looked. Siren blood carried with it certain strong physical trends and despite being the result of two successive generations marrying outside the Main Italian branch of the Family, Blaise still looked completely Zabini. He had the height –male Zabinis were all tall– the mild allure, the bone structure and the ability to conjure flame.

What he lacked what the hot, fiery and destructive temper that his cousins all shared, but his mother claimed he had inherited his father's temperament and Blaise was happy as he was. He did have a temper, but it was as cold, suffocating and flexible as the water he had such a strong magical affinity for. He actually liked being different from his cousins, as it made it easier to keep the peace at family gatherings. Less damage and feuding occurred when he was there to keep the atmosphere friendly.

"_I'll help you learn to use it properly,_" Blaise offered, holding out his own hand palm-up and conjuring a small, cold, blue flame. "_You've got the more traditional version than I do but the rules are much the same._"

"_I'd like that,_" Rhea admitted quietly. "_I wasn't sure if my husband was actually magical considering he didn't seem to realise magic even existed _–_not that I cared_– _but confirmation is helpful and will narrow down the search._"

"_It would be easier of you told me which Mafia Family your dragon was associated with, Princess,_" Blaise said wryly.

"_He is imprisoned, trapped and helpless; I don't know enough about the Mafia to know whether my telling you would benefit or harm him,_" Rhea responded tartly. "_We know his full name and age; isn't that enough?_"

"_It will have to,_" Blaise sighed. "_Which reminds me: my mother has decided to come and look after you while you are expecting, since you don't have any close female relatives with experience of Magical pregnancy. She's even cut off her relationship with that Swiss Wizard she was seeing._"

Rhea blinked. "_She's coming here?_"

"_Obviously._"

"_To mother me?_"

Blaise rolled his eyes. "_Yes, you adorable moron, to mother you. She wants grandchildren to dote on and you are providing them, so until your child is born you will be doted upon by proxy._"

"_Will any more of your relatives be showing up?_" Rhea inquired warily.

The Italian considered the possibility. "_Probably,_" he conceded. "_You have married into the family, after all._"

"_God have mercy._"

Blaise didn't blame Rhea for her prayer; his family could get a bit much at times even when you were used to them. That there were easily two hundred of them actually bearing the Zabini name did not help.


	46. Chapter 46

Beta'd by the exceptional InsaneScriptist.

Wow, so many reviews! I feel so loved! Thank-you all!

* * *

**Of everyday responsibility and growing up **

Draco Malfoy sat on one of the expensively upholstered sofas in the drawing room of number 12 Grimmauld Place, the Black Town House, meticulously scrutinising the Daily Prophet for hints and clues as to what was actually going on. On the matching sofa opposite him sat the Lestrange twins, one reading a book and the other cuddling the large, bad-tempered longhair cat belonging to their elder sister. Draco had never really interacted much with his cousins-by-marriage before, as they weren't interested in Quidditch and didn't really care to get involved with the younger students. Hildegard had been Head Girl in his first year but the social distance between first- and seventh-years was such a gaping chasm that he'd not even known her name. He'd known the twins before Hogwarts, of course, but they'd always been more interested in books than in him and had teased him ruthlessly for going on about his father all the time.

It was only now that he and his mother had been kicked out of Malfoy Manor and been forced to seek Sanctuary with Lord Black that Draco had started to understand why Rigel and Randall had been so utterly scornful whenever he mentioned his father. Father had never really talked about having been a Death Eater but he _had_ talked a _lot_ about their pureblood heritage and how it was being degraded by the Muggle-loving Albus Dumbledore and his supporters. Draco had assumed –stupidly, he now realised– that the Death Eaters had been all about supporting that 'glorious heritage', which was not the case. Uncle Sirius had brought him copies of past DMLE case files on the murders on many, many upright purebloods who had been slaughtered by the Dark Lord and the Malfoy Heir had been forced to recognise the truth: the Dark Lord was a tyrant seeking to subjugate Magical Britain and remake it in his image and was perfectly willing to brutally murder anyone who got in his way no matter how pure their blood. It was what had happened to Edgar Bones, the McKinnons and the original Prewett twins; Gideon and Fabian had been purebloods as had so many of the other victims.

That the Dark Lord was the barely halfblood son of a Muggle and a Squib made it worse, as did his flagrant disrespect for their culture, values and everything they stood for. Draco grudgingly recognised that so long as he and his mother stayed within the boundaries of Black Family Wards they would be safe, but his father was still out there and enslaved to a madman no less! Uncle Sirius had explained that, if the Dark Lord got hold of him or his mother, they would be used as leverage against his father or tortured just to torment him. Father had sent them away so that the Malfoy line would continue and to deprive the Dark Lord of a means of manipulating him.

Draco was not really enjoying his summer, locked up as he was in a house with only a small garden at the back and no room to practice Quidditch, but at least it meant he had time to investigate the Malfoy Grimoires that his father had somehow hidden in his Trust Vault for him to find. Well, he could read them whenever he wasn't scouring the papers for titbits of actual _fact_, of course.

From what Draco had managed to glean from the varyingly sensationalist newspaper articles of the past month and a half, two very different major conflicts were going on in the Wizarding Community and a lot of other people were using them to promote their own agendas on the side.

Most of the muck-raking and sensationalism was contained in the articles about Dumbledore, who was trying to convince the Ministry that the Dark Lord had returned from the dead and was poised to attack once more. The Headmaster was being derided, belittled and disregarded left, right and centre, which was amusing because Draco knew he was right. However Dumbledore had no proof he was willing to share, so rather than convincing the majority he was merely making himself very unpopular. His small flock of devoted sheep were of course supporting him, but they were a tiny minority.

A lot of ambitious Ministry officials were taking this opportunity to advance their positions within the government by giving Fudge their support and urging him to take action against Dumbledore; certainly Senior Undersecretary Umbridge was being quoted a lot, the simpering toad; she really _did_ look like one in the few gag-worthy photographs she featured in. Judging by the general tone of her comments, it was likely that there would be someone from the Ministry present at Hogwarts in the coming year. Considering their last defence teacher had been a Polyjuiced Death Eater who had abducted Rhea right off school grounds, Draco found it rather likely that Dumbledore would be unable to prevent Fudge installing someone. Hopefully whoever-it-was would not be completely hopeless.

Far more important to Draco however was the other line of reporting, that covering what was being called 'The Black War'. Rita Skeeter wasn't covering any of it, being more interested in mauling Dumbledore's reputation, meaning it was probably a bit more reliable. The Black War was however rather hard to define right now, as there was no duelling in the streets, no fevered speeches, no clearly defined boundaries. Yes, back at the beginning of July Lord Black had issued a statement recommending that people distance themselves from friends and relatives who had voiced sympathies with the Dark Lord's methods and goals, but that had been it.

Uncle Sirius had neither confirmed nor denied the Dark Lord's rebirth, simply stating that his daughter and heir had been abducted by Death Eaters who had then attempted to murder her, prompting the Declaration of Enmity and Feud. It had been a breathtakingly Slytherin move from a Gryffindor alumnus, undercutting Dumbledore's credibility in one fell swoop. Most people believed the Dark Lord to be dead and gone, which only allowed for the possibility of his followers acting up on occasion as they had at the World Cup. That they had abducted his cousin off Hogwarts grounds only magnified the public concern for Rhea; Heir of House Black or not, she was still a young witch who had suffered a terrible ordeal and deserved to be protected.

However, browsing the higher-numbered pages of the Daily Prophet, Draco could see clearly that the Black War was making inroads on the Dark Lord's power base. So far six minor Pureblood families had been made bankrupt, three more had been disgraced by 'shameful' dealings coming to light and Amycus and Alecto Carrow had both been discovered dead in their homes, bodies torn apart but the Dark Marks on their arms plainly visible.

The Prophet's editor clearly had no idea of the connection between these events, as the deaths were being blamed on a 'rogue creature –possibly a manticore' and the public was being urged to have their Wards updated. Draco knew better: whatever had killed the Carrow siblings had also killed those Death Eaters whom Rhea had been kidnapped by. Draco suspected trained attack griffins, but it could equally well be a hippogriff or three: those beasts could be _vicious_, which was why he'd taken care to avoid insulting them at his first ever Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Pansy had not been so sensible and had nearly lost an eye; all her own fault, despite Hagrid being completely unqualified to teach. His childhood visits to Black Manor had taught him the importance of respecting the dignified deadliness of hippogriffs.

Of those bankrupted and disgraced a few had committed suicide but most had left the country, which Draco suspected would not save them. His mother was cheerfully sharing everything about the social network she had painstakingly cultivated for the Dark Lord's benefit and there was unlikely to be anything left of those belonging to it by the New Year. Draco would have been more upset about so many pureblood families being destroyed were it not for the fact that Lord Black was quietly taking in the younger generation and ensuring they had the means to finish school –if they were underage– or finding jobs that paid well enough for them to live in modest comfort. He demanded oaths of course, but they were minor things and all those Draco had met so far seemed perfectly happy to take them if it meant not being cast out onto the street. If nothing else they would be protected from the ire of the Dark Lord and no longer available to him as wand fodder.

Lord Black's 'philanthropy' made up several more articles in the Prophet, lauding him for his generosity in 'safeguarding the continuation of our society and ensuring the younger generation do not suffer for the mistakes of their forebears'. Draco wasn't sure if he should laugh, spit or commend his Uncle for managing to combine sheer brazen daring and ruthless cunning.

* * *

Fred sat in the Old Pantry at Prewett House, silently working on the complex potion that was one of the components of Canary Creams. A short distance away George was working on the prototype of a Decoy Detonator, which he was trying to booby-trap so that after creating a distraction it then launched some kind of attack on those attracted by the racket. George planned for a variety of different Decoy sounds, from fleeing feet to loud arguing and any number of others. The original idea had been for a small explosion, but Fred liked the new ideas better: they were more versatile and realistic. Not that they weren't going to make versions that exploded, but variety was good.

Fred was brewing partly because Canary Creams had proved quite ridiculously popular but partly because he was brooding over his twit of an elder brother's abrupt defection from the family. Percy had been working in the Ministry for a year now as Assistant to the Head of the Department of International Cooperation and had been quite heavily involved in the Triwizard Tournament fiasco. Fred really doubted the tournament had in any way improved relationships with foreign schools, what with the French Champion being murdered right after winning. However Percy had somehow escaped the mess smelling of roses and had recently been snapped up by Fudge as a new Junior Assistant.

This had somehow led to Percy having a row with Dad over his new job which had somehow involved Dumbledore and resulted in Percy walking out of the house and not coming back. He'd severed all contact with their parents too, but Percy had stopped by to talk to Fred and George at Prewett House in the week between Dorea's marriage and her discovering her pregnancy.

George had done most of the talking; Fred had just been trying not to lose his temper and punch the pompous prat in the face. Percy was so damn naïve it was sad: Dad had probably been right in saying that Percy had got the position because Fudge wanted an in on Dumbledore's camp. Not that Percy wasn't a competent and capable little bureaucrat, but he'd only been working for the Ministry for a year and hadn't made a name for himself yet. Dad on the other hand had put his neck on the line and admitted that if Dumbledore thought the Dark Twit was back then he would follow the Headmaster's lead.

Fred and George were not following the Headmaster's lead because neither of them believed Dumbledore would have the guts to actually solve the problem, let alone ensure this kind of thing didn't happen again. They agreed with Dad that Voldy-socks was back because Dorea said so, not because they supported the Headmaster. Lord Black had already done more to dissolve the Dark Tosser's power base than Dumbledore ever had, and dear, devious Dorea had only declared war six weeks ago!

However befriending Slytherins had taught both twins that there was a time and place for confrontation and that was only when you held _all_ the cards, which they didn't yet since they couldn't _prove_ His Mouldiness was alive and kicking. So George had assured Percy that they didn't trust Dumbledore as far as Ginny could throw him without her wand and agreed to stay in touch, then after their prat of an older brother had left they'd called up Darling Dorea on the Floo to let her know what had happened. Dorea had agreed that staying in touch was best, as that way they could control what Percy knew and rescue him if he got into difficulties. It was the Family thing to do, after all.

* * *

Remus leafed through a stack of letters, petitions and proposals addressed to 'Lady Potter', making sure he'd weeded out all the inappropriate, insincere and irrelevant ones before packing them up to take back to Black Manor. Since the end of term he'd had no less than six visits in his office on Vertic Alley by Albus Dumbledore, all of which had been inappropriate and had overall convinced Remus that the Headmaster was losing it. The prophecy was garbage –he, Sirius and Dorea had gone down to the Department of Mysteries _two years ago_ and succeeded in convincing the Unspeakables that it had been mislabelled since the Dark Lord had very obviously been vanquished by Lily– but Dumbledore refused to consider that he might be wrong.

He had tried to pressure Remus into setting up a meeting for him with Dorea, then tried to press Remus into agreeing that Dorea should return to Hogwarts come the autumn. Failing in both, he'd come over all disappointed and tried to emotionally blackmail the werewolf into taking him to Black Manor.

Remus had resisted all of these increasingly stressful encounters before finally informing the secretary who managed the offices that the Headmaster was _persona non grata_ and that if she let him book another appointment or even just walked through his office door off the street, he would ensure she was not only fired but never got another job. The secretary, a wide-eyed Hufflepuff, had looked outraged but had relented when Remus quietly confided that Dumbledore was trying to harass the young newlywed Lady Potter into returning to school, which had firmed up the young witch's resolve nicely. Remus had said no more than that, but the young Hufflepuff had clearly filled in the details by herself.

Remus had not been bothered in the office since and the last time Dumbledore tried to get in the unexpectedly fierce secretary –badgers were to be feared once they had a cause to be loyal to– had called the Aurors and lodged an official harassment complaint on Remus' behalf. As Remus was Potter Steward, the Aurors had to take the complaint seriously and Dumbledore had stopped visiting. However he had taken up writing instead, though Fawkes was growing visibly less pleased every time Remus handed the bird a sealed refusal before even opening the letter Dumbledore had sent. Some of those letters had very dubious Charms on them and Remus refused to touch them, instead destroying them unopened.

Last week a reporter –thankfully _not_ Rita Skeeter– had booked in an appointment and used her slot to ask questions about Dumbledore's harassment, which Remus had answered out of cheerful and vindictive mischief, making sure to slant it so it came across as though Dumbledore was trying to get Lady Potter back into Hogwarts to make it look like the school was safe without the Headmaster actually _doing_ anything productive, such as hire a Gringotts Curse-Breaker to check the ancient Wards were in full working order. Instead of actually acting on the problems that had arisen, Dumbledore was instead harassing upstanding citizens in an attempt to garner support. That Lady Potter had been abducted off the grounds herself and refused to return was due to both safety concerns and her newlywed state; married students who returned to school were the exception, not the rule.

The resulting article was charmingly damning, as the reporter had taken all his little hints and dug up lots of lovely dirt on how Dumbledore was running Hogwarts into the ground to further his own agenda. The Ministry's response was to pass an Educational Decree stating that if the Headmaster couldn't find a teacher in time for the start of the school year, then the Ministry would supply one. Remus took note, warned Dorea and her friends that there was likely to be a spy in Hogwarts come the beginning of term and then left them to their plotting. If he didn't know, he wouldn't have to reprimand them.

* * *

As was always the case with Hogwarts correspondence, it arrived over breakfast and it was Hermione, newly returned from Spain, who noticed them first. Thankfully however this time she did not squeal like she had when the OWL results arrived; it had been barely two days before Rhea's birthday then, everyone had been frazzled and on-edge and the usually easygoing Trey had reflexively thrown the sugar bowl at the Muggleborn girl's head. The resulting mess and upset had taken a while to clear up and had made the actual reading of their results rather anti-climactic.

They had all got Os in Charms, even Luna, Hermione had got an O in Muggle Studies as well –of course– and Rhea had got Os in everything except Transfiguration, in which she achieved an E. Hermione had then noticed that Rhea had not taken her Potions OWL, which had led to the Black Heir's sheepish confession that Professor Snape had snuck her into the Potions OWL at the end of her third year, forced her to sit the NEWT earlier this year and had all but ordered her to send the notes for one of her private potions projects to the Mastery Committee before Christmas. Or else. This had sent Hermione up in arms over the blatant favouritism, but even she had to admit that Rhea was incredibly good at potions. Rhea put it down to starting before Hogwarts and access to better books, but admitted that it came easily to her, much as languages did.

Considering that Rhea could speak and write English, French, Italian, German, Russian, Chinese, Classical Latin, Ancient Greek and Hindi as well as being fluent in Futhark and Atlantean Runes, Daphne felt that Rhea saying that languages 'came easily' was something of an understatement. Rhea _loved_ words, whether it was weaving an argument with words, writing a Ward or reading history. Words captivated her, fascinated her and were how she perceived reality.

It was unsurprising therefore that Rhea did stupidly well on written tests; she was in her element then. Spells she found similarly easy –again, they were words, spoken or not– and Potions was all about following instructions and careful cross-referencing, but Herbology had almost nothing at all to do with words and Rhea's performance in the subject was suitably mediocre despite her actually enjoying it. She did not have the feel for it that she needed and it showed. She would have probably done equally badly in Care of Magical Creatures had she taken it, because Rhea only got on well with animals she liked and they tended to be large, predatory and dangerous. Things like bowtruckes, crups and porlocks didn't really interest her for more than a few seconds at a time.

What it boiled down to was that Rhea tested well, giving her a natural advantage in a scholastic environment. Out there in the real world, where books were secondary to situational knowledge, instincts and knowing the right people, her friend would be less obviously ahead of the rest of them; being Lady Potter and her infamous birthday bashes however gave her a head start there, as she was already well-acquainted with most of society's darlings. Whether they were the 'right' people was not set in stone, but Rhea knew so many people that she was unlikely to fall out of favour.

Daphne had always known that Rhea was hopelessly over-educated and this was just more proof, despite her Transfiguration OWL only rating her a E for all that she took it a year early. It didn't make her friend a genius, just proved that the adults in her life had made more of an effort to pour knowledge into her from an early age.

Daphne thought there was more to Snape pushing Rhea through her NEWT that favouritism, though that was also a factor. Professor Snape was a Death Eater, a marked Death Eater. As the Dark Lord had been preparing for his rebirth this year he would have gained a great deal of strength and power, meaning the Dark Mark would have become more visible on the arms of his followers. Snape therefore had likely known what was coming, known that if he was going to do anything for Rhea he had to do it fast, then had acted accordingly. Now Snape and Rhea were officially on opposite sides of the Black War, which just proved that their Head of House had acted in a remarkably prescient manner.

However right now Daphne was more interested in finding out why their booklists had arrived so incredibly late and learning who of their year had made prefect. As envelopes were opened and parchment unfolded, she glanced discreetly around the table to see who had received what.

Rhea had not touched her letter; she should not have received one in the first place due to being officially adult and fully withdrawn from school as of the morning after her wedding. Moros dropped down onto the table, snatched up the letter and swept out of the window with it, no doubt headed up to Scotland to make his displeasure known to the Deputy Headmistress. Daphne hoped he made enough of a scene that the ghosts and the paintings would be able to recount the incident later.

Her own envelope contained a Prefect badge; good. She would be able to watch over the firsties in Rhea's place and ensure they all knew the status quo. Zee did not have the other badge but Theo did, which was odd but likely due to Dumbledore not wanting to give both badges to people in Rhea's sphere of influence. Too bad he was behind the times then; Theo had pledged Subordinate Allegiance shortly after Rhea's husband had his accident, placing him somewhere between Allied and Serving.

Hermione had a badge too, which was unexpected as Daphne had believed Padma would get it. Padma was more approachable and personable. The Hufflepuff Prefects could be anyone, but the Gryffindor ones would likely be Neville or Roger and Fay Dunbar. Sally-Anne would not be prefect as this was her last year, Lavender was too flighty and Pavarti was not particularly interested in being a role model.

It then started to sink in that Daphne would be going to Hogwarts _without_ Rhea, which was an uncomfortable thought. She would have to take the initiative more, ensure people knew how her friend wanted things to be done and keep order in Slytherin House on Rhea's behalf. Not an easy task, but possible as Rhea wielded a lot of influence even in her absence.

At least the communication mirrors were complete now, so she could call Rhea daily for instructions if it came to it.


	47. Chapter 47

Beta'd by the dashing InsaneScriptist.

I would like to note that the song lyrics in this chapter belong to Bob Dylan, not to me.

* * *

**Of motherhood and the Thought Police **

Daphne had been a proper pureblood heiress when she was introduced to Rhea for the first time, and had considered herself to have remained such throughout their long acquaintance. However, sitting at the Slytherin table and listening with a stony face to the tedious, political and frankly offensive speech being given by Madam Umbridge, Daphne knew she was nowhere near as proper as she had previously believed. If she had been, her first thought on this matter would _not_ have been, 'So the Ministry is bringing in the Thought Police.'

Her introduction to Muggle society and culture had been gradual: she'd gone to a few plays and ballet productions with Rhea at various Christmases before Hogwarts started, but it was at school that said corruption had truly begun. It had all been down to the books.

Rhea, despite her heavy workload, had always been a swift and voracious reader. In an average week she could get through as many as seven novels, practically one a day. Most of Moros' trips back and forth to Black Manor or London were to send back books she had tired of and get new ones to replace them; Muggle novels not Wizarding fiction. Madam Honora Black, despite being a Muggle, had exerted a significant influence on Rhea's childhood and had been the one to introduce her husband's great-niece to Shakespeare, Orwell, Defoe, Dickens, White, Stoker, Shelley, the Brontës, Austen, Lewis, Scott, Hugo, Verne, Wells, Conan Doyle, Orczy, Hope, Stevenson, Dahl, Carroll, Wilde, Kipling, Lofting and many, many more. As there were generally about three dozen out of this massive selection of books sitting in Rhea's trunk at any given time and she was rarely without one in the evenings, Daphne had gradually been drawn in. A book borrowed here on a Sunday afternoon, another book there after finishing homework after curfew, a colourful cover catching her eye from her friend's dressing table…

Whenever Rhea wasn't getting books sent to her she was borrowing them from her older, Muggle-raised cousins or discussing said books with those same cousins or other Muggleborns. Hermione was not as fond of fiction as she was of reference books, but she still knew what Rhea was talking about at least half the time and Justin Finch-Fletchley in Hufflepuff proved to be even more well-read. Trey had joked once about how Justin should start a book club, so that more of them would have a chance to understand his various literary references.

The idea did gain considerable ground until it became clear that none of the teachers had the time to sponsor such a club, not even the Muggle Studies teacher –she was already sponsoring two clubs and teaching an apprentice– and while the Duplication Charm created reasonably long-lasting copies of books, they didn't last for more than a six weeks before they started deteriorating. Hogwarts had very little in the way of recreational activities available beyond Quidditch, which was why the Muggle radios and gramophone music was so very popular and why _all_ of Rhea's books had always been Duplicated about twenty times within a day of her receiving them in the post and discreetly handed out between classes to interested parties. She wasn't the only person doing so, but she did so most frequently simply because she had a larger book budget than most. Daphne was pretty sure Hufflepuff had possessed a similar in-house system set up already; they seemed the type.

Daphne had read George Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ only the previous year and it had chilled her to the bone, because she knew that any number of ambitious Wizards reading it could have been inspired in all the wrong ways. Madam Umbridge had likely never even heard of the Muggle author, but she nonetheless was clearly a supporter of the political system his book exemplified.

With this in mind, Daphne resolved to communicate with Neville as soon as possible; no doubt the Gryffindors, rash, headstrong and impulsive, would be the first to clash with the new regime. She needed to make sure they understood the implications of antagonising the new Defence Teacher and tried to do so as little as possible; Umbridge was a petty tyrant and it would be easier to oppose her if she believed them all cowed.

* * *

Angelique Zabini had arrived at Black Manor a week before Hogwarts was due to begin and had instantly taken over the best guest rooms, setting the elves scurrying so that all her eight trunks were unpacked and their contents properly put away exactly where she wanted them. When she eventually emerged, clad in elegant French robes of turquoise silk with peacock feather earrings and matching feathers pinned in her hair, it was to descend upon the parlour like a very fashionable tidal wave, embrace Dorea warmly and order the younger woman to call her _Zia_, it being Italian for 'aunt'.

Dorea, recognising in her oath-brother's mother the implacable Will of the Storm, did not protest; it wasn't worth it. She would save her arguments for things that actually mattered, as Zia Angelique was a person who did not stop for anything or anyone unless convincingly persuaded that another direction would be best. It didn't matter that the Principessa Zabini was not Flame Active and probably never would be; it did not prevent her Will from burning hotly within her, driving her onward towards her goals.

Currently that goal was to bond with Dorea, which the young Lady Potter was happy to go along with. She hadn't really had a mother growing up –Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had loved her and all but she hadn't ever _mothered_ Dorea– and getting sort-of adopted by someone willing to do so and help her adjust to being a mother herself was very welcome. Angelique was very effusive, cheerfully sharing embarrassing details of Blaise's early childhood, various mishaps that had occurred amongst his horde of Italian cousins growing up and other wonderfully domestic details.

Her various husbands other than her first were not mentioned at all, which Dorea was grateful for. She also suspected that Angelique did not consider the men she had married after being widowed the first time to have been husbands at all; targets was possibly a better term. After all she had done an excellent job of bankrupting every family she had ever married into by ensuring _those_ husbands left her everything that was not strictly entailed, then had transferred the money away to her own areas of interest and had all the chattels either sold or packed away.

Madam Angelique Zabini was not someone to cross.

* * *

Daphne got her first report on Madam Umbridge's teaching style over lunch: the Slytherin second-years had Defence first thing in the morning and the fourth-years right before the noon meal. Charles Gibbon, Edith Travers and the Carrow twins were all waiting for her as she arrived at the table after a rather disastrous first Potions' class of the term with the lions.

"It's all theory," Hestia Carrow said flatly as soon as Daphne was seated opposite them.

"Heavily biased and inaccurate theory," her twin sister Flora agreed grimly. "The ravens were all outraged, not that they said a word. I think more people will want to join the study group once this gets out though."

Charles Gibbon snorted. "She said there was nothing out there that could hurt us," he all but spat, glaring briefly at the High Table where the teachers were sitting. "Like people aren't getting killed by 'rogue creatures' in their own homes and Lady Potter wasn't abducted by a Death Eater off school grounds."

Daphne wisely did not comment; Charles' father was a Death Eater and the younger boy was one of those who had jumped ship. His mother was currently living in a Potter property somewhere, well out of reach of Tom Riddle and his supporters.

"The study group will be continuing, won't it?" Edith Travers asked quietly, eyes darting from Daphne along to where her other friends were sitting further down the table. "Even with Lady Potter no longer attending?"

Edith's father was in Azkaban and had been since she was barely six months old; as far as the sophisticated and soft-spoken fourteen-year-old was concerned her father had disgraced the Travers name and she wanted nothing to do with him. The Dark Lord's return made her father's remaining in prison unlikely however –in the last War the Dementors had followed Riddle– so she had persuaded her meek, downtrodden mother to throw herself on Lord Black's mercy. Edith herself had visited France over the summer, going to stay with her penpal who attended Beauxbatons.

She and Charles were the only Death Eaters' children in their year, so they kept an eye on each-other despite not actually being friends. They also kept an eye on Arietta Avery in the year below them, who in turn was close to the two Carrows. Hestia and Flora were the daughters of the recently-late Amycus Carrow but had not seen him in over five years, since their mother had fled back to her family home with her twin daughters following the miscarriage of an unborn son in suspicious circumstances. As far as both girls were concerned their father's death was nothing less than he deserved.

"Longbottom is the one who runs the lower-years' group," Daphne said in response to Edith's question, "so it will be continuing. Though we may well be starting an additional group for new firsties and second-years who weren't in the group last year; if we do that would you be willing to front it with Ginny Weasley and Terry Boot?" Boot was a fifth-year Ravenclaw and a good friend of Hermione's, but had only got involved with the inter-house study group in his third year. He was however smart, easygoing and very good at explaining things, so would be the best person to oversee Edith and Ginny in teaching the younger students. He also wasn't a prefect, which meant he had more time available to him than Anthony Goldstein or Hermione.

Edith paused, then nodded decisively. "Weasley's learnt manners over the summer," the rather plain Slytherin commented, "so it shouldn't prove too hard."

* * *

To Terence Higgs, the most obvious sign of how upset Rhea was by her husband's unexpected detention was that she'd gone more than three weeks without playing the piano. As far as Rence was aware that was a first; Rhea usually communed with the piano at least every other day, usually more frequently than that if she was struggling with something emotional. Three weeks without so much as _touching_ it said that a lot of things were very, very wrong. He hadn't commented on this yet –it wasn't his place to do so– but if it went on for much longer he might voice it to Lord Black. He was Rhea's vassal, but her wellbeing was one of his first priorities and her eschewing music altogether –not even turning on the radio– was a sign of things not going at all well.

It wasn't until the end of the first week of September, after some intensive plotting over the mirrors with her other friends about them working around the new and utterly unhelpful Defence teacher, that Rhea _finally_ wandered into the Music Room, sat down at the piano and started playing. Rence had to admit that Daphne was far more fierce and relentless that he had ever imagined; the willowy blonde might possibly be more implacable and manipulative in the pursuit of a goal than his liege-lady was. She was also rather terrifying if the degree of practical cunning shown was an indication of her usual mental state.

It took Rence a moment to place the tune Rhea was playing, but once he had he started singing along:

"Broken idols, broken heads, people sleeping in broken beds; ain't no use jiving, ain't no use joking, everything is broken…"

His liege-lady did not have much of a singing voice, but she was a truly magnificent pianist and very emotive in her choice of music. That Bob Dylan's 'Everything is Broken' was the tune that best expressed her feelings right now was understandable. Upsetting, but understandable.

"… broken words, never meant to be spoken; everything is broken…"

Honestly, Rence could understand why Rhea had picked this particular song: Hogwarts was broken, the Ministry was broken, her marriage was broken; she was well within her rights to be angry about it all. That she was actually sitting at the piano and expressing it all was actually a good sign, not that he'd ever patronise her by saying as much.

They'd done this before at Hogwarts, her playing and him, Theo or Blaise singing along to vocalise the feelings she was pouring out through music. Bob Dylan had generally been a weekend choice, as Rhea had shared that her father listened to a lot of it at home so she associated it with him. Generally she played the more upbeat or surreal tunes though.

Finishing the song, Dorea segued right into a new one. Rence easily sang along to this one as well:

"…you may like to gamble, you might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world; you may be a socialite with a _long_ string of pearls, but you're gonna have to serve somebody. Yes indeed; you're gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody..."

Clearly Rhea was contemplating how the Defence Professor's actions were dividing the school. Before Umbridge interfered there had been a lot of students who, while not actively opposing his lady's agenda, were not really her allies either. Now all those people would be forced to choose, which could go in any number of ways.

"… you may be somebody's mistress, you may be somebody's heir, but you're gonna have to serve somebody…"

Rence wondered idly how long it would take the Ministry plant to attempt to ban Muggle music; a lot of Bob Dylan's songs were incredibly subversive and they weren't the only ones.

Rhea changed into yet another song, this one slower and more mournful. Rence did not hesitate to sing along, despite this one expressing so much pain and sorrow.

"Our conversation, was short and sweet; you nearly swept me, off of my feet; and I'm back in the rain, oh and you are on dry land; you made it there somehow… you're a big girl now…"

Rence didn't have to see his lady's face to know she was crying, for all that her hands on the ivory keys were swift and steady. He wished bitterly, pointlessly that there was something, _anything_ he could do to stand between her and the agony of uncertainty and loneliness she was experiencing.

"… with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart, ever since we've been apart…"

The older boy resolved than that, while he couldn't do anything about the tragedy of her marriage, he would put everything he had into protecting her from other kinds of harm, both physical and to her reputation. Madam Zabini would help there; surely there was some way to fake Rhea's husband being busy off doing things in Italy? That way the gossips wouldn't get a chance to whisper about the fact that nobody had actually _seen_ Rhea's husband yet.

Maybe Blaise had a few cousins who'd be willing to act as body-doubles for those compulsory social events? From what Rhea had said her new husband wasn't exactly chatty, so it might work…

Then Rhea's hands started dancing over the keys again, her anger coming through more clearly now, and Rence set his thoughts aside to sing again.

"We live in a political world, where love don't have any place; we're living in times where man commit crimes and crimes don't have a face. We live in a political world…"


	48. Chapter 48

Beta'd by the determined InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of crimes committed in the pursuit of education **

Daphne was not at all used to plotting without Rhea. In fact, she had never previously needed to do _any_ plotting at all, as Rhea always had a plan for Daphne to help her refine. Being the person to come up with a scheme in the first place was a rather drastic change, but Daphne was determined to rise to the occasion, especially after the Daily Prophet article that proclaimed Umbridge to be 'Hogwarts High Inquisitor' and getting all those history books from Rhea concerning the original Inquisition. Rhea would help when she could, but Daphne was the person 'on the ground', so to speak, so she had to make the major tactical decisions. Even with the mirrors and the Black Owls carrying regular reports, Rhea wasn't on hand every moment of the day and she had other responsibilities that meant she couldn't always answer her mirror.

Daphne's first decision was that, if they were to triumph against the forces of oppression, they had to maintain the initiative. This meant they had to try and imagine exactly how power-crazed Umbridge could get and plot as though she had already got there. It also meant they had to consciously ignore the vile toad's provocative behaviour in favour of improving their own skills as quickly and efficiently as possible, so as to be prepared for the worst when it arrived. The worst would eventually happen, so they had better be well-prepared for when it did.

Her second decision was that she needed to recruit the Weasley twins, so as to co-opt their latest prank. Fred and George had outdone themselves this year, as they had somehow managed to master their Soulfire to the extent of creating solid clones and were therefore attending classes both as themselves and as the Prewetts. The teachers had retaliated by expecting both sets of twins to do the homework independently –meaning twice as much homework for each twin– but they hadn't given up yet. Somehow they were managing to keep up with double homework without compromising on satisfying their usual urges for chaos and disorder. Daphne intended to convince them to assist her in making Umbridge's life difficult in confusing and untraceable ways, sending her in the pursuit of culprits who did not exist and fuelling her paranoia.

The third decision concerned security: she needed _all_ those attending the study groups to have keyed jewel charms, so that the group could continue. She also needed to set up a support system so the younger students would not succumb to external pressure and rat the group out; a basic secrecy contract would be a sensible investment as well. Hermione would be writing the contract –the Muggleborn had taken to Law with a vengeance– but keyed charms would require Rhea and Rence's help. This meant posting things via Moros, since nobody was _ever _going to succeed in parting a Black Owl from its responsibilities, not even if they had a squad of Hit-Wizards helping them.

* * *

Dorea was honestly rather glad to get Dee's letter; having a project would make her less restless and dampen the frustration she felt at being so far away from her friends while they were in a difficult situation. It also meant she could teach Rence the basics she'd worked out about how different gems resonated with different Flames, based on making the initial keying charms and her various books. There were a good number of texts in the Potter Library on gemstones and their Alchemical properties, but Dorea had only discovered those while trawling said library with her knight-vassal. If she'd known about those books earlier it would have saved her a lot of hassle, but working out the original set of charms the hard way had been enlightening in a great many practical ways.

Before starting the selection process Dorea sent Moros back to Dee with a letter demanding her friends identify the Flame Affinity of _all_ the people needing keying charms, as well as a vague indication of the strength of that Affinity and its focus.

The importance of focus was one that Dorea had only realised very late: Luna had a very strong Mist Affinity but her focus was poor, which meant she could barely dampen her Flames at all now they were active. A bit of experimentation had enabled Dorea to gift the younger girl with a pair of turquoise earrings, as well as a necklace and a ring set with the blue-green opaque gems; it turned out that turquoise dampened Mist Flames and reduced their effectiveness, so wearing talismans of turquoise really did offer a certain degree of protection. Rence was keen to come up with a more effective long-term solution to Luna's problem than draping her in turquoise like an Egyptian princess, but Luna honestly didn't mind that much. She claimed that the turquoise worked even better than her butterbeer cork necklace did to fend off Nargles, and that even the Wrackspurts were dissuaded from bothering her.

People with poor focus would do better with less responsive gemstones, as that way their Flame would not be coaxed into being Active when they really couldn't cope with it. Similarly, people with very little Affinity at all needed highly responsive gemstones, as otherwise their Flames could not be drawn out at all, not even passively. High Affinity and solid focus were the ideal combination, as that way a gem could be selected that had median-high responsiveness, which was the most versatile kind. Median-high gemstone responsiveness enabled a person to consciously draw on their Flame and focus it in the gem, so that the Flame could be directed and moulded rather than simply emitted.

The letter to Dee sent, Dorea wrote another note, this one addressed to Gringotts, and gave it to Rence so he could go down to the bank and withdraw from the Potter vaults several cases of small gemstones in various different colours. The Potters weren't really rich in land like the Blacks were, nor did they have a long history of being part of the aristocracy, but they had been merchants and craftsmen for a long, long time and had accumulated all manner of valuable non-perishables over the years. Metals, minerals and gemstones in particular, though they had long sat unnoticed due to the more recent generations of Potters not being interested in that kind of thing.

Her knight-vassal off on his errand, Dorea sat at the piano as across the room from her Deborah sketched quietly, as she generally did whenever called upon to supervise the House Heir. When not sketching Deborah read, wrote letters or quietly experimented with her own Flames, weaving minor illusions with the aid of the silver ring set with a large, unfaceted deep blue tourmaline. Her elder cousin said that the ring was rather a clumsy tool, but Dorea was reluctant to facet the gem when she had no idea of which cuts would enhance control as opposed to hinder it, never mind that she knew nothing of _how_ to do such a thing in the first place. Rence would probably learn at some point, so she would leave that to him. For the time being Deborah's ring was a perfectly acceptable prototype. Considering how realistic her cousin had already managed to render her illusions, both in appearance and behaviour, Dorea was rather looking forward to finding out what could be done with a properly finished ring.

It fascinated all of the Blacks that Mist illusions were solid, physical and capable of interacting with reality despite their not requiring so much as an ounce of magic to create. They flew blatantly in the face of current magical theory, which Cousin Trish saw as a challenge rather than a problem. Patricia Andromeda Black was currently being wooed by the Unspeakables, but was playing coy as she didn't want to hide her discoveries from the Family. Dorea suspected she'd end up sponsoring her obsessive, determined raven of an elder cousin's research and likely providing the subject matter as well; Trish wanted to know how and why things worked, which current Magical Theory was woefully inadequate in explaining. The classical Greek theory was also rather lacking in this area despite its effectiveness and detail pertaining to transfiguration; she would have to investigate other nations with a mythic history involving conjuration and the creation of living beings from nothing.

Relaxing into the moment as the dramatic and passionate strains of Beethoven emerged from under her fingertips, Dorea took a moment to delight in her pregnancy and impending motherhood. Her husband might currently be missing, but her baby was no less a welcome addition to the Family for that. Besides, it wasn't like Zia Angelique wasn't leading the hunt for said missing husband at the moment.

* * *

Determining the Affinities of the numerous students who had gravitated to the study group during early September was not remotely easy for Daphne, or indeed for any of the motley collection of fifth-, fourth- and seventh-years who had managed to activate their Soulfire. Rhea, as the only one of them with pure Sky Affinity, was much more aware of the inner Flames of the people around her than any of the others were. Each of them could just about sense _something_ when in the presence of someone with the same Affinity as they were, but it was rather hit-and-miss, especially with the Hufflepuffs who were frequently hard to fathom.

Earth Flames for instance were much, much harder to pick up on than Sky Flames, even for Neville who had very strong and focused Forest Flames. Susan Bones, being a Desert, was slightly better as it turned out that Desert Flames had amplification properties, but the auburn-haired pureblood had only recently started learning to access her inner Fire so she couldn't yet manage it reliably.

However Rhea needed to know everyone's Affinity, so Daphne informed the core group of her close friends and allies that they would _all_ be assisting Neville, Luna, Terry, Ginny and Edith with each of the two lower-level groups at _least_ once, like it or lump it. This prompted a lot of moaning and groaning, but nobody argued with her. Hermione promptly offered to set up a schedule so the Quidditch players among them wouldn't be inconvenienced, Trey suggested they each pair up with someone with a different affinity so as not to interfere with each-other's observations and Daphne watched with a pleased smile as Things Got Done. Ten minutes later everyone had a partner and a set of times, all within the upcoming two weeks, so she let everyone get on with their individual projects and joined Ginny so they could work on their Storm Flames together.

Since being forced to take the initiative and lead her friends –whom she still privately considered to be _Rhea's_ friends first and foremost– Daphne had suddenly found it much easier to call out her Soulfire. Ginny insisted that Storm Flames were all about going for your goal and giving it your all, which seemed a bit Gryffindor to Daphne. It did make sense though and explained why she'd been having so much trouble previously: she'd never actually taken the initiative very often before now. Not that she remembered anyway; her mother had mentioned once or twice that Daphne had been very wild and unruly as a child, but as she was a girl that had been swiftly trained out of her. Her baby brother Arcas, aged two and a half, was very wilful indeed, but her parents had thus far not done more than moderate that tendency with discipline; boys were allowed to be stubborn.

* * *

The list that arrived on the breakfast table on the second of October prompted Dorea to push her half-finished porridge aside entirely, as it was twice as long as she'd originally expected. Rence abandoned his own meal to get up and walk around behind her, so as to read over her shoulder.

As of the evening of the first of October, the study constellation –Dee's words, not hers– consisted of twenty-nine fourth-years, sixty-five third-years, _eighty_ second-years and sixty-two first-years, in addition to the twenty-seven fifth-years who made up the group's original core, twelve sixth-years who had attached themselves in the interests of keeping order and eighteen seventh-years who could see the way the wind was blowing and didn't want to miss anything. Meaning that there were just shy of _three hundred_ _students_ now affiliated with what had started out as a small, casual study group.

Dee had come up trumps though, in spite of the unexpected scale of the task Dorea had accidentally set her friend: She had every name listed, alongside that person's Flame Affinity, level of Flame focus and a few words on general personality. A few names had two or more Flame-types listed, alongside question-marks, but that could be worked around.

It started to sink in then that this was going to be a very expensive endeavour, even with all the chests of small gems Rence had brought back from the Potter Family Vaults. All the focus gems needed to be sorted, assembled in bracelets, necklaces or similarly innocuous settings, sent to Hogwarts so that Dee could distribute them for a week or so before collecting them up again and sending them back so that Dorea could use the Flame accumulated in the gems to power the keying mechanism. The transportation alone was going to require an entire _parliament_ of Omen Owls!

Well, she did actually have that many to hand at the moment; since the Declaration more and more of them had been showing up at Black Manor, sometimes with suspiciously bloody claws. Ric's uncle had been found dead and dismembered only a few days previously and his cousin Adam was now Lord Avery. However the new Lord seemed likely to be making the same mistakes as his father, so Ric was keeping his head down and concentrating on his upcoming marriage and his father Alan Avery was doing likewise. The Averys were political creatures no matter their affiliation and while Ric's father considered Muggleborns an affront to his sensibilities, he could sense which way the wind was blowing.

With such a mammoth task before them breakfast was promptly abandoned in favour of the workroom, with Moppet bringing food and fussing until Dorea ate it all. Remembering that she was eating for two was still something she was getting used to, even after nine weeks of being pregnant. That she was starting to have extreme difficulty even _sitting_ at the breakfast table without wanting to throw up was making it really sink in though; Wispy had moderated her cooking so that none of the foods that set her off were being served anymore but Dorea still felt a bit wobbly until about noon.

It turned out that Dorea didn't actually have to do very much at all: Rence exhibited an unexpected affinity for gems and started going through the boxes, quickly splitting up all the small stones according to suitability and 'type', making sure the unsuitable ones were well off to one side, humming happily as he did so. Watching his hands dance over the cases and the happy smile on her knight's face, Dorea resolved to find an Alchemist Jeweller-Artificer willing to teach him the trade, even if it meant paying through the nose. Maybe she could hunt down Flamel and give him that red rock of Aunt Lucretia's back? Nicholas Flamel _was_ a distant relation on the Potter side, so he might bother to hear her out.

As Rence was utterly engrossed in sorting out the Flame foci, Dorea instead turned her attention to the small crate of haematite and quartz beads she had bought, quickly laying out threads for bracelets, leather thongs for more masculine wristbands and the steel settings for the focus gems to fit into so they could be worn easily as Deborah consulted the list and started laying out beads. This was going to be a long, long job. Three people making over two-and-a-half-hundred bracelets, then her having to personally Charm them all in a week's time, would make this both tedious and exhausting.

* * *

The only real problem with the very attractive and discreet charm bracelets, Daphne thought bemusedly, was that they were so _very_ illegal that if Umbridge found out what they actually _did_ she and her friends would all be in Azkaban for life. The younger students would get off with a warning, since they had no idea what the charms were for beyond identification, but the rest of them would all be in deep, _deep_ dragon dung.

Messing about with the soul was quite ridiculously illegal in Britain, even if the only soul you were poking about at was your own. Horcruxes were legitimately illegal, as to make one you not only tore your own soul but used the soul of the one you'd killed to do so; the Avada Kedavra Curse was Soul Magic. So was the Imperius, which mean it was possible that a Flame Active person would be able to throw off the Curse if it was cast at them by a Flame Latent person. Not that Daphne was going to experiment; those Curses were truly Dark and tainted the soul.

The Cruciatus was not Soul Magic, but it only worked if you really _wanted_ to hurt someone so it was no less despicable. Wanting it wasn't quite enough really; you had to _visualise_ the pain you wanted your victim to experience. Not just, 'I want them to hurt', but 'I want them to be in such bone-melting agony that they scream their throat bloody and the veins in their eyeballs explode'. You had to _relish_ it.

Being friends with Rhea meant access to books the Ministry didn't realise existed and would have ordered burnt if it had. That the Black Family had a book that contained in-depth background details and a step-by-step how-to guide for the Unforgivables was not really as surprising at it might have been. The Blacks _not_ having such books would be more suspicious.

Making sure everyone who wanted to be part of the study group –which had recently split twelve ways in the interests of keeping the numbers manageable – wore their bracelet constantly for a week was not hard; getting those bracelets back in batches, sending them to Rhea and then re-distributing them the following day _was_, especially since Umbridge had caught on that something was up despite everyone being suitably silent in Defence class.

The Slytherins had been rightly proud of having managed to persuade the irate and headstrong lions that the best way to deal with Umbridge was to completely ignore her and pretend to be doing what she wanted; Gryffindors were not usually inclined towards passive-aggressive behaviour. Daphne suspected the pink toad had overheard some of the younger students discussing the study group in general terms and had jumped to the conclusion that something illicit was afoot.

None of those belonging to the group could actually _tell_ Umbridge they were part of it, or anything about it, as a result of the truly stunning secrecy contract Hermione had written up and everyone had signed on their first day. The contract prevented the communication of personal details of the people involved, location where it took place, teaching methods and security procedures. It had a built-in precaution against Veritaserum too, as if drugged the person being interrogated would fall asleep. Attempting to break the contract would activate the security precautions, which would destroy the charm bracelet –regardless of if the person was wearing it– and wipe everything except the spells learned from the mind of the person attempting betrayal. The would-be traitor would also find themselves with a compulsion to address authority figures as 'Oh Hypocritical One', which was Hermione's sense of humour showing through. Daphne thought it was funny too.

The banning of any and all social groups caused much outcry and upset, as since it specified 'a gathering of three or more people' it effectively banned dining in the Great Hall and the usage of the tables in the Library. Daphne made sure to point this out to people, which resulted in half the school skipping lunch out of 'obedience' and sixty-eight different groups of people applying for a 'homework permit'. Umbridge soon issued blanket exemptions for the four common rooms, dormitory areas and the library and decreed that meals were supervised by teachers, so did not count. It was a small victory, but an important one as it meant Combat Lessons in the Slytherin Dungeons had been made 'legal' and could therefore continue without additional precautions.

The Study Constellation was of course highly illegal, but Daphne didn't rightly care. She had her goal, of ensuring all the students attending were fully caught up to the standard of Defence Material of the year _above_ the one they were in, and she would not let a petty, tyrannical Ministry Official stand between her and her goal. Now that everyone's bracelets were fully activated they could start using the East Wing Hall to host the sessions, which had been appropriately scheduled for the different year-groups so that nobody would be out after curfew. Rhea had also provided maps of the nearby secret passages that led to the general vicinity of the various common rooms, which was an additional help.

Even more helpful was that the Weasley Twins had extensively Charmed the entire sixth floor with proximity sensors, misdirection jinxes and spells of concealment so that they could track the odious woman's movement and not get caught leaving. They'd also Charmed a decent chunk of the fourth floor, as there was a secret passage leading out of the East Wing down to there, for additional security as despite the portrait down there being parsel-locked it was still possible to leave that way. As the only classroom in that general area was Arithmancy, being caught around there by the Toad might lead her to question and pressure the younger students in addition to making her aware that something illicit was afoot. Daphne didn't want Umbridge to have even circumstantial evidence of their group until after New Year at the very earliest.

Daphne did not for one moment believe the conflict with Umbridge had been avoided; it had simply been delayed. She fully intended to use the time afforded her to maximise her advantage. The toad needed to be distracted and harassed, not knowing who was obstructing her or how they were doing it, so that she would miss the subtle goings-on around her.

In other words: cry havoc and unleash the prank war!


	49. Chapter 49

Beta'd by the humorous Insane Scriptist.

Over a thousand Favourites! I'm so happy!

* * *

**Of Sun Tzu and pointless death **

Sirius Black's introduction to the work of Sun Tzu had come when his daughter was nine and Aunt Lulu had set his little Dorry the text as a Chinese language exercise. She had, quite understandably, been utterly enraptured by the information contained in the slim volume and Sirius had been extensively quoted at in both Chinese and English for four months. The quotes had caught his interest, so he'd approached Great-Aunt Honora for an English translation and she had eventually managed to get him one.

It had been an eye-opener, and fully confirmed his budding suspicions that there was no honour in war whatsoever. War was simply a waste, be it of time, resources or of people, so it was best to ensure it was over as quickly and efficiently as possible. There were no tactics that were 'underhanded' or 'inappropriate', because in war the aim was to win as swiftly and efficiently as possible. The fewer resources you lost, the better the victory.

Siruis had lent the book to Remus, applied some of the concepts to his Black business investments, then when his daughter declared war on Voldemort had immediately used it as a basis for his campaign. It was working rather disturbingly well. So disturbingly well, in fact, that the Black War might well be over by February if their progress remained more or less steady in the coming months; according to Cissa, they had already succeeded in halving Old Mouldy's financial power base. Money could be more persuasive than force in the political arena.

In terms of denying the Dark Dork access to manpower, the vampires had all been politely persuaded that it was in their best interests to stay out of the scuffle taking place and Dorea's Potions breakthrough in the first week of November had ensured both that she would be a shoo-in for getting a Mastery and that no werewolves would be joining Riddle any time soon. The Daily Prophet headline had seen to _that_: the **Lady Potter Creates Lycanthropy Cure! **headlinehad not been in any way subtle. All that time spent combing through the extensive archives and reading crabbed handwriting was now fully justified.

Dorea's breakthrough had taken longer than it might have due to her being pregnant, as her condition meant she was completely banned from brewing until after giving birth and would be discouraged from anything that might conceivably go wrong until her child was weaned; the fumes were dangerous, especially to babies. However Dawn was a capable potioneer and had followed Dorea's instructions _exactly_ through a set of mirrors while taking comprehensive notes at every step, so the final potion both young ladies were satisfied with had been taken by Moony shortly before the full moon and, while he had still transformed, he had been neither insane nor contagious either that first night or the following month. The lack of contagiousness had been verified through a spell and a saliva sample; Healers used the spell to diagnose Cursed wounds all the time. The Ministry was already talking of making the potion compulsory, so that lycanthropy would become a thing of the past within their lifetimes.

Sirius knew that monsters such as Greyback would never take the potion, so the market for Lycan's Ease was unlikely to vanish any time soon. The potion itself was a finicky one with a few very expensive ingredients, but the real problem with it was its sensitivity to the phases of the moon during brewing and the length of time required to produce even a single dose. The potion had to be started under a new moon and took twelve days to mature, after which it had to be drunk within the day or it lost all potency. According to Moony it didn't taste half-bad, considering, but a few of the ingredients were a bit ick. Eagle intestines, for instance…

* * *

Dorea was over four months pregnant now and completely delighted about it, despite the continued absence of husband and not being allowed off the grounds of Black Manor unless it was to visit Potter Manor, accompanied by a house-elf since the Floo was not secured. She actually had a tiny baby bump now and probably came across as completely dotty in her insistence on talking to her baby, playing music to it at all hours of the day and diligently keeping up her combat practice.

Mr Rookwood and Ric Avery were both visiting every week and Rence was participating in those sessions as well, so she was keeping herself in shape despite protests from her remaining elderly relatives. Her great-aunts Callidora Longbottom and Cedrella Weasley both held that such strenuous exercise would do untold harm to her baby and were firmly disapproving, but Dorea simply informed them that if they could not moderate their censure she would stop inviting them to visit her. She was Heiress Black, her child was to be Heir Black –provided it was a boy, which she was pretty sure it would be– and her choices were not subject to their approval.

Aunt Druella was little better, but she at least did not reprimand Dorea outright, feeling far too beholden to the Heiress Black to risk overstepping those boundaries. Dorea had taken to inviting Uncle Cygnus' widow over to visit about once a fortnight and the thin, prematurely aged woman would sit with her in her parlour and embroider while telling stories about her own experiences in pregnancy and raising her three daughters. Dorea usually drew, wrote letters or did a little embroidery herself during these visits while Deborah or Dawn perched on the window seat, completely ignored by the aging Mrs Black. Aunt Druella was a pureblood elitist like her late husband and considered Great-Uncle Marius' grandchildren to be lower-class, despite them technically being Blacks, so classified them as 'help'.

As Aunt Druella had actual experience of motherhood and had somehow managed to raise both Aunt Cissa and Aunty Andy into accomplished and capable adults, Dorea was prepared to put up with a little casual prejudice from her in exchange for helpful advice and commiseration on pregnancy in the absence of Zia Angelique, who was in Italy trying to unearth why there were no records of her husband anywhere in Sabina. Aunt Cissa herself was too busy helping Papa with the war to sit around and be comforting, though Aunt Cissa's own pregnancy with Draco had actually been so fraught with complications and perilous to her health that despite Aunt Cissa wanting a daughter she and Uncle Lucius had never tried for a second child. Auntie Andy was also very busy, being a Healer and very much in demand with all the families the Blacks were currently sheltering as well as keeping up her work at Saint Mungo's. Cousin Dora wasn't married and just as busy as her mother, Aunt Lucretia had no children and those of her cousins who actually _were_ married with children lived in France and were busy both with their own work and hunting down people for Papa.

Her aunts Ophelia and Drusilla did visit about as often as Aunt Druella did, which was very welcome, but both were very busy organising Deborah's upcoming spring wedding and generally talked about that just as much as they did about pregnancy and babies. All her relatives were being very supportive and tactful about her missing husband, particularly Great-Aunt Honora, who was now slowing down a little but had visited in November especially to spend a fortnight at the Manor and tell Dorea a bit about how it had felt living alone in London with a toddler during the Blitz, not knowing where her husband was or even if he was still alive. The large age gap between Eduard, her eldest and Ophelia, the next-oldest told its own tale of how long Great-Aunt Honora had needed to manage alone: there was slightly over seven years between the two. Compared to the not-quite-three-year-gaps between Ophelia and Drusilla and Drusilla and Leander, it was a long time.

What Dorea found hardest about being pregnant was only having Rence around of all her extended circle of friends. Not that Rence wasn't one of her closest friends, but Blaise was her best friend, Daphne was her first friend and Tracy was the friend who'd taught her you didn't have to be best friends to get on well with each-other and they were all stuck at Hogwarts for the year along with Luna, Hermione, Padma and Ginny, whom she had recently become very close to. They'd be coming over to Black Manor for Christmas –they had promised– but after that she wouldn't see any of them again until after her baby was born. They would barely be staying long enough for the traditional Gender Unveiling that took place at the start of the sixth month of pregnancy, where the Healer did a spell to determine the gender of the unborn child.

The spell in question _could_ be cast anytime after the eighth week of pregnancy, but Pureblood Tradition held it was unlucky to do so before the sixth month had begun. Dorea suspected it was partly to do with the fact that the Healers could only save a premature baby if it was born after the six-month mark, so naming the child before then was setting oneself up for potentially greater loss should a miscarriage occur.

Dorea already had names in mind, both for a boy and for a girl, though she would have liked her husband's opinion on the subject. As the baby would be Heir –or temporary Heiress– Black, they needed a Black name, so Dorea would have veto, but she still would have liked to hear his side. She would have liked to name a boy Arcturus, but as a boy would have his father's first name as a middle name 'Arcturus Alexander Black' sounded too ridiculous to inflict on a child. She refused to name her son after either of her fathers –because Uncle James _was_ her father as much as Papa was– which left her uncles and great-uncles. Alphard was out for the same reason as Arcturus, Cygnus and Pollux both held unpleasant mental connotations, Regulus had died too recently for her to be comfortable reusing the name just yet and she didn't want to use Orion either.

Dorea was therefore leaning towards naming a boy-child Marius, as a way to honour her Great-Uncle who was one of the truest, most honourable and family-orientated men she had ever known. 'Marius Alexander Black' also sounded very dignified, which was another plus. If her baby was a girl Dorea would be calling her Cassiopeia, though she hadn't yet settled on a middle name. Possibly Lily or Lillian after her mother, or Melania after Grandpa Arcturus' wife? She wasn't sure what would suit best. Isla maybe, after that distant great-great aunt whose trunk she had inherited.

Regardless of whether she had a boy or a girl, Dorea was sure her baby would be completely beautiful and very wilful. With herself and Xanxus for parents, they couldn't possibly be anything else.

* * *

For George, Wednesday December 21st began just like every second day that term. He woke in the Slytherin seventh-year dormitories, conjured up a 'George Weasley' in the Gryffindor tower on the other side of the school as his twin conjured up a 'Frank Prewett' that materialised in the dungeons, showered, dressed and headed up to breakfast with his 'twin'. He'd been Jerry Prewett half the time he was at Hogwarts this year and despite having twice the usual load of homework he was still having fun. When he was George he and 'Fred' would work hard on making The Toad's life hellish in dozens of subtle and untraceable ways, starting with hexes on her classroom and going all the way up to dosing her drinks and breaking into her home on weekends to ransack her files. When he was Jerry, Fred and 'George' would do likewise while he and 'Frank' worked diligently in class, kept their heads down and sucked up to 'Professor Umbridge'.

But this morning Professor McGonagall strode over to the Gryffindor table and quietly informed the assembled Weasleys that they were expected in the Headmaster's office. Sensing something was up, George caught Ingrid Rosier's eye and quietly absented himself from the breakfast table, 'Frank' right behind him. Mist Flames were very versatile and getting people to overlook you was actually more effective than attempting to make yourself invisible. People who had been Disillusioned were only really camouflaged rather than truly invisible, so movement could actually be discerned. The charm had other flaws too, and did not prevent s person from showing up to various Detection Charms. The Notice-Me-Not Charm could help a person there, but those could be picked up on as well. Mist illusions on the other hand were invisible to conventional magic, which was quite remarkably helpful.

He swapped with his clone halfway along the hall, leaving 'George' to become 'Jerry' and weaving a minor illusion over his uniform so he was no longer so sleekly dressed and his tie wasn't green and silver. His hair reverted to its natural ginger, at least superficially; Muggle hair dye was not something magic could reverse, but it was easy to conceal.

George passed the animated gargoyle, ascended the moving staircase to the top of the Headmaster's tower and followed their Head of House into Dumbledore's office, Fred just ahead of him, Ginny clutching his hand and Ron a few steps behind. Ron seemed to be following in Percy's footsteps in becoming subtly alienated from the rest of the family, though he was managing it through laziness and ill-temper rather than ambition and snobbishness.

Ron was one of the very small minority of Gryffindors not involved with the Study Constellation, which was really at the root of that drifting apart considering both Fred and George were involved in teaching –mostly the fourth-years– either as themselves or as the Prewetts and Ginny was actually _running_ the first-year groups. It had been months since they'd last pranked Ickle Ronnikins, let alone _spoken_ to him for more than just necessity.

Bill was standing in the office, where he really _shouldn't_ be considering he was still contracted to work in Egypt for another eighteen months despite Dumbledore's attempts to get their eldest brother to ask to be reassigned to Britain. He also looked…

"There's been an accident," is what Bill actually _said_, but George could read the lines prematurely etched on his favourite big brother's face, interpret the miserable twitch in his cheek and the shadows around his eyes and if he could then Fred could too.

"Who's dead," Fred demanded, voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

Bill's face set like glue, or possibly that gloopy grey Muggle building material one of Dorea's cousins had introduced them to. See-meant?

"Dad."

George had thought his twin's Petrification was bad, but this was _worse_. All of the colour leeched out of reality and there was nothing left but pain.

* * *

Dorea heard about the suspicious death of Arthur Weasley over lunch on the Wednesday before Christmas, the news brought to her ears by Aunt Cissa who had heard it from Hildegard Lestrange. Hilde was a secretary in the Ministry and the building was awash with rumours and curiosity concerning how on earth the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office had wound up savaged to death right outside the Department of Mysteries. The rumour mill had it there was a connection to Broderick Bode, an Unspeakable currently in St Mungo's Spell Damage Ward whom the late Mr Weasley had been friendly with.

Papa was certain that Mr Weasley's death was connected to the prophecy Voldemort knew a snippet of, which the Dark Lord was clearly obsessed with and was trying to learn the entirety of. Bode's mental injuries were consistent with the Charms used to protect Prophecy Orbs and Dumbledore still believed the prophecy to be relevant, so it was rather likely that Arthur Weasley sitting guard on the Department of Mysteries overnight had been the Headmaster's idea.

However it was also completely pointless: as Bode's injuries indicated, only those to whom the Unspeakables believed the prophecy to relate to could remove it from its place in their archives, meaning that no Death Eater could touch it without sustaining considerable psychic injuries. Voldemort clearly didn't know this yet, but Dumbledore certainly did so his mounting a guard on the Department was doubly illogical.

Arthur Weasley had died for nothing, probably killed by Nagini considering the nature of his wounds. That an attempt to seize the prophecy orb would have lobotomised the Horcrux-snake made his death even less meaningful, as Mr Weasley's absence from the scene might actually have resulted in a meaningful blow being struck against the Dark Lord. The Unspeakables would probably have then determined what the snake actually was and destroyed it with all possible haste. Instead Great-Aunt Cedrella's youngest son was dead, murdered by Dumbledore's pointless posturing and Voldemort's obsession. Dorea's heart ached for her Great-Aunt and for George, Fred and Ginny, all of whom would really be hurting right now.

It was barely teatime when the three allied Weasleys tumbled through her Floo and vanished into the depths of Black Manor; Dorea wouldn't even have known they were there had Lurcher not informed her of their arrival. She decided to leave them be, merely issuing orders to ensure they were provided with food, then sent Deborah to drag Rence out of his reading so she could have someone sing along with her in the Music Room.

Dawn had a very pleasant voice but she was currently sitting in the Wizengamot representing the Potter Family and Fleur Delacour, Dorea's new assistant in all things Potter and political, was not yet trusted sufficiently by the Family to be left alone with her employer. Dorea didn't really mind: fussing over her kept everyone happy so she could put up with it. If they were still this stupidly overprotective after she had given birth however she would have _words_ with them.

Dorea allowed the three grieving members of her extended family to lurk in their favourite parts of her home until dinner, when she sent Wispy to fetch them. Sending Wispy was cheating really, since the elf was the one who had cooked dinner and would be mortally offended should the three Weasleys refuse it to her face, but she was Heiress Black and a certain level of ruthlessness was expected. George, Fred and Ginny would all be angry with her over such an underhand move but not one of them would take it out on the kitchen elf.

Sure enough, as she was sitting down to dinner with Papa, Auntie Andy, Dora, Uncle Leander, Trish, Deborah, Dawn, Rence, Remus and Fleur, the three Weasleys sidled quietly into the dining room and slunk into the vacant chairs between Dora and Dawn, the twins flanking their little sister. All three were still in their Hogwarts uniforms, George wearing a higher-quality one than either of his younger siblings and a Slytherin tie. Clearly today would have been a Jerry day.

In deference to the loss suffered conversation was kept light and inconsequential, with people joining in as they pleased and talking across the table in a manner that would not have been at all appropriate in more formal circumstances. Uncle Leander chatted about recent legal cases he had overseen and the peculiarities of various clients, Deborah shared the latest hold-ups in arranging her wedding, Dora mentioned a few very eccentric individuals she had met in the pursuit of recent investigations and Trish talked Magical Theory to Fleur, who seemed to at least have enough of an inkling as to what the older girl was on about to ask pertinent questions. The three Weasleys did not utter more than was required to ask to be passed the vegetables, water carafe or condiments, but their inner Flames grew less tense as the meal progressed, no longer raging erratically or twisting unhealthily.

After the remains of dessert had been cleared away Ginny made herself scarce again, Fred right behind her; George however hesitated by the door.

"You only have to ask," Dorea said gently, easily reading the conflict on his face and in his Flames.

"Can we stay here for a bit?" George managed to blurt out. "Mum's completely gone to pieces, Bill's barely holding it together and Ron's just angry. The whole Burrow feels like it's about to explode and if we'd stayed a moment longer I think GinGin would have disintegrated Ronnikins' thick head."

"Stay as long as you like," Dorea promised easily, "but remember that Bill is head of your branch of the family now, so he might come looking for you."

"He won't notice we're missing before tomorrow at the earliest," George said confidently, eyes bleak; "Mum's holding all his attention for the time being."

"Did you at least leave a note?"

George nodded mutely.

"Then I see no reason to inform your brother of your whereabouts."

"Thanks Dorea," George whispered before dashing out the room as though rabid griffins were after him. Dorea felt her heart clench for him and his siblings and promised herself that she would offer them all possible support. Losing a parent was horrible.


	50. Chapter 50

Beta'd by the polished InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of conspiracy and division **

Dorea was not even slightly surprised when a very old, tired and wobbly-winged part-Omen Owl weaved in through the window of her private breakfast room and only just managed to land on one end of the special long perch set up on her right, where two other Omen Owls were already waiting for their messages to be acknowledged. Dorea guessed the new bird to be Errol, which had been Arthur Weasley's Owl since he was a child and which was one of the great grand-chicks of the Omen Owl that had belonged to Great-Aunt Cedrella's father Arcturus Marius Black, who had in turn been the youngest son of the Lord Phineas Nigellus Black at the end of the nineteenth century.

As Omen Owls who left the service of the main family line to watch over a cadet branch did not breed with other Omen Owls –due to the nature of the Loyalty Spells that bound Omen Owls to obey only the Lord and his children– Dorea guessed Errol was barely a quarter Omen Owl; just enough to make him smarter, more stubborn and longer-lived than most. He had probably been formidable in defending his mail in his youth, but no longer. Errol had to be at least thirty-five years old, a truly incredible age for an owl; Omen Owls could reach sixty, but those were the birds belonging to the Lord Blacks. Errol had done remarkably well, all things considered. That the Weasleys had no idea of Errol's lineage did not really surprise Dorea; it was sad, but that was secrecy for you and the Blacks had always kept Omen Owl information very hush-hush indeed. Cedrella probably didn't know about Omen Owls either, as that information was limited to the Lord and his Heir.

Dorea ignored the line-up of fierce-faced Strigidae, concentrating instead on her porridge, toast and tea. Her morning sickness was already in remission, having started tailing off a fortnight previously and Dorea had hopes that by Christmas morning it would be over entirely. She had felt the first quickening, a faint, butterfly-soft sensation of movement within her womb, back on the thirteenth and though that was a full week ago Dorea was still bursting with joy at the novelty of awareness. Her baby was growing!

She also felt much more upbeat and clear-headed than she had been even a month previously and was finally putting on weight properly, something that had prompted the house-elves to back off a bit and fuss less. Then there was the fact that her baby bump was starting to make itself known, which had prompted a frenzy of clothing modification by the elves, with numerous robes of various antiquated cuts being produced from storage so she could decide which shapes appealed to her. Dorea had gravitated towards the simpler gowns with high waists, as they were modest, flattering and attractive without taking too much fuss to get into. It being winter she already had to wrestle with multiple layers, so fiddly clothing was right out.

Her developing figure had driven her Papa and aunts quite doolally; Dorea wasn't quite sure what to think of her father's loud and giddy glee or her aunts' coddling and remarkable permissiveness; she settled on letting it amuse her and went with the flow. Zia Angelique was also very doting whenever she was in the Manor, but she had gone back to Sabina for Christmas and had said she was pursuing 'new lines of inquiry', which Dorea really hoped would prove fruitful. There was still no sign of her husband on any of the lesser Zabini family trees, so Angelique was probably consulting the original one in the Palazzo.

Dorea really, truly missed her husband, and that wasn't just her hormones speaking either.

It had been over four months since her husband had fallen into stasis and she had lost hope of it having been a temporary measure; clearly whoever was responsible intended to keep him like that indefinitely. Dorea had suffered a few crying jags, thrown no less than eight pieces of decorative chinaware at walls and incinerated a whole lot of newspapers, rugs and curtains with the Stormy Flames curled up behind her solar plexus; having her husband's Will inhabiting her body as well as her own made her rather more volatile than usual, even without taking her pregnancy into account.

At least those Flames were usually content to coil around her growing belly, protecting their unborn child. However there were regular flare-ups, which Dorea had managed to partially tame by taking to writing down the various things she intended to do to whoever was responsible for her husband's detainment, interspersed with lists of things she wanted to do _with_ said husband once she recovered him. Both the plotting of inventive and brutal vengeance and the determination to move past the issue at hand soothed the fury that bubbled within, so Dorea alternated while trying to focus more on the positive.

Upon finishing her breakfast, Dorea started working through her mail. A closely written letter from Daphne, containing all the details of the Constellation that were too numerous to speak over the mirrors; a brief missive from Hermione requesting more Law books –the Muggleborn teen had virtuously decided to stay on at Hogwarts for Christmas so that the other students would be able to get hold of a Black in an emergency– a mismatched wad of pages in a variety of hands from all of the rest of her close friends; then finally the Weasley letter.

It was, as Dorea had expected, from William Weasley. It was also very brief and polite, no more than a request as to whether certain of his younger siblings were taking advantage of her hospitality, and if so would it be permissible for him to visit also, to speak with them in person. Which he couldn't do without her permission, because the Black Floo was currently very heavily Warded and required a password. In fact, it required a specially created password that depended on the phase of the moon, month of the year, the identity of the person using it and the personalised security settings of the Lord Black currently in power, and each password was only good for one person, one time.

The bracelets she had made to channel Soulfire were sufficiently secure identifiers that Papa had tweaked the Wards so that people whose Flame signatures were 'keyed in' just needed to channel a little Soulfire with the Floo powder and use a personal weekly password, but that was as lax as the War Wards got.

Needless to say, the Blacks themselves rarely Flooed in. If they wanted to enter the Estate they called an Elf.

* * *

Bill ate his thrown-together lunch hurriedly, more unnerved than he wanted to admit by the great grey owl perched on the back of one of the Burrow's battered kitchen chairs and watching him impassively. He'd always adored Errol, the family's own great grey owl, so finding himself intimidated by an almost identical bird was completely irrational. It didn't ease the sense that he was sharing the room with a dangerous predator though.

Mum was in a right mess: she'd been hysterical the previous day, so consumed by her grief that she hadn't watched her tongue at all and Bill had eventually resorted to Dreamless Sleep to get her to rest in the evening. He'd then discovered that the twins and Ginny had all snuck out shortly after lunchtime, meaning he and Ron were the only people in the Burrow other than Mum. As Mum was in a drugged sleep, Bill couldn't leave her and Ron alone, so he limited himself to writing a letter to Dorea Black, as that was who Fred, George and Ginny claimed they were visiting.

Bill didn't know much about the Blacks, but most of what he did know had come from Great-Uncle Iggy, who had been the one to sponsor him at Gringotts when he graduated from Hogwarts. Great-Aunt Lulu was a Black and he regularly exchanged letters with both of them, so he'd picked up quite a bit here and there. He'd also visited Black Manor for Dorea's birthday a few times, where he'd picked up a little more.

What he did know that Blacks took Warding to a whole new level and were not at all reticent about integrating lethal security features at every possible opportunity. The Manor –from what little he had seen– was better protected than many royal tombs and in several different Warding languages. Likely because the former Lord Black had been a Curse-Breaker back when it wasn't an actual profession and was more of 'rich, bored wizards getting richer through grave-robbery'.

Lord Arcturus Black hadn't had the co-workers and security that Bill did now; instead he'd relied on his wits, his Dark Arts Mastery and his observation skills. He had survived too, which most of his fellow amateurs had not. That he had subsequently written most of the currently used textbooks for Curse-Breaking said it all really, as did the goblins' deep-seated respect for the now-dead wizard. Goblins only respected two things, battle-prowess and money, and the previous Lord Black had certainly possessed both in spades.

Bill's morning had not begun well: Mum had got up early to start breakfast as usual, then had a breakdown in the kitchen when it hit home again that Dad was dead. Bill had found her sobbing into the tea-towels and had distracted her by pitching in with breakfast himself, talking about some of the more unusual things he had eaten in Egypt and his various failed attempts at cooking while camping. Mum had been distracted both by the stories and his determined encroachment on her 'territory' and her tears had temporarily been forgotten until Ron staggered downstairs and asked where his other siblings were.

Mum promptly panicked, Bill had needed to share that they'd gone visiting and Mum had them fallen apart _again_ because she hadn't even _noticed and she was a __**bad mother!**_ Calming her down from _that_ had taken several hours and Bill had not been at all pleased with his youngest brother's lack of tact. Then Ron had shrugged off Mum's concerns as to her twin sons' and baby daughter's whereabouts, stating that they were always hanging around Black anyway at school so this wasn't any different. The gangly teenager added that the twins had attached themselves to the Black Heiress when one of them got Petrified three years back and had spent the vast majority of their free time with her ever since, with Ginny following their lead.

Bill hadn't known about any of that, which bothered him slightly. He knew Dorea had left an indelible impression on the twins back before she even entered Hogwarts, but he had expected that to prompt them to _avoid_ her, not decide she was their new favourite person. He knew the twins were growing up –Great-Uncle Iggy wanting to adopt them proved they were more grounded than they acted– but growing _away_? That he had not expected. That they had taken Ginny with them was less surprising: Ginny had always gotten along better with the twins than any of her other siblings bar Charlie and himself, even though the twins had teased her terribly when she was younger. That the twins' response to Dad dying was to flee the house with their little sister did not actually surprise Bill, but that they had gone to Black Manor rather than Prewett House spoke volumes.

As the new head of their little branch of the Weasley Family, Bill would have to look into that. Unfortunately calming his mother and ensuring his youngest brother would be doing his best to be helpful took up all the time he'd intended to use for research, which was why he was throwing food together and dashing out of the Burrow at two in the afternoon despite having intended to head out at ten in the morning. Mum was lying down again, having exhausted herself, and Bill was starting to worry about what might happen if she _didn't_ get over Dad dying.

Not that Bill was even slightly close to 'getting over' his father's death either, but he fully intended to manage it for his siblings' sake. Granny Prewett however had apparently never been the same after her husband died and Mum was very like her mother indeed. Dad had always said –fondly of course– that Prewetts were all stubborn as pigs, in that upon deciding something they never let go of the idea. Weasleys were considerably more easygoing, but Bill had learnt that Blacks were just as bad as Prewetts in their own way and Grandma Weasley was a Black by blood. Bill may have embodied most of the Weasley traits in preferring not to antagonise people but Charlie and Percy had inherited more than just their looks from Mum's side of the family: upon deciding what they wanted to do, neither of the two older of his younger brothers could be swayed from their course.

The twins' stubborn refusal to take life seriously was another manifestation of that Prewett bull-headedness, though in those two Bill suspected a generous dose of Black humour and cunning was what was really going on. They may not have possessed Grandma's height, but Granddad had always claimed Fred and George had inherited all his beloved wife's best traits. Ginny too, as despite inheriting her mother's short stature her build was as slender as her Grandma's and her fiery temper was considerably more given to holding grudges than Mum's own volcanic but generally forgiving Prewett temper.

Putting thoughts of family temperament aside, Bill spared a moment to hope that Percy would get over himself soon enough to come to the funeral after Christmas, then reached for the Floo powder. He'd been told to come over at any point between nine in the morning and six in the evening, but two fifteen was not the most usual of social hours. Hopefully the Lord Black and his daughter would not hold that against him.

* * *

Ginny sat huddled on the large, velvet upholstered chair in the so-called Childrens' Library on the second floor of the Black Manor, staring sightlessly at the printed pages of _The Jungle Book_ that lay open in her lap.

Dad was dead.

She wanted to scream, shout, rage, burn the world to ash and scream that Bill was _lying_ but she didn't. Bill wasn't lying. Dad was dead. Just like Rhea's Great-Aunt Cassiopeia was dead.

Ginny hated the quiet, shameful little voice deep down inside that said that at least Dad dying wasn't her fault. And she hated herself for being relieved that it was right.

Ginny wasn't stupid: she knew a lot about the Department of Mysteries both from listening to Rhea and asking Great-Aunt Lulu. The things in there were heavily protected. So why had Dad been down there, guarding them? He hadn't needed to be; it was stupid and pointless. If he hadn't been down there he wouldn't have died.

The only reason Dad would have gone back to the Ministry after hours and sat guard outside a restricted area when he should have been at home with Mum was if Dumbledore had asked him to.

The Headmaster was the reason Dad was dead. It didn't matter who or what had actually killed him; it was Dumbledore's fault.

Ginny had never hated anybody before, not even Tom who had tried to steal her body and was actually Voldemort. He'd frightened her retrospectively, still disgusted her and she was resolutely supporting Rhea in defeating him, but she didn't hate him. He wasn't worth it. Dumbledore on the other hand, she _did_ hate. He knew better. He had gotten her Daddy killed over _nothing_ and would probably say something trite and slippery as though it was 'a terrible accident' and that he was 'deeply sorry' when he wasn't really. He was letting The Toad run roughshod over everyone at school and obviously didn't care about anything except his image.

Umbridge had to go; she would have to talk to Colin and Edith after Christmas. Colin was one of those who'd been in the Constellation almost from the minute he entered Hogwarts and had been irreversibly corrupted by Rhea's absent-minded blackmail photography habit by the end of his first year. He was still cheerful, excitable and eager to please, but he actually used his smarts for more than just book-work now and Ginny suspected he was still taking pictures of everybody's embarrassing slip-ups for Rhea since she couldn't do it for herself anymore. The Black Owls certainly brought him regular mail to the Gryffindor Common Room…The younger kids all really liked Colin as well, so they talked to him and he remembered everything they told him, which meant that he likely knew all about the various mishaps he hadn't actually seen in person too.

Colin was a Lightning, like Rhea's Rence –everybody in the lower years called him 'Rhea's Rence' and had for _years_ because it was _true_– and had got himself into detentions four times already this year protecting the younger students from The Toad. If he hadn't been so good at using his Flames to Harden his skin he'd have a nasty scar across his hand by now from that _disgusting_ quill Umbridge was using. As it was Fay and Roger had been getting plenty of practice in at healing wounds with their Sun Flames from all the detentions the younger Gryffindors were getting from back-chatting the Pink Toad –after she, Ethan or one of the other Storms had burned the Curse off the injury that is. The lions couldn't really help it: she rubbed them all the wrong way!

Edith on the other hand was aloof and a shameless pureblood elitist, but she was sharp, well-informed and had an imagination that would make Ginny's twin brothers weep in envy if they knew about it. Edith was the undisputed leader of her year in Slytherin simply because nobody wanted to get on her bad side and find themselves suffering humiliatingly awful 'bad luck' for as long as took for her to either lose interest or for the victim to apologise abjectly and beg for mercy. Generally, the latter was the most likely outcome. Edith was a Mist after all.

Ginny didn't really like Edith much, but could work with the other girl if she had to. Getting shot of The Toad would require teamwork as Ginny knew she couldn't do it alone, so recruiting Edith was a must. Then, once The Toad was out of the way, Ginny could set her sights a little higher. Dumbledore was next.

She missed Dad.

Sniffing, Ginny absently pulled out one of the dainty handkerchiefs that had been laid out for her in her room this morning alongside the dated but very flattering black robes she was currently wearing. Dabbing at her tears and blowing her nose, she shoved the hanky back into a sleeve then tried to read more about Rikki-tikki-tavi.


	51. Chapter 51

Beta'd by the capable InsaneScriptist.

Over one thousand reviews! Thank-you so much!

* * *

**Of loss and hope **

George sat quietly in the basement room with its wide, high up windows that he and his twin had claimed for their brewing at Black Manor. This was Fred's favourite room, not George's –the formerly-younger twin preferred the small, hidden library of the first floor with its staggering collection of hexes and nuisance spells– but he wanted to be with Fred more than he wanted to curl up in a corner and come up with new and hilarious ways to inconvenience people. So George had asked one of the elves to bring him down a chair and a book, and was sitting said chair off to one side of where his twin was brewing, his mind half on his notes and half on ensuring the Mist clones back at Hogwarts did not attract suspicion by acting out of character. Being twins meant he and Fred could exert a degree of control over each-other's creations, which was a good thing as at the moment Fred was in no state to ensure 'Frank' was behaving appropriately. Frank and Jerry Prewett had no reason to know about Arthur Weasley's death, much less mourn him deeply, and had assignments that needed completing to a certain standard.

The currently mousy-haired Weasley was deliberately not thinking about anything even slightly connected to his father. The big, bleeding hole in his heart was every bit as bad as the one that had opened up when Fred was petrified and he knew from experience that poking at the injury would only make the pain worse. He had to keep a level head, for Fred, for Ginny and for Dorea, which meant not wallowing or raging against a situation he could not change.

Dad was dead: no amount of wailing and screaming was going to change that. When the pain was no longer quite so immediate George would probably have to sit down and cry about everything he'd ever done with Dad and how much he missed said parent, but in the meantime his family needed him to support them.

He knew Bill was supposedly coming over at some point today, as Dorea had told them about the letter Errol had brought, but lunch had come and gone without hide or hair of the Curse-Breaker. That wasn't like Bill at all, who was punctual to a fault, but George guessed that having to manage Mum _and_ Ron was proving challenging for his eldest sibling. Ron was a sullen, stubborn twit, more so than Ginny had ever been, and quite remarkably self-centred. Really, his baby brother could give _Percy_ a run for his money in the pig-headed stupidity stakes.

The door across the room from him creaked, and as though summoned by George's musing Bill quietly let himself into the basement, closing the gently creaking door behind him. Fred ignored their eldest brother, utterly absorbed in his potion. Well, apparently so; George doubted his twin was as oblivious as he looked. Fred just didn't want to deal with things at the moment, which was why he was trying to reformulate a standard Sleeping Draught so it worked much more quickly and had a two-minute time limit. Narcolepsy Nougat sounded like a fun idea after all.

Bill proved once again that he was smarter than Percy could ever hope to be and walked quietly around Fred in a wide arc, coming to a halt by George's chair and leaning casually against the high, winged back so he could see what the currently-mousy-haired twin was reading.

"Should I ask why you are reading about a variant of the Babbling Curse that causes people to say what they _really_ think?" Bill asked quietly, lips twitching slightly.

George felt his own lips twitch into a brief semblance of a smirk. The genius of this particular curse lay in its subtlety: it did no direct harm, allowing its victim to do all the work themselves as the person afflicted would say nothing they did not truly think. Of course, what passed across a person's mind was not always indicative of what their deep-seated opinions were, but George was of the opinion that a little more honesty would only benefit the people he was intending to use said curse upon. Well, once he could modify it into an Enchantment, find a way to either time-delay it or attach it to a Contamination Charm that was. Prank spells were all very well, but traps were better.

That Voldy-socks was cripplingly insecure and would torture his few remaining followers into drooling incompetence if they aired their private opinions in his hearing was just a bonus, really.

"Dorea asked me to look into ways to sabotage Old Mouldy's efforts," he said instead.

Bill looked thoughtful, but did not comment on how George had all but admitted that the Blacks knew the Dark Dork was back in business. Likely Dorea had already said something.

"Did Dorea tell you her thoughts on Dad's death?" Bill asked eventually, voice very quiet indeed.

"No; I didn't ask and she's too polite to just come out with it unless it was genuinely urgent," George said shortly. He had a pretty good idea of what she would have said anyway –he could almost hear her reasoning it out– and he didn't need to hear it in person to know she was right. Dumbledore's ineffectual actions and wilful blindness to reality had been what had killed Dad, just as much as whatever had actually done the deed.

"Ah." There was a pause, the silence broken only by the gentle simmering of Fred's potion and the other small sounds associated with brewing.

"Mum won't believe it," Bill said eventually.

George snorted; Mum really wouldn't. She would fly into a rage at them for suggesting it, insisting that Dumbledore was 'a great man!' and that they had to be mistaken. She would cling to that denial for as long as she could and George doubted Bill had either the time or the inclination to strip her of it. Never mind that Mum believing them might actually be worse, as then she'd make it her mission to hound Dumbledore and that could only end with the so-called 'great man' finding a way to discredit and neutralise her so his little remaining political capital would not be further eroded.

"When's the funeral?" George asked instead.

"Right after Christmas; Charlie's giving one of the eulogies and I'm going to ask Moody to give the other one." Good; if George had to deal with Dumbledore speaking at Dad's funeral he would Hex the Old Goat. So would Ginny, come to that, possibly with something augmented with Soulfire.

"Can you send Dumbledore some kind of anti-invitation?" George muttered, turning the page of his book. "Something like, 'you are cordially invited to _not_ show your face'? I know Ginny wants to curse him something fierce and she's only gotten more destructive recently."

Bill sighed. "Mum would make a fuss."

There was another pause. This one lasted over a minute.

"If I go home I'll end up snapping some time with how Mum is cooing over how kind and sympathetic Dumbledore is being and just make things worse," George admitted eventually. "Same with Ginny, though I don't know what's going to happen with her and Ron now Dad's dead. Mum won't get a job, not unless you push her into it, but Fred and I have actual income now so we'll manage just fine. Great-Uncle Iggy wants us as his heirs too, and now Dad's dead I don't see why we should put it off any longer."

"I'm moving back to Britain: the goblins can be flexible when they want to be," Bill said quietly. "I'll be working in Gringotts and supporting Ron and Ginny until they're old enough to go their own way, but I won't be living in the Burrow. That's Mum's house." That Mum would try and take over Bill's household budget if he moved back in was a given; Mum was controlling like that. She'd run all their lives if given even a single inch.

"Will Mum get an allowance?" George asked curiously. "Dorea's got a widowed aunt she supports like that; she's Narcissa Malfoy's mother and totally nasty in an understated way, but Dorea provides her with enough money every quarter for food and a little extra, plus the house-elf. Mum wouldn't want an elf though." The Prewett family was not poor, but Mum hadn't been from the Main Family and loved cooking so she wouldn't relinquish control over her kitchen willingly.

Bill made a non-committal sound in his throat so George dropped the subject; his big brother clearly felt it wasn't his business.

* * *

Seeing Fred, George and Ginny at the dinner table with Dorea Black –the Lady Potter– and several of her relatives and associates was eye-opening for Bill, in ways that were actually more than a little painful. All three of his younger siblings lacked the quiet, simmering tension that had been a constant undercurrent he had noted in his visits to the Burrow since Ginny's first year at Hogwarts. There had been a distance between Ginny, George and Mum, which had spread to encompass Fred by the Curse-Breaker's next visit. However here they were with their unashamedly bloodthirsty cousin, perfectly at ease despite their grief and being allowed to simply be themselves without chivvying or chiding.

Bill could see why his siblings were so very willing to leave home even earlier than he himself had done; it saddened him though. Mum was appallingly controlling, always had been, but he had at least waited until finishing Hogwarts to escape. Fred and George were not only leaving the house but taking up Great-Uncle Iggy's name, so they would no longer be Weasleys at all. Ginny, who wasn't even fifteen yet, was also dead set on leaving, which would surely distress Mum the most as she _doted_ on her daughter. Ginny was also underage, which meant there were a limited number of ways she could get out from under her mother's thumb, the majority of them distressingly final.

If he didn't agree to take Ginny in, as he could do now he was head of their little branch of the Weasley Family, then his baby sister would likely pledge herself to the new Lady Potter and fully embrace her Black heritage; something Bill did not approve of as a lifetime of service was far more onerous to his mind than a few more years of putting up with Mum. Why was Ginny so dead-set on attaching herself to Dorea, even willing to place herself in a permanently subordinate role? It did not make any kind of sense!

Bill felt his sister should at least wait until after her OWLs to make that kind of lifelong decision, preferably until after her NEWTs as well! He didn't want to emulate his mother and forbid her to swear allegiance to Dorea –Ginny would likely do so regardless out of sheer contrariness if he attempted to run her life like that and sling a few hexes his way for good measure– but as her older brother and head of their little family, Bill wanted his sister to make fully informed decisions. Swearing fealty carried a great many subtle implications that he didn't think Ginny even realised were there, let alone understood.

This generation of Blacks were actually very good people for all they refused to have anything to do with Dumbledore and the 'Light' voting block in the Wizengamot, not Death Eaters or Pureblood Supremacists like the previous generation had been, but they were still very, very Traditional and Bill wasn't sure his little sister knew what that entailed. He had only properly learned the depth and breadth of Wizarding Tradition in his final years at Hogwarts and his first few years as an Apprentice Curse-Breaker, and had been rather astounded by how much subtext and how many opportunities he had missed previously. Clearly he would have to sit Ginny down somewhere private where they could discuss her options and future decisions at length, if only to make sure this wasn't some poorly-thought-out fit of rebelliousness was she would later regret…

* * *

Christmas and New Year in Black Manor were quiet, the festivities subdued in deference to the recent death of Arthur Weasley. His Lady had opened her home to _all_ of the branch Weasley family the late Arthur had headed and to Great-Aunt Cedrella and her husband as well on Christmas Day, so as to spare them the strain of hosting dinner when they really didn't have the inclination for it. Strangely enough even Molly had agreed, but Rence suspected that was more to do with Bill informing her that Fred, George, Ginny and even Charlie had already accepted her invitation. The newly-widowed Mrs Weasley had been subdued and teary throughout Christmas dinner and had excused herself afterwards a little more swiftly than was strictly polite, but Rhea had let it slide. Molly Weasley was, after all, grieving. Even Percy had shown up, which had made things more than a little tense but careful seating arrangements and judicious steering of the conversation away from controversial topics had kept everything friendly enough. Percy too had left not long after dinner, but he at at least had stayed long enough for his departure not to be considered rude.

Ron stayed longer, probably because he was angling for another excellent meal and didn't want to be stuck at home alone with his mother at Christmas, and managed to be civil with her various cousins until Bill finally decided it was time to leave. The eldest Weasley took Ginny back to the Burrow as well, on the condition that she would be coming back to Black Manor on Tuesday the second of January for the Gender Unveiling Ceremony. Dee, Tracy, Luna, Zee and all Rhea's other close friends bar Hermione would be converging on the Manor for that as well, and even Hermione would be watching it through a Mirror from Hogwarts. It was a very important event, her future child's first introduction to Society, and being invited was an honour that could not be politely declined for anything less than severe illness.

George and Fred had remained at Black Manor, since their being of age meant neither their mother nor their oldest brother had any right to order them to return to the family home. That their mother had not even tried suggested she was still too deeply mired in grief to be her usual controlling self. The twins had attended their father's funeral on the 27th of December, but that was all.

That Molly Weasley had apparently attempted to persuade Bill not to let Ginny attend the Gender Unveiling was just more evidence of her utter social incompetence; Rence was rather low on the social hierarchy in terms of birth, but even he knew that being invited to a Gender Unveiling –_any_ Gender Unveiling– was a great honour and a sign of favour. Most families only allowed close relatives to attend, so Ginny was being doubly honoured by the invitation to the Gender Unveiling Ceremony of the next Black Heir. That her mother had even _considered_ not allowing her to attend was so incredibly rude it was inexcusable. The kind of inexcusably rude that was usually limited to ignorant Muggleborns who didn't know better. No wonder the Weasleys were considered intolerably ill-mannered if that was the kind of social upbringing they had to work with.

Ginny, of course, would likely have attended regardless of not having permission. She did sent a brief missive to complain about how her mother had clucked disapprovingly over the lovely dress robes Rhea had commissioned for Ginny for the Yule Ball and that Ginny intended to wear for the Gender Unveiling, as they were inappropriate considering her father had just died. The fourteen-year-old had written to Rhea that she considered this deeply hypocritical, as her mother had certainly not worn mourning garb of any kind after the death of her own brother Billious Prewett about eight years previously and Wizarding Tradition generally only specified that specific mourning garb be worn at funerals by the family and by widows for ten months; as the Wizarding World had separated from the Muggle one at the very end of the seventeenth century it had never really got involved with the 'mourning cult' that had sprung up around Queen Victoria in the nineteenth century, nor with the largely commercially driven rules that had sprung up in the late eighteenth century concerning mourning, half-mourning and all that rot.

The Ancient and Noble Families wore White mourning at the funerals of their Lords and Ladies and refrained from hosting events for a symbolic period after a death, but that was all for most. Widows would wear black if they did not intend to ever remarry, but young widows were allowed to wear subdued colours along with black and siblings and children of the deceased were not actually required to wear anything different at all after the funeral. Wizards were not overly concerned by death: they were aware of the actual existence of the soul, knew it went _somewhere_ after a person died but beyond that did not really think about it much. Death was therefore something that was neither welcomed nor feared: it just _was_. Losing somebody to death hurt, but wailing and bemoaning it wouldn't change anything and no amount of magic would bring a dead person back.

Ginny, George and Fred would all be compromising slightly by wearing a bit of black with their dress robes for the Gender Unveiling, but that was out of their own respect for their father. In Ginny's case this involved wearing a black veil and sheer black over-robe, while her brothers would be wearing black cloaks. All very appropriate and not at all overdone.

* * *

Gender Unveiling Ceremonies, while terribly important in Magical Culture and a time-honoured way of showing favour to a person's allies, were not actually formal occasions. Semi-formal yes, in that a person had to be dressed in their best robes and prepared to make polite small-talk, but the event itself took all of twenty seconds, was preceded by a buffet lunch and followed by lots of informal mingling and gossip.

This particular Gender Unveiling was followed by a _lot_ of excited chatter as the spell cast by Andromeda Tonks née Black revealed that his precious baby girl was expecting a son… _and_ a daughter. Sirius wasn't sure whether to be delighted or terrified: Dorea was _fifteen_ for Merlin's sake, nowhere near maturity! Twins would put a great deal of strain on her still developing body!

On the other hand, that House Black would have a _male_ Heir within the year was actually very good, both for the Family generally and his daughter personally: the Black Family Magics were not really compatible with the female body and might have proved damaging to her development and eventual Magical Maturity had she still been Heir Black upon turning seventeen. At least this way that was one less risk to worry about.

Family Magic was a tricky subject, and one of the sources of all that ingrained Pureblood prejudice against Muggleborns. It was incredibly varied yet at the same time oddly constant, making it hard to explain to anyone who hadn't grown up with their own family history being told as bedtime stories. Sirius had made a point of telling Potter stories to his baby daughter after getting out of jail, as Great-Aunt Cassie had been telling Dorea the Black stories from the cradle.

Family Magic was not limited to the Main Line of a family, though generally it was only the Main Line who got more than just the stories: access to Family Grimoires was the prerogative of the Heir and only of the Heir, though said Heir's siblings might get a basic grounding just in case of accident.

This was partly to keep the power of the Family consolidated, but mainly because the main bulk of the Family Magic was concentrated in the Family Head and their Heir. Other relatives could not learn as much or achieve as much as the Lord and Heir, and there were fewer innate safety nets in place should they try. This was especially true in those families whose magic was of a more dangerous bent, like the Black Family Magic. True to their name, the Black Magics were dark and dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that it was highly inadvisable for women to practice them if they were attempting to conceive, pregnant or breastfeeding due to the high likelihood of damaging the child. Men, being less involved in the entire childbearing process, were simply advised not to practice for a full two months before trying to conceive a child and to remain abstinent from the Family Magic until pregnancy was confirmed.

These restrictions meant that women had far less available time to devote to learning the Family Magic, even if they were Heir, and the Black Magics themselves were strongly masculine in nature to the point that instating a female Heir was actually inadvisable if the witch in question was ever to have children. The only reason Sirius had been sure that his daughter would be able to cope with being Black Heir until she had a son of her own was that she had –in strictly Magical terms– been Lady Potter from the very moment her mother died. The Potter Family Magic was gender neutral, much gentler and yet somehow more inert than the Black Family Magic, so within his daughter's developing core the Potter Lord or Lady's Magic had overlain the Black Heir's Magic, dampening it down and muffling its manifestation to a scant minimum.

It was an uncomfortable duality, but Sirius had always been certain that his daughter would come to no harm so long as she was never forced to be Lord Black as well as Lady Potter, magically speaking. The Family Magics were too incompatible to allow her to be both, as witches lacked the core magical flexibility that wizards had to counterbalance the fact that, in physical terms, witches' bodies allowed for far more change before suffering damage. Wizards could be Heirs to multiple families, but witches had to carry and give birth to children and two or more different Inheritances constantly vying for supremacy within a witch's Core would prevent the witch in question from being able to carry a child to term. Magical stability was a necessity for successful pregnancy and Dorea's situation, while slightly precarious, _was_ stable.

Dorea's son would be born the Heir Black, as that Family Magic lay uneasy within her and would pass on at the first possible opportunity. As she was expecting twins, her daughter could not be Heiress Potter because no more than one Family Magic at a time could reside within the womb. His daughter could _make_ his granddaughter-to-be Heiress Potter later if she wanted to, but the baby girl would not be _born_ such. It was a fine distinction: Dorea had been born the Heiress Potter, due to James' adoption ritual, but also Heiress Black, which was not the same as being an Heir Black. An Heiress could give birth to an Heir, but did not carry within themselves the Family Magic: they simply provided a genealogical pathway for it to travel along.

Grandpa Arcturus had made Dorea an Heir Black after Sirius had been imprisoned, at which point the toddler had already been Lady Potter in the eyes of Magic. As being Heir was subordinate to being a Lord or Lady, the magic had only changed her in the slightest and most subtle of ways; Dorea was very much a Potter for all she identified as a Black, her affinity for Black Family Magic notwithstanding. Her openly welcoming nature and fierce attachment to her friends was a very Potter trait and something of James that Sirius adored about his baby girl.

Dorea had changed further after Grandpa Arcturus died, as she was no longer just _an_ Heir: she was _the_ Heir. Of course, even being _the_ Heir was of lesser import, Magically speaking, than being Lady Potter, so the changes had not been as radical or as damaging as they might have been. His daughter's rather perilous temper and increasingly acquisitive nature was all that had surfaced, which was a great relief considering how unstable most of the previous Blacks had been, Sirius himself included.

That after the birth of her son Dorea would once more merely be an Heiress Black was a relief: the less strain on her magic, the better.


	52. Chapter 52

Beta'd by the entertaining InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of setbacks and escalation **

Barely a week after returning to Hogwarts, Daphne opened the _Daily Prophet_ at the breakfast table to discover a new and most vexing contretemps.

_**Mass Breakout from Azkaban!**_ The headline screamed, set above a page of infamous faces. The three Lestranges were all there, alongside Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov, Thorfinn Rowle, Robert Jugson, Carl Mulciber, Eric Travers and Harold Selwyn. Daphne just knew that they would be dealing with tension and nerves all day, especially considering there were a handful of Slytherins and a few Ravenclaws with surnames that matched those in the newspapers. The Lestrange twins would likely have it worst, being the children of Rabastan Lestrange, as the Study Constellation was almost void of sixth-years and so had little influence over them however the pretty blonde was most concerned for the younger students and more distant relatives of those mentioned, such as fourteen-year-old Edith Travers and thirteen-year-old Arietta Avery, whose mother was a Rookwood. The younger years were less educated in magic and therefore easier targets for any over-zealous bigot who didn't care that people weren't their relatives.

More concerning to Daphne's mind was how the jailbreak would affect the Black War. She'd looked over Lady Narcissa's projections after the Gender Unveiling last week: by that data Voldemort was down to his last scant handful of trusted subordinates and rapidly running out of funds. Draco's mother had then estimated that the War would be over at some point in February. Now however Tom Riddle Junior had recovered ten of his most fanatical supporters, access to another Family bank vault and various other Heritage vaults that contained almost fifteen years' worth of unspent allowances and accumulated interest. Daphne was no arithmancer or accountant, but she guessed this would prolong things by a further six months at the very least.

Rhea, being pregnant with twins, would be on bed rest starting from March and was firmly confined to Black Manor and grounds anyway. She would be safe; Rence would ensure it. Daphne was more concerned for her friend's father and other adult relatives, such as the Weasley Twins who had notably failed to return to Hogwarts after Christmas. The Prewett twins were still present though, which was just strange and disturbing all things considered, especially for those who had an idea of how they were doing it. Nobody was quite sure if the Weasley Twins were being Jerry and Frank, or if the Prewetts were illusions, or if it depended on the day. Daphne was deliberately not thinking about it and treated Jerry and Frank the same as she always had; she had enough on her plate without adding those two to the mix.

"Dee?"

Daphne glanced up to meet Blaise's cool gaze. "Umbridge will be much more militant in the coming weeks; the Ministry is being made to look very bad indeed," she said calmly.

Blaise inclined his head fractionally; the half-Italian was finding Rhea's situation much harder than the rest of her Hogwarts-bound associates, partly because he missed his best and closest friend but also because Rhea had married into his family, making her partly his responsibility as he was Heir Zabini. Not being able to take part in the search for Rhea's missing husband wasn't doing him any favours either; Blaise vacillated between chilly fury and glum misery whenever he wasn't actually talking to Rhea on his mirror or teaching the Constellation he had been made responsible for. Daphne suspected that the moment he turned seventeen –the last day of the coming September– he would be out of Hogwarts in an instant so as to keep a closer eye on Rhea. Never mind that she already had Rence dogging her every step. Rence had actually skipped out on his NEWT year to follow Dorea, for all that she'd made him take them independently right before Christmas, but the rest of the Constellation's original members were pretty much at NEWT-level anyway so could always take the exams right after their OWLs if they wanted to.

Even if they found Rhea's husband next week, the poor absent man would have to put up with Rence and Blaise stalking his wife's every move for the next year or so until everyone had calmed down a bit, not to mention the Weasley-Prewetts hanging around as well. Hopefully that wouldn't put a strain on Rhea's marriage. Well, they'd have to find her husband first for there to be a relationship _to_ be strained, discounting that Dorea has specifically 'requested' a husband who _wouldn't_ take all her various vassals and allies amiss, but hopefully Blaise's mother would track him down before the twins were born.

* * *

Blaise, as a Slytherin and being considered 'Pureblood' by British standards, had not yet experienced the slightest bit of personal difficulty from Umbridge's personal campaign against education and freedom of thought. Instead he had been left to his own devices, which suited the tall half-Italian nicely as it enabled him to properly devote himself to the deeply illegal pursuit of mastering Soulfire, teaching others Defence and how to access Soulfire and assisting Prewetts One and Two in concocting ever nastier and more dangerous 'pranks' to inflict upon the Toad. It was very cathartic to feel involved in the revolting woman's comeuppance like that.

Dee had set him up as Keeper of the Constellation's more intelligent and eager second-years, alongside Rhea's cousin Leo. Rather than split the year along House lines Dee had instead set up a basic practical test, asked a few questions then divided each of the lower years up into four groups according to their capabilities and competence. This had the advantage that nobody felt seriously hobbled by their group-mates' lack of progress, nor was anyone depressed by how far behind they were falling in subject or mere ability. However it did mean that at the sharp end Blaise and Leo had to ride herd on a volatile mixture of snakes, ravens and lions with only a handful of badgers to buffer all those keen yet frequently narrow-minded twelve- and thirteen-year-olds who all felt that more attention should be being paid to _them_. They were all brats; he was never going to have kids.

Blaise wasn't actually teaching any of these kids about Soulfire –that was limited to those in fourth or above with at least three years of being in the group under their belts– but he knew what their Affinities were and used that information to manipulate them into doing his bidding and keep them all in line. No matter how minor or unfocused an Affinity, it still affected a person's temperament because Affinity was a manifestation of the soul. Defence –as outlined by Dee the ever-resourceful and increasingly organised– involved mainly Charms, but also Jinxes, Hexes, Transfiguration, a bit of History and some Care of Magical Creatures, though technically it was identification and disposal of Dark Creatures rather than how to look after them; Blaise's group of keen and brilliant little hellions needed all the resources at the sixteen-year-old's disposal to keep them in line. They were at least succeeding in learning what he was teaching them, even if it made them increasingly-unmanageable and combat-capable little hellions.

Said band of hellions were made up of eight Storms, four Clouds –which was three too many in Blaise's opinion as he had the year-group's _entire_ collection of Clouds in one room– two Lightnings, three Mists –who constantly clashed with both the Clouds _and_ the Storms– one Sun, one Rain –thankfully a Hufflepuff– and five with Earth Flames, who included the Carrow Twins. Hestia Carrow had the rare Earth Affinity and was very good at coaxing her peers into behaving themselves, so Blaise had nominated her Constellation Deputy. It meant that any issues that cropped up between his little group's members outside of the study group were to be taken to her _first_, then only brought to him or Leo if they proved beyond Hestia's considerable diplomatic capabilities. The Hufflepuff Rain, Sam Renshaw, was the other Constellation Deputy, ensuring that no matter the House a student would be able to get hold of one or the other easily. Badgers and snakes had very few classes together, so the ravens and lions would never be denied access to ready help on any given day.

Blaise was thankful that two of the four Clouds were Ravenclaws and therefore largely self-managing; his other two were a Slytherin and Gryffindor respectively and clashed _constantly_. That two of the three Mists were also Slytherins did not help, as _half_ the Storms were Gryffindors and that little pack vacillated between infighting and ganging up on others whenever he turned his back. Seriously, who would teach if they could choose not to?!

Leo was very good at coaxing the very best from his students and keeping the tension in the room down, leaving Blaise to be disciplinarian, lecturer and all-around 'Bad Auror', as Theo had cheerily put it. Blaise did enjoy the role, but was careful to toe the line and not descend into bullying or so intimidate the hellions that they were afraid to turn to him if they genuinely needed help. His diplomatic training, an important part of his preparation for the role of Principe Zabini, had seen more use in the past six months than the entire three previous years together!

However according to Astoria, who heard all of the second-year Slytherin gossip, the hellions in his Constellation all firmly believed he was far more worthy of respect than the Prefects because he was utterly fair and very good at explaining things clearly. Odile Wilkes had recently said something dry and scathing about 'Zabini's little minions' to Dee, a complaint disguised as a demand that they be required to treat her with more respect, _or else_.

With Odile –who was Head Girl this year and all but embodied the aloof yet deadly Cloud archetype– experiencing the 'or else' was not to be considered a sane course of action, so Blaise had promptly reminded his hellions that the Prefects held authority within Hogwarts and it was only on the Head Girl's sufferance that the Constellation was allowed to operate without fear of discovery by the teachers. That had apparently solved the matter, as no more threats had been issued by the seventh-years. The sixth-year Prefects, Edwin Vaisey and Stephanie Oatley, did no more than comment that 'Croc' Odile had resolved the situation to their satisfaction.

* * *

Hermione was rather more conscious of the effects Professor Umbridge was having on the school generally and the students specifically than most of her other friends. Part of this was due to her being Muggleborn, for all that she had the patronage of House Black. Part of it was her being a Prefect and responsible for keeping an eye on the twenty-five new Ravenclaw first-years alongside Anthony Goldstein. The rest of it was a combination of her continued forays into Magical Law and her position as Dee's main helper in running the Study Constellation in a sensible, discreet and effective manner. Rhea was of course an ever-available source of advice and external assistance, but she wasn't at Hogwarts with them so couldn't really take charge or directly help at all. Hermione had become very aware of how theoretical information could fail to work in practice and how hard it was to cover all the relevant circumstances in conversation, as many of Rhea's suggestions were repeatedly proved impractical because of some minor detail or other that accidentally hadn't been shared.

There was also the matter of the Gryffindors, who were behaving in an increasingly idiotic and belligerent fashion and getting themselves into trouble. Painful, damaging trouble with potentially long-term after-effects, which they were starting to drag members of other houses into by proximity and sheer pigheadedness. The increasingly frequent educational decrees being issued showed that the Toad was feeling the squeeze and noticing how little power she actually held over the students. The decree banning teachers from discussing anything not directly related to their subject with students had been trying enough; the more recent one stating that possession of Muggle literature was now against school rules had Hermione _itching_ to soundly Curse the Defence Professor into painful oblivion.

Then there was the matter of little Emily Fancourt, who had stumbled into the Ravenclaw Common Room crying and clutching her inflamed hand following a detention with Umbridge in early March. Hermione had been sorely tempted to abandon all pretence of rule-abiding behaviour and storm the Toad's office then and there, but had reined herself in: Rhea was nearing her last month of pregnancy and the kind of stress her friend would be forced to deal with if she did that wouldn't do said friend and patron any good. Instead the Muggleborn Prefect called up George on his mirror, gave him the details and _demanded_ that he ensure that Umbridge could never do that to _anyone_ ever again, preferably within the week. The Weasley Twin and sometimes-Prewett had listened attentively, nodded solemnly then promised her that her will would be done.

When, barely two days later, she was breathlessly informed between lessons by a gleaming-eyed Colin Creevy that somebody had broken into Umbridge's office and smashed _everything_ beyond all hope of repair, Hermione cornered Jerry Prewett –who may or may not have been an illusion– in a quiet corridor and kissed him. George or Jerry, to Hermione they were simply facets of a single individual and she liked them both equally. George amused her –though she'd never admit it in public– while Jerry intrigued her with his quick mind and drew her in with his attentiveness and thoughtfulness.

Having made the first move, Hermione did not refuse when barely a few hours later Jerry hunted her down again and asked her to be his girlfriend. Truthfully, Victor had never been more than a passing crush and was now just one more friend.

* * *

In the weeks following the utter destruction of The Toad's office, including all the sickeningly twee kitten plates, the virulently pink upholstery and the foul quill she'd used in detentions, the stumpy Defence Professor became even more sickeningly unpleasant. Professor Grubby-Plank was teaching Care again following Hagrid being deemed 'unfit to teach', Professor Trelawney was apparently becoming ever more rattled by Umbridge's assaults on her competence and the apparent absence of the Weasley Twins was in no way reducing the level of chaos, disorder and random pranking going on in the school.

There was a snowstorm on the third-floor left-hand corridor that had been there for twelve days and showed no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping; the entire ground floor was at least knee-deep in sand, possibly deeper since the stone flags that should have been there were not in evidence even at that depth; the plumbing was infested with sticklebacks; and there were animated origami bats lurking in every dark corner and broom cupboard, swirling and screeching whenever they were disturbed. There was even a reversed waterfall flowing up the side of one of the courtyards and raining down over the next one along, leaving a large, muddy and faintly slushy pool that was occupying half the open space and had _something_ swimming in the depths. In comparison to these implausible horrors the students were merely irritated when hair spontaneously turned into flowers or ribbons in certain parts of the school. Despite the fact the ribbons were always twisting to form creatively profane sentences and the flowers inevitably made _everyone_ sneeze for fifteen minutes straight.

The other teachers were doing nothing to contain the chaos, claiming that 'it had nothing to do with teaching their subject' so was not their responsibility. Dumbledore had attempted to deal with the chaos, but a good half of the disruptions proved oddly resistant to his efforts and so remained.

Ginny was viciously amused that not even the Headmaster could shift her twin brothers' anchored Mist illusions, augmented as they were by a touch of her own Storm Flames to enable the constructs to tear apart any structured magic that attacked its integrity. The only way those were going to go was if her brothers took them down themselves, which wasn't going to happen any time soon. Hermione was on the warpath following one of her firsties getting an Umbridge Special –as the lions had taken to calling her detentions– and The Toad's evil quill was now no more.

More disturbing was that George/Jerry was now dating Hermione and the new couple were working in concert to properly undermine and utterly _destroy_ the pink bitch. Ginny knew her brother was not that naturally vindictive, nor that devoted to ensuring all possible avenues were covered. That all-around efficiency was Hermione's thing. That the Muggleborn Ravenclaw Prefect's temper had so thoroughly snapped that _George_ had become a mitigating influence on her shouted that Rhea had been right to take her into House Black: there was no doubt that Hermione fitted right in with the rest of her cunning, ruthless and unforgiving relatives on that side of the family.

However Hermione and George both had quite a lot of their plates already, what with OWLs and Prefect duties on one side and NEWTs on the other, so Ginny had decided to take matters into her own hands so neither felt obliged to run themselves into the ground. Thus the youngest Weasley had approached Theo Nott, who despite also being a Prefect in his OWL year was far more laid back and pragmatic about studying than Hermione was _ever_ going to be, and requested his assistance in her 'quest'. Theo, a Mist of a slightly different stripe to her twin brothers, had heard her out patiently, taken a day to consider his options then quietly offered her his services in the total, abject destruction of Professor Umbridge both as a teacher and as a person.

It was perhaps a little terrifying how dispassionately cruel a quiet, pragmatic Slytherin armed with the power of illusions could be. Ginny was aware that Theo would _never_ have agreed to this if Rhea hadn't given him the go-ahead –which suggested that her scariest cousin had been driven slightly crazier than usual by pregnancy hormones– but his choice of approach was just… it was so simply elegant and devastatingly _final_ in a totally matter of fact manner.

Theo was going out of his way to make The Toad doubt her own sanity. Ginny only knew this because Theo had explained to her _exactly_ what he was going to do, with a timeline and everything, so she could ensure the other Gryffindors kept their heads down and knew when to run away. The Slytherin was starting by making Umbridge smell odd scents, then hear voices, then gradually progress to seeing things in the corners of her vision and onward to more coherent hallucinations, escalating to brief periods of total memory loss and perceived loss of control over her own actions. Ginny was slightly aghast by the understated ruthlessness of the scheme, which would no doubt lead to Umbridge disbelieving her own sanity and consequently drawing the attention of others to her 'madness'.

No doubt The Toad would be permanently locked in St Mungo's high-security ward before the school year was out, which was to Ginny's mind no less than she deserved. A lifetime of being treated as though she were incapable of making her own decisions, having her right to choose her own fate taken from her, was precisely what Umbridge was inflicting on everyone in the school. For it to be so poetically turned upon her was magnificent, much in the same was as Nundu were magnificent. Ginny made a mental note then and there to be Theo's friend, because she wanted him on her side in any and all future confrontations no matter how minor.


	53. Chapter 53

Beta'd by the literate InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of disappointments and heirs**

Angelique Zabini was a grown woman with an almost-grown son; she had a firm control over her temper and was sharp enough not to be stupidly over-emotive about the fact that life wasn't fair and people were frequently disappointing. Her husband had let her down in dying so easily; the British Ministry had let her down in being unwilling to consider her beloved's death as anything other than a tragic accident instead of the murder it actually was. Thus she had taken matters into her own hands, hunted down her husband's killers herself and ensured both their deaths and their families' ruin. It was no less than they deserved.

Seeking cute little Dorea's husband had led to new disappointments: he was not in the Sabina Archives, suggesting he was the son of a disowned squib. As only those between two and five degrees of the Main Line bothered to disown their squib children –having more delusions of self-importance and status than those both nearer and further away– that had cut the search right down. By December Angelique was down to just three potential parents for her darling sort-of daughter's husband, all of them squibs who had abandoned Sabina entirely between twenty and forty years previously.

By late January she had crossed two of those three off her list, welcomed both Zabinis back into the family with their spouses and children –Sabina was a mixed settlement and had been since Roman times– and set about hunting down the still-missing Mariella Zabini, who was also Angelique's own second cousin once removed.

Mariella was the youngest daughter of the widowed Domenico Zabini, Angelique's father Timoteo's cousin once removed, and a puffed-up, self-important fool who blustered about propriety and the importance of not shaming the family name because he was too insecure to go out there and _make_ people respect him through sheer force of personality, actual ability or demonstrated intelligence. He had disowned his previously spoiled and heavily doted-upon youngest daughter when she failed to secure an invitation to either La Scuola Sabina or Beauxbatons, and said daughter had proved she had just as much stubborn pride as her father by instantly leaving Sabina for parts unknown. Usually squib Zabinis were fostered down into the merchant families who traded with the Muggles, so they could feel useful, learn to use those talents that were not magical –because being a squib did not mean you had no brain– and make something of themselves. Mariella had clearly either felt such a come-down was beneath her or not even been aware of the option –also possible considering her father's attitude– and had left.

Angelique was actually impressed by the sheer courage it took to abandon everything you'd ever known, even though Mariella had clearly done so out of wounded pride. Whether or not she'd survived long enough to have a child was still up in the air; if she hadn't Angelique would have to search further afield, hunting down third- and fourth-generation children born from squibs who'd left over the previous century and seeking out bastard children and their descendents. Tracking those down would be far more challenging.

By mid-March Angelique had tracked Mariella as far as a _maison de tolerance_ in Paris' Arrondissement Magique, which she had been brought into at the age of thirteen and stayed in until she was nineteen, at which point she had become pregnant and moved out into a rented apartment. The madam had indicated –upon being suitably remunerated for the challenge of remembering– that 'Belle-Marie' had known who the father of her child was and had intended to present the babe to his father once he was old enough. This was typical in European Magical Society if a powerful man was known to lack a male heir, as a woman who conceived a magical son out of wedlock could present her son to his father in exchange for a lifetime of modest support and having her child be adopted as a proper and legal heir.

Mariella's son, whom the madam called 'petit Xandru', had been a bright and precocious red-eyed boy who had been able to call up light to his hands before he was eighteen months old; a sign of his being both of strong Zabini stock and definitely not a squib. However after closing up her apartment and informing the madam that she would be taking her son to his father Mariella had not been seen again. The madam had taken this as a sign that her Belle-Marie had succeeded in moving up in the world and had not thought twice on the matter; why would she?

Angelique had to admit that the madam had cause to let things lie, so had simply thanked the woman for her assistance before retreating to a café on the Muggle side of things to consider the possibilities.

Firstly, Mariella's son could possibly not be Dorea's husband at all, despite the suspicious coincidence of birth-dates, appearance and names. Angelique would keep that as a secondary line of inquiry, but a red-eyed Zabini-alike in French Société Magique would have come to her attention by now. She had a respectable number of French Zabini cousins after all and they all gossiped like fiends. The Zabinis were after all not a small family and while most of them lived in Sabina, there was a persistent proportion of them dwelling elsewhere. They all kept in touch too, as much as they could.

Secondly, the father of Mariella's child had not actually been lacking a male heir at all and had taken steps to hide Mariella and her child somewhere discreet at a good distance from his legitimate children. He may even have taken 'Xandru' away separately, to be adopted and raised by distant cousins in another country. However what niggled at Angelique was that Dorea had said that her husband was unaware of having a family name at all; that suggested his father had bought off Mariella somehow then attempted to dispose of the boy, possibly by having him dumped in an orphanage in a foreign country.

Which was ironic, since that 'foreign country' chosen had evidently been Italy and technically closer to home and potential discovery by other Zabinis. It was worrying that Alexandro's father hadn't recognised his son had Zabini blood and realised that Italy might not be his best choice, but the unknown man might equally have decided that leaving the boy somewhere that Zabinis frequented regularly would get him found and taken in without further questions being asked.

A very smart but not clearly articulate toddler would only have been able to tell puzzled orphanage workers that his name was 'Xansu' –hence him believing his actual given name was Xanxus when he met Dorea– and would likely have had a rather trying upbringing, probably in a Muggle environment. Depending on the orphanage's location it would make sense for him to be recruited into one of southern Italy's numerous crime families, because brains, talent, power and relentless drive were Zabini staples and the Mafia was always on the lookout for new blood.

However the only way to locate the missing Alexandro now was to appeal to her father so he would give her the means to enter the Records Room in the Palazzo Sabina, where she could discover the identity of the boy's father and so ensure he got what he deserved for messing with her family. Mariella was likely dead by now, so a father's blood would also improve Angelique's chances of tracking down the young man who was her third cousin. Dorea believed him held in stasis somewhere, so blood tracking would be slightly unreliable, but narrowing down a physical location would then enable the Family to determine exactly which Mafia Famiglia he was associated with and how. Both the specific Famiglia and the degree to which he was involved with them would affect possible recovery strategies.

Once Angelique knew where to look, digging up information and determining how to approach the matter without potentially getting her new sort-of son-in-law killed would be much easier.

* * *

Visiting her father, the Principe Zabini, was not at all challenging to do from Paris. Ever since marrying her mother, Aurore Zabini, her father had lived in the chateau that had been the main part of her mother's dowry. Following her mother's death her father had stopped leaving the chateau altogether, all but abandoning his duties as Principe di Sabina and wallowing in his grief. Angelique had been five years old then, and had been mostly raised by her grand-mère thereafter. Cousin Graziano had in turn pretty much taken over the running of the Principality, barring the signing of certain documents and the guardianship of the Family Records and Heirlooms, but had allowed Angelique to involve herself as much as she wished. Angelique had been after all the Principe's only heir, for all that being female meant that she could not actually inherit.

It was not until Blaise was born that the direct line of inheritance was secured, and even then it was considered 'tenuous' due to her father lacking sons by blood. However a direct heir was a direct heir, even a generation removed, so following her father's death Blaise would be Principe di Sabina.

The chateau Angelique had been born and raised in was on the south-western edge of the department of Seine-et-Marne, made both Unplottable and heavily warded with Muggle Repelling Charms during the French Revolution. It was a very pretty building, painted white with large windows and two decorative round towers with blue slates on the roofs, but not really very large. It had been Aurore Zabini's favourite summer retreat as a girl, so her parents had bestowed it upon her when she married. Angelique's father Timoteo had loved the chateau for its modesty and lack of oppressive family history looming over him, so he had happily made it his main residence after marrying. Following Angelique's birth she and her parents had lived there all year round, the Healers feeling the climate would benefit her mother's failing health.

Her mother had died in the chateau in the summer after Angelique turned five, and her father had never been quite the same since.

Angelique personally considered her father's refusal to come to terms with her mother's death as another disappointment. He still had her, all his numerous in-laws and even more numerous closer blood relatives, but he had withdrawn within himself and acted selfishly, as though he was the only one to have suffered a loss. What about Grand-mère and Grand-père? Or her mother's friends? What about _her_? But no, her father had turned his back on all of them and even refused to resume his responsibilities as Principe; he'd not left the chateau since his wife's death, as though doing so would cause him to forget her existence. He'd not even attended her first wedding: it had been her cousin Graziano, older than her by nearly twenty years, who had walked her down the aisle to her beloved Gerard.

Regardless of her frustration with her only living parent, Angelique did love her father, so she made a point of visiting with Blaise every Christmas and spending a week with him in the summer as well. She'd spent longer there back when her first husband had been alive, but following his death she had made Sabina her primary home; her father had never even _met_ the men she'd married afterwards. He never attended their funerals either, but that was no great loss; she didn't think he was even aware of how many times she'd remarried anyway.

Setting all these discontented thoughts aside, Angelique walked briskly along the crushed limestone walk to the side entrance of the chateau from the external Apparition point. Papà was a recluse, so guests had to owl ahead if they wanted to visit, unless they were close family and were keyed into the Wards of course. Maman had been the social one, so following her death the list of people with constant access had been cut down to the point that they could be counted on one hand.

"_Mistress Angelique? Master is not expecting you._" Angelique glanced down at the house-elf in its tea-towel toga that had opened the door for her.

"_This is a Family matter, not a social visit Radis,_" she replied briskly in French; "_I require access to the Family Records as I have reason to suspect one of the Family is imperilled._"

The round-nosed house-elf took her coat, vanishing briefly into the cloakroom before leading her further into the house. "_Very good, mistress Angelique; Master is in the Mauve Parlour._"

The Mauve Parlour was the fancy name for what had originally been the Men's Withdrawing Room, which her mother had remodelled slightly upon inheriting the house so as to display more of the truly immense collection of decorative chinaware that they had inherited from her grandfather the previous Principe. It was also the room her father always drank wine in, which considering it was barely after midday was slightly disappointing but not altogether surprising. Her father was a steady drinker and a melancholic drunk, but also a highly functional one. The fact he was gradually drinking away a good portion of his personal fortune was regrettable, but not really something Angelique considered her business despite her being his only child. It was his life and he could waste it if he so wished.

Entering the room with its east-facing view of one of the lawns, Angelique took in the sight of her father, impeccably and expensively dressed in fashions that were somewhat out of date, slouching in a large, opulent armchair with a half-empty crystal wineglass cradled in one hand and a two-thirds empty decanter on the small table beside him. His curly black hair was greying heavily and slightly shaggy, hanging forward over his eyes, and his massive one hundred and eighty six centimetre frame was starting to show signs of going to seed. He was gazing sightlessly out of the tall windows and did not so much as twitch as Radis pushed the door properly open so she could walk inside.

"_Mistress Angelique to see you, Master,_" The house-elf announced before stepping back into the hall.

"_Angel?_" Her father's golden amber, distinctly hawkish eyes glanced over at her briefly before returning to their contemplation of the lawns. "_Is there something you need?_" Her father only ever spoke French nowadays, which was part of why Graziano preferred to correspond by owl; her cousin's French was barely serviceable and her father would at least _write_ in Italian.

Angelique smiled warmly and made an effort to be kind, patient and upbeat. She had long since realised that berating her father for his depression only made him worse.

"_I just need access to the Family Records, father dear. Blaise told you about his friend Dorea, did he not? Well she is married now and her husband is in trouble. He's a Zabini, but not in the Sabina Archives, so I need to go over the Family Records so that the parties responsible for his disappearance can be brought to account._"

"_Then you have my permission as Principe Zabini and Head of the Family to enter the Family Records today and today only,_" her father said negligently, sipping his wine. "_What is my new almost grandson-in-law's name?_"

Angelique felt vindicated. He was showing interest! He'd actually paid attention to what her darling Blaise had said a few years back about swearing brotherhood with his best friend!

"_His name is Alexandro Timoteo Zabini–_"

There was a delicate splintering sound as her father's wineglass slipped from his fingers to shatter on the marble floor. Finding herself meeting her father's wide, horrified eyes, seeing how the colour had leeched from his skin and his suddenly rigid posture, Angelique abruptly had an awful feeling of foreboding. All the little loose ends that had been bothering her suddenly lined up in her head and she narrowed her eyes at her father.

"_Is there something you would like to confess, __**Papà**__?_"

* * *

Three-quarters of an hour later Angelique Zabini _stormed_ into Palazzo Sabina, face tight with fury and fingers twitching in ways that made any and all relatives in the general vicinity find other things they could be doing somewhere else.

"_The idiotic, pathetic, oath-breaking __**Fool**__!_" she snarled in Italian, heels clacking sharply on the marble as she stalked onwards towards the semi-subterranean halls where the Family Records were kept. "_How dare he wrong the Family so! How dare he do that to a child! How __**dare**__ he betray Maman's memory then refuse to take responsibility for his weakness! How dare he deprive us all of our rightful prince!_"

What she did not say, however much she wanted to, because it still hurt far too much to articulate, was:

_How dare he throw away my baby brother!_

It so happened that the unknown father of Mariella's red-eyed son was Timoteo Zabini, Principe Zabini, and the missing Alexandro whom Dorea was married to was Angelique's own much-younger half-brother. Worse, he was also the rightful heir to the Sabina Principality and her father had _knowingly_ denied him his birthright and heritage.

Worst of all was that her father had claimed to have done it in honour of his beloved late wife, so that his inheritance would pass to the children of _her_ blood. Angelique had nearly cursed him for that alone; how _dare_ he sully her mother's memory so! Maman had no interest in such things! She had married Papà out of love, not desire to add to the family pomp and circumstance! Bad enough that he had wasted over half his life in mourning her when she would have wanted him to be happy, but to so abuse his own son and heir in her name–!

She had been so angry with her father that she had thrown a significant proportion of the decorative chinaware displayed in the Mauve Parlour at him; some of it had actually caught on fire before shattering against his chair or the walls. It wasn't like that wasn't what the pieces were there for; the previous Principe, her Nonno Riccardo whom she had never met, had been infamous for throwing pottery in people's general vicinity when pissed off. Everybody had therefore made a point of giving him plenty more of it on every possible occasion so he wouldn't run out and resort to throwing furniture.

Fire shimmered over Angelique's twitching fingers as she stormed through the Wards her father had opened to her, taking a sharp right turn towards the room with the self-updating fresco of the extended Family Tree. There were additional Wards on that door, but her father had granted her full access before he thought to ask for her reasons and could not take it back. Throwing the door open, the vivid paint of the wall confirmed all her worst fears and pierced her heart like a dagger.

Never before had she been so disappointed in anyone.

Below her father's name, beside her own but written in the red paint that marked the ruling line rather than the more usual black that dominated the fresco, was written:

_Alexandro Timoteo Zabini, natus 10 octōber, anno Christi 1978 (Greg)._

Her baby brother was little less than a year older than her own son. Her father had been carrying on with a woman younger than _his own daughter_ –never mind that she was also his second cousin– around the time that Angelique had been getting married. Her father, who had refused to leave his home to come to his own daughter's wedding, but _had_ left it in order to visit prostitutes! Regularly!

Angelique had left the chateau before her offended fury had goaded her into killing her father with her own two hands; she had a brother to find, a brother who actually had a legal _right_ to the death of their useless shared parent for what he'd done. At the time that Mariella had given birth Angelique had still been childless, making Alexandro the indisputable heir to the family as Blaise had not even been _conceived_ then. But by the time the young woman had presented her healthy, magical two-year-old son to her second cousin and Family Head, Blaise had just had his first birthday and her idiot father had been so firmly entrenched in the fantasy of having his titles pass to the grandchild of his precious, idolised wife that he didn't do the right thing. Didn't do the _required_ thing.

Instead he violently Obliviated Mariella and dumped both her and her son in Palermo's slums at the dead of night, unconscious. He hadn't even realised that Mariella was a Zabini herself, which really said it all about how wilfully _blind_ he'd become over the years.

Angelique was no stranger to the male mind; her father had likely chosen Mariella in the first place for her resemblance to Maman, as despite being white-blonde with blue eyes and a full ten degrees away from the ruling family of Sabina, Aurore Zabini had possessed the typical Family bone structure. That Mariella was far more strongly Zabini that Aurore had ever been was evident too; otherwise Alexandro would not have been born with red eyes. How he'd managed to grow up _sane_ was both a mystery and a miracle, one she would be devoutly thanking all the Family's patrons for that very evening. She would stay in the chapel until she was calm enough to go back to Britain and explain this in full to Dorea and her son, using one of her sister-in-law's oh-so-useful mirrors so she could inform her baby boy at the same time as she did her brother's wife.

She would also have order the rest of the Family to step up the search; it was not just some random relative that was missing, but their _Heir_. However that would be kept secret; Angelique had no doubt that if it got out, she would not be the only one nursing murderous urges. Her father's stupidity had almost cost the Family their Magical Inheritance! No wonder Blaise had more aptitude for his father's water magic than the Zabini Arts! The Zabini Family Magic was her little brother Alexandro's and he likely didn't even know he had it, let alone how to use it!


	54. Chapter 54

Beta'd by the loquatious InsaneScriptist.

This is now my Most Reviewed Story, which really deserves the capital letters as the majority of people have been really supportive. So thank-you all for the feedback! I'm also very pleased that I've managed to spring a few surprises on my readers...

* * *

**Of family loyalty and the challenge of keeping up appearances**

Luna Lovegood, fifteen-year-old fifth-year student and senior member of the Study Constellation that had converted a third of the school to the Black Side, rollerbladed easily along the Tapestry Corridor towards the History of Magic classroom. The rollerblades had been a Christmas present from Rhea, were made of an intriguing material called 'plass-tick' and were a wonderfully vibrant shade of shocking pink with black fittings and bright yellow lettering. Luna loved them: she'd barely ever taken them off since being given them and they were her new favourite pair of shoes.

Getting used to walking up and down stairs in rollerblades had been a bit tricky, but she was very good at it now and she was _always_ the first to get to class now, as she could move faster along the halls than anyone else. Umbridge didn't like her new footwear much, but Luna had decided to be considerate and used an illusion so her shoes looked as normal and boring as everybody else's to the Defence Professor, so as not to upset her. The poor woman had enough problems already, what with the Wrackspurts making her brain fuzzy and the Nargle infestation in her office.

Luna suspected Theo was partially responsible for the Wrackspurt problem: they seemed unusually keen to do anything he wanted them to. Perhaps he was their king? Gred and Forge were certainly breeding Nargles in the dungeons somewhere, given how many things were disappearing nowadays.

Her turquoise earrings swung with her movements, their barely noticeable weight reminding her of the kindness of her friends every time she zipped around a corner. With her earrings, necklace and ring she was no longer beset with peculiar creatures at odd moments of the day and could make them leave her alone when she had to do her homework. She could also command them, sending them off to bother other people or run errands depending on the beastie in question.

Reaching the classroom door Luna paused, head tilted to one side. According to Petal, the puffskein Dorea had given her for her twelfth birthday, Blaise was sitting in the top of the Clock Tower, brooding. That wouldn't do; she'd have to go and give him a hug. From observing Rhea's interactions with her best friend, Luna had noticed that Blaise seemed to require hugs in order to function properly, but with Rhea at home this year no doubt the unfortunate Italian Slytherin was slowly starving from lack of affection as people were too busy to remember they needed to hug him, or hadn't even noticed that Blaise required hugs at all. Petal was very cuddly and doing her best to cheer him up, but Blaise needed somebody to hug _him_ or he was going to find himself hosting a Wrackspurt infestation.

Her course of action clear in her mind, Luna spun around and headed off towards the nearest hidden staircase, weaving easily between other students hurrying thither and yon. The best way to get into the Clock Tower was off the third floor, so she had three flights of stairs to ascend. Well, she would have if it weren't that the secret stair behind the portrait of Poderick Crookshank, that only had twenty-three steps yet led all the way up to the fourth floor. Luna liked that staircase; it was especially useful when a person had to get from History of Magic to Advanced Arithmancy within ten minutes.

Once on the fourth floor it was easy enough to sail along the main corridor –which was very quiet due to there being no classrooms in use on this level– up a few steps to the corridor connecting the Hospital Tower to the Clock Tower and along that too. The slabs that made up the floor were wonderfully smooth, enabling her to pirouette gracefully past the windows before stomping up the wooden staircase of the Clock Tower, towards the short landing under the bells.

There was Blaise, just as Petal had said: sitting cross-legged with the powder-blue puffskein on his lap, staring up into the shadowy gears overhead. Luna knew she had been right to come; her friend's state of mind would be drawing in the Wrackspurts from all over the school!

Plonking herself down next to the older boy, Luna snuggled into his side and leant her head against his shoulder, one arm wrapping around his waist while she reached over to pet Petal with her other hand. She didn't say anything; there wasn't anything _to_ say.

Blaise seemed oblivious to her presence, or would have done had he not automatically wrapped an arm around her back and curled his hand around her far shoulder; Rhea would always sit close to him like this after all. Luna wasn't Rhea though, so she just sat still and waited.

"I have an uncle," Blaise said eventually, well after the faint rumbling of students heading to their next lesson had died away to nothing. "He's my mother's half-brother and he is a year older than I am."

Luna knew that Blaise's grandmother had died a long time ago, well before he was even born, so realised that his grandfather had to have had an affair.

"Nonno found out about him when he was two and tried to get rid of him," Blaise went on, voice quiet and achingly sad. "Even though he is Nonno's heir and the Principality is his birthright. I was always so worried about my inability to do more than the basics with our Family Magic and it turns out that I never inherited it in the first place."

Luna made a comforting sound in her throat and snuggled closer.

"His name is Alexandro and Rhea's married to him," Blaise added after a long pause. "My best friend is now my aunt and my uncle is my brother-in-law because Rhea's my sworn sister. My mother wants to kill Nonno for betraying Family like that and she's not the only one. Zio Graziano set three trees on fire and twelve of my second and third cousins have moved into Black Manor because Rhea's baby is going to be the official Heir Zabini until her husband is found again."

Luna said nothing as her friend heaved a long, mournful sigh and ran his fingers through Petal's fur.

"I just don't understand why Nonno did it," the Italian teen admitted eventually. "He had an heir, a proper heir with the Family Magic in his veins and a strong gift for using it. But he threw away a _baby_, his own _son_, because that son wasn't Nonna's by blood. Even though Nonna's been dead since Mamma was little."

Another long, melancholic pause.

"I thought Nonno was better than that," Blaise whispered. "If he missed Nonna so much, why didn't he stay faithful to her memory?"

Luna tightened her grip on the older boy as the air around them seemed to thicken with misery and grief. She didn't let go as his shoulders shook, or his breath caught in his throat. She didn't look up from Petal either for all that she knew he was crying. Blaise might be her friend but she wasn't his _best_ friend and he wouldn't want her to see him cry. She was here for him, he knew she was here for him and there wasn't anything she could say. They both knew that and it was enough.

* * *

Rence stood calmly in the Small Hall, waiting patiently for the milling Zabinis to settle down and pay attention. Next to him George Weasley, currently in the guise of Jerry Prewett, was fiddling with the ring set with a deep indigo tourmaline that Deborah had lent him for the occasion. The ring was technically Dorea's, but as Deborah was the person who generally used it she was usually the one who had it on her person somewhere. Deborah however was Mrs Audric Avery as of this morning and the last thing she'd done before setting off on her honeymoon in Greece was hand over the ring to George so he could take her place as 'Illusionist in Residence', as Dawn had put it.

Why Deborah had picked George over Fred was not entirely clear, but Fred was currently busy plotting a major prank that required some very precisely calibrated potions so he wasn't really right now available anyway.

Rence glanced down at the Pensive sat next to George with its silver memory swirling within. That was Dorea's memory, or rather a brief selection of memories concerning her missing husband; twelve hours wasn't very long when the time spent asleep or intimate was taken out. The purpose of this little get-together was to determine who of those various Zabinis present could best impersonate her husband, so that Dorea could be seen with 'Alexandro Zabini' by someone –possibly even photographed– and her husband's continued elusiveness would not become a subject of gossip. Currently Dorea being bed-bound for the final months of her pregnancy provided the perfect excuse for his not appearing in public, but after the birth of an heir it was traditional for a child's father to present the birth certificate in person to the Department of Magical Births, Deaths and Marriages in a sealed envelope for filing.

Lacking Dorea's actual husband, the Zabini family had collectively offered to provide a decoy and those present all had the right build, height and general appearance to pass his liege-lady's initial inspection. Now however they had to prove they could mimic their missing relative's bearing and aura, which was why George was here: he had recently experienced the memories in the Pensive and was going to create a solid illusion of Alexandro Zabini. Rence wasn't entirely sure why George looked so twitchy, but put it down to the importance of getting this exactly right.

The background volume finally dropped to almost nothing as the eleven disconcertingly similar-looking men in their late teens and early twenties all found chairs to lounge on or empty bits of wall to slouch against, at which point George slipped the ring on his finger, closed his eyes and _changed_.

The Small Hall abruptly felt a whole lot smaller as the tall, scowling male with feathers hanging from his short hair materialised where George had been. From the impeccably cut but carelessly worn suit to the set of his shoulders, deeply unimpressed scowl and the twitch of an eyebrow, everything about Alexandro Zabini _screamed_ of power, peril and rapidly deteriorating patience. The flicker of ruddy orange fire coalescing over his right palm just gave further credence to the image and the barely-suppressed aura of fury and Soulfire made Rence want to run up to Dorea's bedroom and give her a good shaking for marrying someone so ridiculously unsafe.

Of course there was no point in doing that; Dorea herself wasn't safe and laughed in the face of safety. She was Heir Black after all. That didn't mean that Rence wasn't going to do his very utmost to protect her from harm though, especially now he had a better idea of the kind of man she'd married. Alexandro Zabini likely had no shortage of enemies of his own, so Rence would need to work hard to ensure none of them ever got close to his precious liege-lady and her future children.

The image of Dorea's husband remained a few seconds longer, taking in the room's occupants with professional ease and dismissing them all as threats before evaporating into indigo Flames, leaving George behind looking slightly unsteady.

"Eh," said one of the older volunteers present, shaking his head ruefully, "He's certainly the _erede_. No doubt. Can't help you myself though; I've not earned feathers. Sorry." He spread his hands helplessly for a moment before levering himself out of his chair and sauntered out through the door.

Six more Zabinis bowed out, leaving just four behind to exchange glances and murmur quietly in Italian. Rence's Latin was just about fluent, but Italian wasn't his thing so he couldn't catch more than the generalities. Something about falcons?

"You okay there Jerry?" The green-robed blond asked, taking note of his age-mate's pale face and the sweat beading on his forehead.

"Yeah, fine," Jerry-George muttered, shaking his head with a glint of humour in his eyes. "To get the Flame right I had to reach for Dorea; you know she's got an echo of her husband's Flames sticking to her? Well, they're _nasty_. If Dorea's hadn't actively been helping me make this work I would have been ash on the floor just now."

"She really did marry the dragon like Blaise was teasing her about, didn't she?" Rence said ruefully, rubbing the bridge of his nose even as his mind started calculating how much harder his self-appointed duty of keeping Rhea safe was likely to get.

"Oh yeah. Biggest, meanest, fieriest dragon she could find," George agreed with a wry grin; "I wonder how their kids will turn out?"

Rence hadn't thought of that. He wished he still hadn't. Rhea's soon to be born son would be Heir Black, but he'd have all the ferocious fire from _both_ sides of the family backing him up. It also crushed his –admittedly rather feeble– hopes that his liege-lady's daughter would have her mother's reasonableness; she'd probably be all fire and impetuousness too.

* * *

Sirius Black, Lord Black, was not at the top of his game right now. Ironically, not being at the top of his game worked _better_ for him; the challenge of dealing with setback after obstacle after limitation made his blood sing with the thrill of battle. There were no second chances, no time to think things over: he simply had to trust his instincts and keep moving forward, no matter what. Losing the initiative would mean losing the war and Blacks _did not lose_.

Sirius could almost hear his ancestors cheering him on from the afterlife.

Things had been hectic since January, what with discovering his daughter was expecting twins then having to go over and revise the entirety of the War strategy with Narcissa, Marius, Remus and Dawn following Voldemort breaking ten Death Eaters out of Azkaban.

One of those Death Eaters was dear ex-cousin Bella, whose equilibrium had taken a serious hit when she discovered she'd been kicked out of the Black Family. Sirius would have said that her sanity had taken a hit, except that she'd not been sane before going into prison either. She wasn't any crazier now than before, she just had fewer anchors keeping her in one specific kind of madness as opposed to any other and was actually experiencing some kind of Dementor-induced depression, which was new because when _he'd_ been in Azkaban the floating horrors hadn't seemed to bother her at all.

Sirius knew all this because Bellatrix Lestrange was _not happy_ about her disownment and was making sure _everybody_ knew about it. He'd gotten a few anonymous owls –probably from Snape, who had a soft spot for Dorea– detailing meetings with Voldemort, and several Muggleborn Wizards had been messily murdered in their homes after Bella being sighted in the area. Muggleborns usually lacked the connections to get prior warning from should Bella be sighted in their area, which a number of half-bloods and so-called 'blood traitors' had managed to get on similar occasions and escaped messy death by minutes. Sirius had good odds on Voldemort offing her himself when she got too tiresome, while Remus was of the opinion that the Dark Tosser would send her on a suicide mission so her death wouldn't be wasted.

Considering old Snake Face didn't really have any more Death-Eaters left beyond the ones he'd broken out of jail –other than Snape the spy and Malfoy the weasel– Sirius had the sneaking suspicion he'd be losing that bet. Oh well; it had only been ten Galleons.

On the positive side, between January and March the Blacks had managed to bankrupt and then buy three Malfoy-owned businesses, gain a complete monopoly on the market for less-than-completely-legal potion ingredients, drive four more of Voldemort's lower-ranking supporters out of the country and –with Umbridge so completely distracted from her Ministry duties– push through a law stating that a werewolf who had taken Lycan's Ease was no longer classified as a 'Creature' and that discriminating against them was illegal and therefore subject to serious fines.

He'd also set up a St Mungo's fund so the hospital's brewers could afford to offer the potion to werewolves free of charge, or rather Remus and his lovely assistant Fleur had since Sirius was ridiculously busy right now. Fleur Delacour was the person Dorea had hired to replace Remus as Potter Steward, secretary and political gossip manager and Sirius had to applaud his daughter's taste: the lovely blonde part-Veela was without a doubt wonderful office eye-candy and sharp as a tack besides. Bill Weasley also seemed rather taken with her, if his regular visits were any indication… Bill wasn't just in the Manor to visit his brothers and bring messages from the goblins, though he did that too.

Sirius' most recent problem was his still-absent son-in-law. Not the missing man himself, but Alexandro Zabini was proving to be at the tightly knotted heart of an entire tangle of problems.

Firstly, Dorea was on bed-rest for the last two months of her pregnancy and driving everybody except Rence completely _spare_ because she hated being confined and wasn't afraid to share her misery. She wasn't quite as bad as Lily had been –Sirius took a moment to thank Merlin that Lily had never needed bed rest while pregnant– but she still managed to stress the elves, reduce her great-aunts to stunned speechlessness and keep all her cousins on their toes with her demands to be entertained and drive to be _useful_. If his son-in-law were here then this would be _his_ problem, but he wasn't so Sirius had to field babbling elves, outraged elderly relatives and panicky younger Blacks, all of whom wanted him to _do something_ about Dorea's latest blowup.

All except for Rence, whose complete acceptance of anything Dorea happened to say and disturbingly serious willingness to do _anything_ for his pregnant liege-lady had somehow rendered him immune to the terror she was instilling in the rest of the household. Sirius had therefore abandoned all pretence of authority over his daughter and heir and delegated any and all Dorea-issues to Rence, since he clearly knew what he was doing. This had resulted in all manner of peculiarities, such as the week when Rence had somehow persuaded Filly to teach Dorea how to make bobbin-lace, but had lowered the tension level in Black Manor to a point that it was possible to eat meals without the elves all looking like they were expecting the roof to be blown off the Heir's Wing at any moment.

The second problem was that Sirius' son-in-law had turned out to be the Heir Zabini and younger brother to the Black Widow; the Lord Black was honestly impressed that Angelique had managed not to murder her father over that whole mess, considering. He'd told her so as well, which had made her laugh and shake her head before declaring firmly that the right to murder her father belonged to her _fratellino_, not to her. Of course with Alexandro being still missing Dorea was now Principessa Zabini by marriage and her soon-to-be-born son would be Zabini Heir Apparent until his father was found and recovered, which meant Sirius had to negotiate with the Zabini Steward over numbers, ages and genders of bodyguards being sent to live in Black Manor until the situation in Britain settled down again.

Graziano Zabini was a tall, athletic-looking Wizard in his early fifties and possessed that particular kind of Slytherin personality that was charming, affable and very friendly yet utterly ruthless when crossed and impossible to dissuade after deciding on a course of action. Arcturus would have loved arguing with him and Sirius honestly enjoyed it too: it was all a wonderful game of who could out-finesse the other without any hard feelings on either side, since they had the same ultimate goal and were only haggling about the execution.

Sirius had managed to beat the other man down to two ladies-in-waiting, three guards, two 'footmen' –read working-class members of the family who specialised in dealing with domestic security– a maid and a Magical Creature trainer. The latter had been instrumental to the compromise, as Sirius had been able to use the fact that the trainer would be able to study Dorea's pet Basilisk as a sweetener and confirmation that yes, he really _did_ have a Basilisk in his basement. A Basilisk who took the safety of her 'little mistress' very seriously, so Sabina's new princess really was as safe as could be in her father's home. The boomslang Fizz and mamba Bise were also involved in Dorea's security, though Bise preferred to lurk under the furniture rather than cuddle on the pillows like Fizz did.

Picking out the right ladies-in-waiting, guards, footmen and maid would have been a total nightmare and nigh-impossible for Sirius to do himself, so he'd instantly delegated the task to Rence seeing as, being his daughter's sworn knight, he had seniority in her 'household'. Rence had, quite sensibly, politely asked Dawn if she could go to Sabina for a week to meet all the candidates and decide who would fit in best. Rence's actual words had been, 'find people who will be able to work with all of my lady's associates', which Sirius had puzzled over for a while before deciding that Rence had been referring to Dorea's very large circle of friends, all of whom were calling her up on the mirror several times a day to ask her things and talk about the anti-Umbridge campaign.

Sirius was quite happy to remain blissfully ignorant of what his daughter's minions were getting up to in school, as he had enough to be getting on with already and this way he could rightly profess complete ignorance when the Under-Secretary to the Minister inevitably went stark staring mad. Well, Umbridge might go raving mad instead, but insanity was definitely in the cards and so long as he could honestly say he didn't know how it happened he could cover for the kids.

Dawn had returned from Sabina with a very eclectic double-handful of people, having spontaneously added 'nanny' to the staff list. Which was a good idea, really, as Dorea was having twins and house-elves for all their domestic skills were really not suited to caring for small children, but she could have asked. The almost-dozen disconcertingly-similar-looking young men she also dragged along were more of a sticking point, which Rence eventually diffused by quietly explaining to the Lord Black that Dorea really needed a decoy husband look-alike to prevent rumours getting started, so they'd decided that the best place to get one was from the Zabinis. After all, they had a major stake in this too. Sirius at least had a good idea of what his son-in-law looked like now, since he had nearly a dozen body-doubles in the Manor; the Zabini family resemblance was even more disconcerting than the Black one.

At that point Sirius realised that his daughter had known about this, approved it and was helping make it work –they couldn't have gotten _in_ otherwise– so simply left them to it, taking a moment to summon Moppet so she'd know how many extra people there would be for dinner and possibly breakfast the next day too. The domestic budget was after all the eager elf's responsibility and she would have to ensure enough guest rooms were aired.

With all this hanging over his head, Sirius was amazed he hadn't started going grey yet.


	55. Chapter 55

Beta'd by the effervescent InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of new arrivals and regime changes **

It was five fifteen in the morning on Monday the fifteenth of April when Rence was dragged from his bed by a harassed and dishevelled Emanuela, the younger of his liege-lady's new ladies-in-waiting. The short, chestnut-haired Italian barely even let him grab his wand –the Soulfire focus bracelet he wore constantly, even while sleeping– before hauling him out of his room, through the Heir's Parlour and down the hall into Dorea's bedroom. Seeing his heavily pregnant friend breathing heavily, face pale and her hands fisted in the sheets, Rence knew _exactly_ what was going on.

His Lady was giving birth. Nearly three weeks early.

"Fetch Healer Duthridge," Rence ordered tersely. "Send an elf for Dawn Woodmore. Get me my mirror." He did not take his eyes off Dorea as both ladies dashed off to do his bidding; she needed him right now. Dragging the chair over from her dressing table, Rence sat down by the head of the bed and wrapped his hand over the top of her clenched fist.

There was absolutely nothing he could do to physically help her through this, but he wasn't going to leave her to suffer alone no matter how panicked he was feeling inside.

"I'm here, Lady-liege," he said calmly, trying to convey that he had every faith that she would weather this challenge with the grace and success she had all the previous ones.

"Why am I doing this again?" Dorea gasped, eyes flicking over to meet his with a pained half-smile.

"You want children to raise, love and teach so they can continue your life's work," Rence obligingly reminded her. They had discussed this back in February, what it was she wanted from being a mother. Dorea wanted babies to love, children to share the wonders and secrets of her two Magical inheritances with. She wanted to raise accomplished adults who would in time take the reins of both her families and lead them to greater heights and more dazzling triumphs.

Well, all three families technically, since her husband had turned out to be a royal prince of all things. A royal prince that was also very much a dragon.

Rence sat there in his pyjamas, wand clasped in the hand not wrapped around Dorea's fingers, until the Healer hurried into the room with Dawn right behind him and Narcissa Malfoy bringing up the rear. He was then politely evicted from the room with orders to dress, eat and 'keep order', with the Healer's words ringing ominously in his head:

"This isn't going to be quick or easy, so you won't be missing anything…"

* * *

By lunchtime Black Manor was swimming in tension, with the Lord Black having given up all pretence of working on new ways to track down the mysteriously elusive Death Eaters in favour of pacing up and down the terrace and the current Alexandro look-alike in residence, nineteen-year-old Gaetano Zabini, was obsessively tuning his violin with the taciturn focus of a man who has decided not to venture outside his own head until given evidence that it was safe to do so.

Gaetano rather liked the new _principessina_, all things considered, and felt she would make an excellent foil to Sabina's next Principe. Timoteo III was a bit of a disappointment as a ruler really, though Gaetano had no complaints about Graziano, his second cousin once removed, who ran both family and principality with a firm and caring hand.

Gaetano had more cousins than he could count off the top of his head, if you included all the second, third and fourth cousins –which he always did– because Zabinis didn't really go into the whole 'one child is enough and two is a bit much' thing that the rest of Muggle Italy seemed to have got into recently. As far as most Zabinis were concerned, if you were going to have children at all then you may as well have at least three. It was partly the thin but persistent streak of Creature blood in them that insisted that babies should come in broods, but also the associated strongly social tendencies. Sirens had been magical, shape-shifting birds, but unlike the solitary phoenixes sirens flocked in large numbers all year round. The tiny Mediterranean islands that the sirens had once called home, the Sirenuse, had once been home to over eight hundred sirens despite barely being large enough to fit a village on.

Even if Gaetano chose to classify those of his cousins over the age of forty as 'uncles and aunts' he still had well over two hundred cousins, and that was just the ones he was connected to through the Zabini ruling line; if he included _all_ his cousins by blood within four degrees regardless of affiliation then there were closer to six hundred of them! Sabina may have been a tiny principality in the grand scheme of things, but it had a population of slightly over eighty thousand people and about half of those people bore the Zabini surname. Of course, only a quarter of Sabina's inhabitants were actually Wizards, but that wasn't as important as them all being family. Even those without the Zabini name still had Zabini blood, or the vast majority did anyway; people did marry into and out of the Zabini after all so some of his cousins had different surnames.

In fact, there were so many Zabinis in Sabina that a lot of them had taken on secondary surnames or titles, so as to reduce confusion. Which was a good thing, as Gaetano had six cousins called 'Silvia Zabini' as it was without adding in however many others there were that were not closely enough related to the Principe to live in the Palazzo and its immediate surroundings.

Finally satisfied with the state of his violin, Gaetano gently set it aside and started rosining his bow, the repetitive movements lulling him into a state of increased serenity.

Only he and his fourth cousin Costanzo had succeeded in imitating their future Principe's bearing and attitude to the satisfaction of said prince's wife, so the two of them had decided on a rotating weekly schedule so neither would miss out on the ever-expanding man-hunt taking place back home. Now that their missing heir's appearance was known, Graziano had decided upon a new strategy that took advantage of the fact that, to the casual observer, Zabinis all looked pretty much alike. It boiled down to sending a young, traditional-looking Zabini into an area with a known Mafia presence with about a dozen older, less-traditional-looking relatives watching them from a discreet distance and seeing who twitched. They only did this if all other avenues of investigation failed, as they were trying to be subtle about getting their heir back.

It was however fun. Masses of fun, even when some Muggle idiot inevitably lost his nerve and tried to shoot you. They were learning lots about the Mafia too, so it was even educational. Sabina had very limited interactions with the Cosa Nostra of Sicily, the Camorra of Campania, the Sacra Corona Unita of Puglia or the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, generally limiting themselves to sabotaging enterprising Muggle fools trying to get their hooks into the principality's external business interests. There were a few craftsmen who traded with individuals with Mafia connections, but those were on a case-by-case basis and covered by proper secrecy contracts, so it wasn't exactly a source of information.

Gaetano knew that part of the reason only he and Costanzo had succeeded to Dorea's satisfaction was that they had both killed before. Killed deliberately and with malice aforethought, unlike Filippo who wore the white, downy feathers of the little egret to show the remorse he felt for accidentally causing the death of one of his fellow craftsmen in a drunken rage, or Daniele, whose nightingale feathers showed he had murdered his little sister's boyfriend upon catching the teenager raping her.

Costanzo was twenty-five, much older then he looked to a casual observer, and worked for Sabina's internal security division as a business inspector. He wore nightjar feathers, proof that he had killed a number of embezzlers and fraudsters who had refused to come quietly and that he would continue to do so for as long as it proved necessary. Costanzo was a pragmatist but fiercely loyal to the ideal of the Principe and ferocious in his defence of that ideal. He and Gaetano were alike enough to be twins, save that Costanzo's eyes were pale green to Gaetano's dark blue.

Gaetano wore the feathers of the lark brushing against the back of his neck, which spoke only of his remarkable musical talent and gave away nothing concerning the identity of his victim or the reason for the kill. His choosing to wear feathers at all was his only confession, a statement that yes he had murdered someone and that he was no longer the person he had previously been.

The truth was that Gaetano had decapitated his elder brother's obsessed stalker when the obviously unbalanced women had attempted to use the Torture Curse on said sibling's fiancée. That had been back when Gaetano was sixteen and he still regretted nothing. What was there to regret?

Having rosined his bow to his own satisfaction, Gaetano picked up his violin with his free hand, rose to his feet and turned to stare out of the window across the grounds of Black Manor. Now, what to play…

* * *

Blaise had been accosted in the Slytherin Common Room by Jerry Prewett shortly after dinner and smuggled out to Hogsmeade through one of the castle's numerous secret passageways. One of the Potter elves had met him there and transported him directly to Black Manor, where the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife and serve on plates. He'd known that Rhea had gone into labour early this morning –Rence had told him over the mirror– but hadn't known that she was still in labour over twelve hours later. He was here, a frazzled Lady Malfoy informed him, because Rhea had demanded he be present and had refused to take no for an answer.

Whatever it was Rhea wanted him for did not extend to his being allowed in the room where she was giving birth; being male, both he and Rence had to wait in the Heir's Parlour, close enough to hear the screaming but too far away to help. Blaise sat himself down on the carpet in front of the fireplace, closed his eyes and deliberately thought calming thoughts, calling up his Flames as he did so. His Flames were the only reason Rhea would want him here, their soothing effect did not rely on close contact after all, and that she had wanted him here at all said she was far too nervous to relax and let things proceed naturally without some kind of reassurance.

So Blaise concentrated on being reassuring, letting his Flames ebb and flow around him like a lake of serenity and gentle strength. Everything was going to be just fine.

He barely heard the maid come to tell Rence that Rhea's labour was finally progressing to the next stage, but he tamped down his own concern in favour of projecting even more strongly his utter certainty that everything would be alright.

It was the early hours of Tuesday morning when Marius Alexander Black was finally born, and the sun had just started to peer over the horizon when he was joined by his sister, Cassiopeia Melania Black. Blaise barely had time to hold each child and accept the position of godfather to his tiny new niece/cousin before having to stagger back to Hogwarts in time for a quick shower and breakfast. He was pretty sure he'd not be able to pay the slightest bit of attention to his classes after the night he'd had, but to keep the Toad from becoming suspicious he still had to show up.

* * *

The almost giddy joy buoying up the entire upper echelon of the Study Constellation lasted for almost an entire week, kept high by Daphne's delight at being made godmother to the new Heir Black and Hermione's slightly terrified joy at being made godmother to the new Heiress. Rence was baby Marius' godfather, a position all agreed he would excel in, and Prewetts One and Two threw an impromptu party to celebrate the birth that got very loud indeed and would have resulted in detentions all round had half the school not been attending. Umbridge had to limit herself to taking off points, which just about everyone had stopped caring about anyway; anybody with a brain stopped caring about House Points by fourth year at the latest, but with Umbridge in residence even the firsties had become thoroughly disillusioned with the system by the time Christmas came around.

Possibly related to the party was Dumbledore's expulsion from Hogwarts on the following Monday, with Umbridge announcing herself Headmistress before he'd even left the building. Not that Leo Black rightly cared; no Dumbledore just meant fewer reasons to be careful when setting traps and plotting the Toad's ever more imminent deposal.

Leo was the true culprit behind the swarms of origami bats; he liked origami and had been startled but intrigued to discover that applying Sun Flames to them could animate them. He'd made sixty of them initially, but had been interrupted in his experimentation by the Head Girl, the infamous –to people with Slytherin connections at least– 'Croc' Odile. However rather than punish him for his infraction the seventh-year had smiled a smile that was slightly too wide and definitely too toothy and informed him that in exchange for her silence she expected him to assist her in 'improving' his bats.

Ten minutes later there had been six _thousand_ bats fluttering around the deserted classroom, and by morning there was squeaking airborne origami infesting every last dark corner of Hogwarts. The dungeons in particular were so heavily infested that the hiss and crinkle of paper had become white noise. Leo now had a healthy respect for the Crocodile's favoured vengeance style and the incredible usefulness of Runes. He'd always liked Runes and was pretty good at them, but the Head Girl had just proved their versatility to him and he was never looking back. Just three Runes on each of the original 'prototype' bats and the Flame-conjured copies fluttering around the castle were both self-sustaining and re-spawned after being destroyed.

Umbridge may have succeeded in kicking Dumbledore out of Hogwarts, but she had failed to get the castle to recognise her as his replacement: the gargoyle that blocked the way to the Headmaster's Office stubbornly refused to let her past. The tantrum she'd thrown in the hallway had been beautiful too, if rumour was to be believed. The Toad was also gradually succumbing to Theo and Ginny's Evil Scheme™, if her darting eyes, twitching nose and constantly tense posture were any indication.

Since Umbridge was as good as dead already with Theo _and_ Ginny on the case, Leo instead dedicated his energies to getting better at using his Soulfire, helping Blaise teach the kiddies in their little subset of the Study Constellation and coming up with new and inventive ways to use Runes. Just Runes at the moment: he could come up with ways to combine them with Flames later. He had time. Maybe something for Rhea's baby twins he could send her as a birthing gift, like an enchanted rattle or mobiles to hang over their cradles?


	56. Chapter 56

Beta'd by the superb InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of the importance of decoys when interfering with the succession **

Squalo Superbi, fifteen-year-old Second Sword Emperor and current Head of the Varia, was not at all pleased with the situation he found himself in. Ever since August things had gone downhill and the situation was currently floating somewhere around 'dire'. It was probably going to get worse before it got better, too.

Ever since the failure of Xanxus' coup –which retrospectively hadn't actually been a coup at all since Squalo's ears and brain worked just fine and he got to hear his boss's tirade against Nono personally– which the rest of the Vongola were calling 'The Cradle Affair' for some bizarre reason, Squalo had been left more or less alone to keep the Varia in line any way he wished. To his mind that was punishment enough: he'd given the Varia over to Xanxus because he knew damn well that his Boss would do a better job of running it than he ever could. Squalo hated all that managing people shit, didn't have the patience for it, but Xanxus _did_ and he was _good_ at it; he had the training and the inclination to be very, very good at it and had proved it. He was also fucking terrifying in the way he twisted people's minds in knots, but it worked and in the Varia successful management techniques could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.

He'd been questioned about his role in the coup of course, but not seriously because right after freezing Xanxus solid Nono had dragged Squalo out of the basement, locked the door behind them then dropped him off in the makeshift infirmary, which had given everyone the impression that whatever had happened between Don Vongola and his errant son had been personal. Personal family business wasn't something you penalised the underlings for, so the Varia had got off mostly scot-free. Financial penalties for repairs to the Vongola Mansion, medical bills for the injured and extra funds to the women they'd widowed was just expected and already prepared for, and having Visconti's investigators spying on Headquarters was something that should already have been happening really. It wasn't like the Varia were exactly _stable_; not watching the Varia in the first place was just naïve, even though spying on the assassination squad was practically pointless. Assassins, especially Varia Quality assassins, wouldn't get caught doing anything incriminating in the first damn place unless it served their purpose.

However, much to Squalo's somewhat vindictive amusement, the entire not-a-coup had lit a fire under Nono and all the houses were being ripped apart, examined in detail then put back together again. CEDEF and the Varia were exempt from this, CEDEF because it was _external_ and so not technically under Nono's authority and the Varia because Xanxus had ripped it apart the previous spring after Squalo gave it to him and there was the paperwork to prove it.

Sawada still did a token shakedown of the CEDEF, to show willingness and agreement with Nono's goals and to ensure his subordinates were all at the top of their games, but it greatly amused Squalo that the Young Lion had completely failed to notice that his Head Secretary was both a plant and Nono's granddaughter. Failing to notice the first was less of a whoops than the second, because Erica Lanza was very obviously the daughter of Maria-Chiara Vongola, who was in turn Nono's youngest child and only daughter. Admittedly Maria-Chiara had been mostly raised by the retired Ottava due to her mother dying in childbirth and had slid under the collective Family radar by virtue of being a Rain and therefore completely outside the succession, but she was still Vongola and wielded considerable influence as Head of Housekeeping.

Then again, most of the Mafiosi involved in more active roles completely overlooked Housekeeping, which they got away with because Housekeeping liked things that way as they got more done when nobody noticed what they were up to. The Varia had its own independent Housekeeping, mostly made up of retired members, but they still kept up with the Vongola standards and practices. CEDEF didn't really have a proper Housekeeping department, as its current headquarters was a modern office building rather than a stately home, which was most of how he'd managed to get Erica into CEDEF in the first place: Housekeeping did most of the in-depth, long-term background checks.

* * *

Squalo had recruited Erica right after killing Tyr, while Xanxus was fully occupied with shaking down the Varia into something he was prepared to be associated with. He'd known about her already, what with them both being Rains and her spending time as a teaching assistant at the Mafia Academy a few times while he was attending. She'd been in Intelligence then, which was the most secretive Vongola house and didn't technically have anybody on the payroll at all. Squalo had only found _that_ out after she agreed to be recruited into the Varia and let him know what her specialties were.

Erica had never set foot in the Varia Headquarters, never met any of her fellow assassins and the only place her name was written down _anywhere_ was on the payroll, which was all in code anyway. She was listed as a senior member of the Rain Squad on a long-term, high-priority mission under the nickname of Changeling. Squalo had ordered her to infiltrate the CEDEF so that, once Xanxus had taken over the Vongola, there would be someone in place who could deal with Iemitsu Sawada should he attempt to cause trouble and if necessary replace him until a suitable replacement Advisor could be trained up. Unfortunately the coup hadn't actually been a coup at all and Xanxus was now on ice, but on the upside Erica was basically Iemitsu's personal assistant for all that the blond fool could never remember her name and couldn't have picked her out of a line-up if he'd tried. That titbit had been mentioned repeatedly, giving Squalo the impression that Erica found her boss's incompetence offensive.

Of course, being a CEDEF secretary meant Erica got a CEDEF pay check as well, but Squalo didn't begrudge her the money: she earned every lira and had a kid at home being raised by her widowed mother. A kid she barely ever saw because Sawada was an inconsiderate moron who should never have been promoted above Field Officer and thought that paperwork was something that should be dealt with by people not him. Really, the man was a total nimrod: CEDEF was only safe from agents of other Famiglia because Erica had spent months quietly cleaning house through reassignments, accidents and the occasional hired kill! The only thing keeping the _Consulenza Esterna_ clean was the fact it had been infiltrated by the Varia! That was just a tragic state of affairs, right there.

The reports Squalo got from Erica were likely more detailed than the ones she gave Sawada because Sawada didn't give a shit about the fine details unless something was actually going wrong and needed fixing. Reading those reports had been a big part of why Squalo had been so convinced that Xanxus was plotting a coup: the Vongola was _rotten_ and desperately needed a major overhaul if they were going to stay at the top of the heap. CEDEF was supposed to be an _intelligence_ division! What the hell had Nono been thinking to put a thug –no matter how cunning– like the Young Lion in charge!

* * *

Other than the eyesore that was the CEDEF however, Nono was taking the whole business of getting the Famiglia back up to scratch pretty damn seriously. The Varia were being kept busy with contracts to deal with morons who thought they could get away with shit, the nine Houses had all got their asses into gear and were dragging themselves up out of the gutter and by January Nono even had new Guardians to replace the two that had been slaughtered.

At which point Nono turned his attention to his heirs and Squalo realised that they were all fucked.

Nono had three sons, all of whom were old enough to have been made Boss at least two decades previously if the old man had thought they had what it took. Enrico was _forty-six_, for God's sake! Even Federico, the youngest, was forty! Though if anybody had asked Squalo –which they hadn't– he would have picked Federico as the heir least likely to completely ruin the Vongola, despite Federico's complete inability to keep his dick in his pants. Federico at least had a full set of Guardians, for all he was on his second Lightning already; rumour had it the first one died because of Federico's libido causing trouble.

Massimo on the other hand would be a total nightmare, but at least it was blatantly, unavoidably obvious that Massimo would be a fucking disaster as Decimo. He had exactly two Guardians, the only women who were interested in him were the gold-diggers and the air-heads and he made a point of pissing off absolutely everyone who didn't defer to him because he was Nono's son. He was a pissy little shit despite being forty-four and everyone knew it.

Enrico on the other hand was harder to dismiss out of hand, even though Squalo would have anyway because Enrico was one of those superior stick-up-the-ass types who had _views_ about how things should be done. Of course he had no actual experience of actually doing shit, so his ideas were totally useless but that didn't stop him from airing them whenever possible and dumb-ass suck-ups trying to curry favour often attempted to enforce them, which always went badly but was blamed on the idiots rather than on Enrico. The trash therefore never had to deal with the consequences, never learned and would inevitably try shit again, even if his underlings paid the price.

Squalo was pretty sure that if Enrico made Decimo –which wasn't out of the question– the Famiglia would be a shambles within the year. He wasn't going to let that happen, not after everything Xanxus had gone through for it. Xanxus had been willing to die for the benefit of the Vongola and was currently freezing in the basement for his loyalty and dedication.

The problem was that all the old-boy types _liked_ Enrico because he had the manners and the snotty attitude and could schmooze like nobody's business. Everybody was going to be pushing for Enrico as Decimo because he was at least superficially appropriate and if he made Boss then there was a chance he'd marry _their_ daughter/cousin/sister. Enrico knew this too, and was carefully not favouring any one woman over the others so as to maximise his support base. Sneaky fucker. He only had four Guardians, not having been able to attract a Cloud or keep hold of a Mist, but if Nono publically acknowledged him as Decimo-to-be then there'd be people with the right Flame willing to put up with not Harmonising properly if it meant being a Guardian for definite.

But Enrico wouldn't be good for the Vongola and the Vongola was what Xanxus had put himself on the line for, so Squalo refused to see his Boss's efforts wasted. Enrico had to go.

* * *

Squalo was an ear-burstingly loud swordsman. Everybody in the Vongola knew it because Squalo had lungs an opera singer would envy, though his singing voice was pretty dreadful. Squalo thought the sword was the only weapon worth using and complained loudly and constantly whenever he had to leave it behind for something more discreet. Which inevitably failed to work, because Squalo was so damn _loud_ than discretion was a lost cause. Or at least that was the general perception.

The complaints were completely sincere on Squalo's part, but people seemed to think that because he hated guns he couldn't use them. That wasn't true: the silver-haired teenager was actually a crack shot. He was also perfectly capable of keeping his mouth shut if a job required it, but preferred not to advertise this because assassins needed all the advantages they could get.

Squalo was also much better at physically disguising himself than anybody else in the Vongola –bar one former classmate– was aware of. Mafia Academy had a compulsory Drama class, which existed so that students could learn about masks, infiltration, observing other people's tells and similar vital stuff. Squalo hadn't made much of an effort to act differently in class, but he'd watched like a hawk and learned a _lot_. He'd also been one of exactly two students to succeed in fooling the examiners at the end of his last year of Middle School, as he'd successfully impersonated one of his classmates and taken the exams as her rather than as himself. It had helped that he had been shorter back then, if not by much.

The girl he had impersonated had been a sort-of friend called Petronilla, who had been a Mist and so incredibly bored by the whole school business that she'd been happy to go along with Squalo's crazy idea and impersonated him right back with equal success. Though Nilla claimed that it had been too easy, as nobody expected that kind of subterfuge from Squalo so hadn't been looking at her very hard. All she'd had to do was weave a minor illusion over her hair, bind her chest and shout loudly.

Nilla however had absolutely _loved_ the fact that both she and Squalo had almost failed Drama because their respective performances had apparently been 'unconvincing'. 'Squalo' had been too loud and 'Petronilla' had not relinquished her signature creepy smile.

Squalo had no feelings one way or the other about disguises; he could do them, it was a vital skill, so what? He didn't like using them, because when he defeated people he wanted them to know who it was that had done the killing, but that was just his preference. In the Mafia you didn't always get a choice.

In the May of the year following his Boss being frozen solid, events finally conspired to give Squalo Superbi the opportunity to do away with Enrico Vongola without the loud swordsman ever being suspected.

* * *

Caterina Lorenzi was a low grade hitwoman in the employ of the equally low-grade Malatesta Family. She was only interesting because she was the same height and general build as Squalo himself currently was and because the Malatesta Family was having a rather violent spat with the Vongola that Enrico had been put in charge of resolving and had instead escalated. More proof that Enrico really wasn't Boss material, but Nono was too damn forgiving by half and had said that everyone made mistakes and that how you dealt with those mistakes was proof of character.

Squalo mentally called bullshit on that one: if so, why the fuck was Xanxus still on ice? That right there was a mistake if ever there was one. It had been nine months, for god's sake! Xanxus' 'coup' hadn't even been a real attack on Nono's authority, the aftermath had benefitted the Vongola and the Family was stronger now than it had been for decades, so why was his Boss still frozen?!

'Quick Shot' Lorenzi favoured automatics, specifically small sub-machine guns, and was something of a drinker. Approaching her in a bar –disguised of course– and going home with her, then availing himself of her wardrobe and personal weapon after drugging her unconscious was stupidly simple. Child's play, seriously.

It was actually really easy to impersonate the older woman, borrow one of the Malatesta's armoured cars and then drive by the position where Enrico and his Guardians were fighting the Malatesta mooks. Shooting Enrico was easy too; the stupid fool had never really made much of an effort to learn more than the minimum with his Flames after all. Getting away was less easy, but Enrico still hadn't found himself a Cloud or a Mist and those were the two Flame-types best suited to long chases and manhunts and his Guardians were all so distressed they were sloppy. The car was likely never going to work again after today, but that wasn't Squalo's problem.

After that all Squalo had to do was take the car back, bullshit the garage custodian with a story about a job gone bad, return to Caterina's apartment and change back into the disguise he'd used to get into her home in the first place before leaving normally. He'd then taken a bus back to the flat he'd rented for this job, destroyed the disguise and picked up all his normal Varia gear before 'discovering' that Nono's eldest had been murdered by 'some bitch' and going out to join the hunt.

Knowing what he did, it had been easy for Squalo to 'discover' who the killer had been, hunt her down and messily murder her in her own home before Visconti could show up and take her away for interrogation. He'd got away with it, of course: everybody was really outraged by the fact that the Vongola heir had died in such a pathetic way to such a minor hitwoman. It was an insult to the Family!

If Squalo hadn't got there first then she could easily have been murdered just as summarily by one of the other search parties, but the swordsman hadn't wanted to risk it. Anyone else might have given Caterina a chance to say that she had no idea what they were talking about, might have convinced them with her sincerity, and that would have been really, seriously bad. This way the loose ends were minimal and the reprimand hadn't been a big deal.

Seriously, he still had to run the Varia; that was an ongoing and far more onerous punishment than an easily shrugged off reprimand for getting 'too excited' on a hunt.

* * *

As far as Squalo was concerned, even lacking so much as a drop of Vongola blood Xanxus was _still_ a better option than Nono's sons, but that wasn't how things worked. They'd have to settle on one of them and at least with Enrico out of the way the least awful option was impossible to miss. Federico was fucking irritating but he was also a slippery weasel with a tendency to come down _hard_ on people who pissed him off, so the Vongola would survive. They seriously needed to get him a wife and a mistress though, or else some cuckolded husband was going to send assassins after him. Again.

Or possibly this time it would be a seduction specialist, because with Federico that was as close to a guaranteed opportunity as you could get, despite the womanizing fool having half-decent instincts for when people wanted him dead. The idiot had plenty of men and a few women wanting him in the ground for various reasons, all of them to do with his inability to resist a pretty face.

Squalo sighed heavily. If they couldn't have Xanxus as Decimo, than whichever inferior stand-in they got saddled with would be _competent_, even if it meant getting personally involved. Petronilla might be up to giving Federico's Guardians a few scares in the name of better security and her Boss would probably be all for it as well. If he could get her interested in that he could leave her to it and follow up on some of the weird rumours coming out of the Camorra.

The Camorristi were under the curious impression that the Vongola had decided to play hardball and sent Xanxus into their territory as an opening move. There had been three separate sightings, with people snatched off the streets each time, some being found days later with no memory of what had happened and some vanishing completely. Considering the Vongola was actually too busy with internal affairs to do that kind of thing, whoever was sewing havoc around Naples was doing the Famiglia a massive favour. However there being a Xanxus look-alike out there was suspect because as far as anybody other than Nono and the Varia Officers knew, Xanxus was still taking missions and Nono's supposed youngest _hated_ it when people messed him about and this kind of thing counted.

Which suggested that _someone_ knew Xanxus was out of circulation and was taking advantage. Squalo intended to get to the bottom of it.


	57. Chapter 57

Beta'd by the stupendous InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of insanity and disaster **

June, when it finally arrived, was fervently welcomed by everyone in the upper portion of the Study Constellation. Partly because June marked the end of the covert Defence lessons they were teaching, but mostly because exam season was upon them. All of the fifth- and seventh-years involved felt that they were _more_ than ready for their OWLs and NEWTs, with even Hermione stating that it would be good to get them over and done with. However, the reason why the impending exams had been seized upon with such relief and fervour had very little to do with the Constellation itself and more to do with the witch who had invaded Hogwarts and declared herself Headmistress.

Theo's plan to drive Umbridge mad was working. Working slightly too well, actually. Umbridge had got to the point where she had stopped noticing or caring that nobody other than her could see what she was seeing and was unravelling before their very eyes. This meant she casually stepped around things that weren't there, frequently lost her temper with invisible beings and very rarely looked anyone in the eye as she was far too busy watching unseen objects bouncing around the place. Her hair was also far less well-groomed, her pink cardigans often had scorch marks on them and her hands were constantly trembling.

Daphne might have felt pity, save that Umbridge deserved every moment of her suffering. Soon the examiners would be welcomed into the castle and they would notice the state of the Headmistress, notice and carry the news back to the Ministry. Then the Minister would have to take steps to investigate; the Toad's days were numbered.

Professor Snape's lecture on proper exam behaviour was largely superfluous for over half the Slytherin fifth-years and their Head of House clearly knew it, but their new Headmistress was overly concerned with the formalities so no 'favouritism' could be shown. Well, not openly at least, Daphne amended privately as she copied down the dates on the blackboard, but Professor Snape had always excelled in subtly letting his students know how he felt about wasting him time on pointless trivialities.

"As you are all no doubt aware," the professor said silkily, "your OWLs are spread over two successive weeks, after which the seventh-years will be taking their NEWTs over a similar period. Theory papers are sat during the mornings and practical exams in the afternoons; as Hogwarts now has access to a fully functional planetarium, the Astronomy OWL will also take place in the afternoon rather than at night.

"Our _esteemed_ Headmistress would have me remind you all that the most stringent anti-cheating spells have been placed on your examination papers, as though this will deter _anyone_ with such an inflated view of their own capabilities that they will stoop to cheating." The Potions Master paused. "However, please consider that if _any_ of you cheat, I _will_ find out and then you will be discussing with me _personally_ why you felt the urge to disgrace our House. Am I _quite_ clear?"

There was a soft susurrus of assent and a wave of hurried nodding.

"Good. I am well aware that every last one of you is at _least_ competent in all the material being tested, so should any of you fail to perform well I shall be _exceedingly_ disappointed in you. Results will be posted to you in July. Dismissed."

As always, Professor Snape was concise, professional and highly intimidating. There was a rush of noise as everybody stood up at once and started leading the classroom, but Daphne still heard the Potions Master's next words, pitched as they were to carry under the cacophony:

"Greengrass, Zabini, a moment of your time please."

Daphne obligingly hung back, Zee doing likewise. Theo noticed and paused by the door, Trey beside him as Draco glanced at them in passing but didn't stop. Millie Bulstrode glanced curiously back over her shoulder but didn't stop either; no doubt both would be waiting in the common room to hear what the fuss was about.

Professor Snape eyed Theo and Trey for a moment, but did not send them packing. Clearly this was Rhea-related then.

"As the examiners will be arriving within the week," Snape said calmly and neutrally, "it would reflect best on all concerned were the school not so obviously entrenched in anarchy and disorder. The Headmistress' current _indisposition_ is sufficiently self-evident that no further proof of her incompetence should be required."

No accusations were made, no fingers were pointed. Snape knew it was them at the heart of the irreversible pranks, peculiar happenings and unusual levels of cooperation and competence of the lower years, but had not mentioned this to Umbridge because the chaos was to his benefit and he had no proof. Then there was the fact that Snape knew better than to antagonise so many well-born young witches and wizards, never mind the Blacks who were lurking in the wings. What with Snape being a Death Eater, his position was even more delicate because the Blacks had sworn to utterly destroy him and the protection the school offered was flimsy at best.

"We will make an effort to discover the responsible parties and persuade them to tidy things up in time for the holidays," Daphne said pleasantly.

The Potions Professor nodded in polite acknowledgement, a faint gleam of respect flashing briefly across his usually unreadable eyes.

"Then I trust you will all do our House proud with your performance."

* * *

It took the Soulfire-capable members of the Study Constellation exactly one evening to deactivate most of the traps, pranks and nuisance magic around the school. They didn't remove all of it, because some of them were practically masterworks and added to the general Hogwarts atmosphere. The origami bats for instance: Daphne made sure there were half-a-dozen of what Leo called 'spawn points' left behind, though she resolved to find out more about Muggle games over the summer as they sounded more interesting than she had previously assumed. What was a 'play station' anyway? Or a 'com-pew-tar'? Rhea's books had opened her eyes to a lot of Muggle things but they tended to be classics so very new things like the 'play station' and 'com-pew-tar' that Leo babbled about sometimes were still complete mysteries.

Other than the bats, only a section of one of the Portable Swamps that was available for owl-order from the recently-established 'Prewett Prank Products' –left in a window alcove so people wouldn't trip over it– and the snowstorm were allowed to remain, though Odile and Trey managed between them to adjust the rechargeable winter flurry so that it would remain dormant except on the Wednesday between the waxing crescent and half-moon, when it would boil up and snow heavily for three hours starting at dawn and the fallen snow would only last until sunset before evaporating. That way it was a curiosity rather than a problem and people could get used to it, like they did the moving doors and staircases.

As the snowstorm had been a joint effort and an important learning experience into the methods and effects of working with multiple Affinity types and combining Runes with Flames, Daphne was pleased that it would remain as a monument to their skill and progress.

Amusingly enough, most of the school seemed more disappointed than pleased to find that Hogwarts had reverted back to almost-usual. A lot of the first- and second-years could be heard complaining about how 'boring' it was without odd things happening in the corridors and the constant flutter of paper bats. The teachers however were all visibly relieved; except for Umbridge, who seemed unaware that anything had changed at all and looked very odd indeed 'wading' through sand that wasn't there anymore on her way to and from the Great Hall at meals.

The examiners arrived on the Sunday evening towards the end of dinner and Daphne took the time to watch Umbridge's meeting with them from behind one of Theo's ever-versatile and useful illusions; this one simply made it took like whatever was behind them was actually in front of them, which in this case was the wall. It was more effective than a mere Notice-Me-Not or Disillusionment Charm since both spells weren't nearly as subtle as they might be and both could be broken, unlike this basic illusion which worked from a completely different set of rules.

It was abundantly clear from the faces of the Wizarding Examination Authority that Umbridge's days were numbered; that she was diverting blame for the non-existent knee-deep sand in the Entrance Hall was a major clue. That she had developed a number of curious facial tics, had her cardigan on inside-out and kept on batting at the air as though something was flying in her face was almost superfluous.

* * *

The fortnight of exams went very well for the fifth-years, as far as Ginny could tell, though part of that might have been witnessing the contingent of burly Healers who showed up to take Umbridge away on the Friday evening for internment in the St Mungo's High Security Ward for the Dangerously Unbalanced. The Aurors accompanying the green-robed medical professionals had attempted to keep the matter quiet, but a year under an oppressive regime had honed the skills of the Study Constellation's members where sharing information at high speed was concerned and both the Entrance Hall and the Main Staircase were full of applauding students as The Toad was carried out of the building in a strait jacket, sedated out of her mind.

The week following the liberation of the school was incredibly cheerful despite the exams still to be sat taking up the minds of the fifth-years, though Ginny knew that Dumbledore's return to school on the Saturday simply meant that they would be subject to a more subtle but no less tyrannical oppression once more. However that was a problem for after the exams, not right now.

The last exam of the year –for the fifth-years at least– was History of Magic, which being pure theory meant they had the afternoon off. Ginny did not have the afternoon off, but she did spot a lot of her friends sprawled out on the lawns outside the castle and didn't begrudge them a moment of it. She'd decided against taking anything other than her Defence exam early as she wanted to take the rest with her year-mates, so she could help them and bond with them better. Yes, Rhea, Hermione, Neville, Luna and the others were all her closest friends but Colin, Vicky, Pauline and Trinity were her friends too and she wanted them to _stay_ friends. The same as Leo, Gabriel and Thora in Hufflepuff and Edith, Bridget, Charlie and Phyllis in Slytherin; the Ravenclaws in her years were less personable, but Danny, Noel and Rebecca weren't so bad, if rather obsessed with their grades.

It was at dinner, when a few owls always drifted in with letters and packages that were deemed 'too urgent' for whatever reason to wait until morning, that everything went wrong.

Ginny had been happily finishing her shepherd's pie and dividing her attention between Colin's rather suspect package that had been delivered by one of the Black Owls and the distinctly formal-looking letter that Sally-Anne seemed to have decidedly mixed feelings about going from the expressions warring for dominance of her face, when Neville's Soulfire presence abruptly spiked. The youngest Weasley whipped her head around in time to see the Longbottom Heir crumpling a letter in his hand, expression uncharacteristically murderous, as the nondescript tawny owl that had delivered it took to the air again.

Owls were more traceable than they appeared to be, Ginny had recently learned; certain Families spelled their own or only bought them from specific sources, so if you knew what you were doing you could determine the identity of your correspondent via the owl used for the delivery.

"Stop that bird!"

There was a whoosh of air as the great grey owl that had delivered Colin's package erupted from the Gryffindor table and at the same time three other, almost identical birds rose from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. The tawny didn't have a chance: the much larger grey birds mobbed it, knocking it to the ground and breaking a wing before one of them snatched it up and carried it back to the Gryffindor table and dumped it upon Ginny's mostly empty plate.

"Thank-you very much for your consideration," Ginny managed to say, ducking her head; she had learned from repeated exposure that the Black Owls were far smarter than they appeared to be and required you to respect them. Not doing so was perilous to a person's health and correspondence. The Black family's preferred mail carriers were both intelligent enough to hold a grudge and vicious enough to make you suffer before they accepted your apology.

The owl hooted regally, then turned back to Colin to see if he had a reply ready. Ginny meanwhile hastily pinned the stunned owl to her chest with one arm, leaped from her seat and grabbed Neville with her free hand:

"Let's _leave_ before the teachers interfere!" she hissed, glancing up at the Teachers' Table where Dumbledore was already paying far too much attention to them and McGonagall seemed poised to intervene, her severe frown evident. Neville rose mechanically and swept from the Hall, Ginny hurrying in his wake clutching the injured and struggling owl and Roger quickly rising to follow them. A glance across the room told Ginny that Hermione, Padma, Luna and the Slytherins would soon be joining them; hopefully it would be enough.

* * *

The group met up in the Hall in the East Wing where they'd been meeting all year, which was yet to be discovered by any of the teachers; the area was unpopular as there were no classes held there, the heating didn't work as well as it might and until very recently there had been a series of illusions set up to make it look completely inaccessible due to a prank gone wrong. The inside of the room was very different now, having bookshelves loaded with tomes taken from the Come and Go Room, scarred tables and chairs pushed against the walls for use in private projects and a large pile of cushions and carpets for relaxing on in one corner.

Daphne pondered that they really needed a better name for themselves than 'Rhea's friends' or 'the original study group'; something to consider later, when Neville wasn't looking ready to let loose his usually placid temper and utterly annihilate anything that got between him and his goal. None of the furniture was sprouting, but Neville's control was good enough now that he didn't do that kind of thing anymore, no matter how angry he was. Trimming furniture was an excellent control exercise for anyone with Storm Flames but that didn't make it any less tedious a chore.

Most of the assembled fifth- and fourth-years spread out in a rough semicircle in front of the Longbottom Heir, waiting for him to decide what to tell them. The only exceptions were Susan and Ginny: the latter was holding onto the owl that had brought the message while the auburn-haired scion of the Bones family was waving her wand over the bird, lips moving soundlessly as she interpreted the nuances of the spells enhancing it.

All post-owls were magically enhanced, but there were different breeders out there and each breeder did things slightly differently. Families buying owls generally added a few security spells on top so the bird chosen could get through the Wards on the buyers home, so there was generally enough information on an owl to tell you where it had come from, provided you could interpret what you were seeing.

The Bones Family had been in law enforcement for a very long time, from well before the Auror Force was formed. That they had a system for identifying owls was not at all surprising to Daphne; she would have been more surprised if they didn't.

Neville glanced up from the crumpled parchment in his hands as Draco and Millicent Bulstrode, the most recent additions to the Constellation's command team, slipped in through the door and closed it firmly behind them.

"The letter I received at dinner purports to be from Bellatrix Lestrange," the Longbottom Heir said tightly, "and she claims to be holding my parents hostage in the Department of Mysteries. If I go to fetch them in person, without saying a word to any of the teachers, she is prepared to return them to me in exchange for what she calls 'a small service'. I have until midnight, after which point she will assume I don't want my parents back and will push them through the Veil in the Death Chamber."

The group instantly dissolved into murmurs as several different hushed discussions broke out at once and Draco hurried over to take a look at the letter. Daphne followed, Theo, Trey and Zee all being caught up in a hushed discussion with Susan and Ginny.

Draco had taken the letter off Neville and spread it on one of the desks, waving his wand over it with his brow furrowed in fierce concentration.

"Well, it isn't poisoned," he said eventually, "and while there are a number of rather clever Hexes on the parchment there isn't anything truly damaging: just spells to reduce caution, suppress rational thinking and urge haste above all else. They don't seem to have taken very well, so that's a bit more evidence towards Soulfire reducing the efficacy of Mind Magic."

Draco had only just started reading about Soulfire and was definitely enjoying the various debates that sprung up about its potential uses and properties. He had openly stated that he didn't want to start learning to use it until he had a better grasp on his Family Magic, which Daphne had to respect him for. Draco had come a long way from the spoiled, oblivious little twit he'd been as a child and wasn't a complete social disaster anymore, which was very impressive on his part.

"I can't read the letter at all, but that's because whoever wrote it used Blood Magic to ensure that the contents remained private; quite a few Families do that on confidential correspondence and it uses blood in the ink so only close relatives can read it. That _doesn't_ mean that Lestrange or whoever _has_ to have your parents, Longbottom," Draco added as Neville audibly ground his teeth, "just that they managed to break into St Mungo's and steal some blood. Not that them having some of your parents' blood isn't bad enough."

As soon as Draco had mentioned the Hexes on Neville, Daphne had drawn her wand and started waving it over the Longbottom Heir; he was indeed lightly bespelled but unravelling them was the work of a moment, especially when she added a faint touch of Storm Flames to her magic. Storm Flames were really quite incredibly useful for taking things apart. Admittedly she was still worried about Neville, because Blood Magic using someone else's blood was deeply illegal for very good reasons, as it could still be used to harm him.

"It's a Ministry owl; from the Portkey Office or the Broom Regulatory Control," Susan said, raising her voice so as to be heard clearly over all the ongoing discussions. "While the Ministry _does_ close to the public from five at night until nine in the morning, there should still be people working shifts in the Auror Office, Accidental Magic Reversal Office and the Obliviator Headquarters at the very least. Never mind that auntie is always complaining about how the Unspeakables work to no timetable except their own, so if there _are_ Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries then it really needs investigating."

"We should check St Mungo's too: the Healer on duty is supposed to check the Janus Thickey Ward once an hour, just in case of complications arising," Trey said in the quiet as everyone pondered Susan's words.

"So, three teams," Daphne said briskly. "Sally-Anne, you, Fay and Draco are to investigate St Mungo's; Healer Tonks might be able to help you there, so I'll leave you three to it." Draco had a working brain and Sally-Anne was no slouch either, while Fay was good at picking up on things that had been overlooked. They'd manage just fine.

"Susan, you, Hannah, Tracy, Ginny and Theo will be in charge of investigating how the Death Eaters got into the Ministry and why nobody noticed. If nothing else, I'm sure Madam Bones will be very interested in what you manage to turn up." Madam Bones, as head of the DMLE, was taking security _very_ seriously following the Azkaban breakout. If this turned out to be a result of negligence then heads might well roll; Susan being on that team would at least ensure any evidence they turned up was admissible in court, while Ginny and Theo made a disturbingly smooth duelling pair and Trey and Hannah both had good heads on their shoulders and would manage just fine.

"Everyone else, we're with Neville. This is his operation since he's the one being targeted." She turned to the tall fifteen-year-old, who was finally growing into himself and was starting to look handsome rather than just adorable.

Neville blinked at being the centre of attention, but recovered quickly.

"Um, right. Everyone who can use a weapon, bring it. If you have Prewett Pranks, bring those too; they make fantastic distractions. Fight in pairs, like in practice; Millie, could you stay with Luna and Leo since Draco's going to St Mungo's?"

"Sure," the Slytherin shrugged, a vaguely unnerving smile spreading across her face at the prospect of an actual fight. Millie's weapon of choice was the battleaxe, which was rather scary considering she was five foot eleven and solidly muscled where she wasn't voluptuously curvy. Her uniform disguised it, but now she had grown into herself Millicent Bulstrode was a force to be reckoned with.

"Meet up on the third floor in twenty minutes; I doubt they've shut off the Floo in Umbridge's office yet," Daphne said briskly. "Move out people!"


	58. Chapter 58

Beta'd by the illusive InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of evil plots and desperate countermeasures **

The first thing Draco did upon being handed command of what his mind insisted on calling 'the Hospital Strike Team' –clearly he was spending too much time around Gryffindors– was tell Perks to call Dorea on her mirror so that the Blacks could co-ordinate with them and provide back-up in the event of there _actually_ being Death Eaters in the bowels of the Ministry. It sounded like a ploy to get them in trouble with the Ministry to him.

Ugh, more drama. Over-exposure to wide-eyed optimists was clearly contagious. At least Dunbar and Perks were on the sane end on the lion spectrum, though that might have been to do with them both being female. But Lovegood was female too and completely batty, so perhaps not. Then again, ravens were a completely different species to lions.

Dunbar and Perks made a good team too: Perks was startlingly brilliant at offensive spells, while Dunbar tended towards using Transfiguration and area affect techniques. As both were also competent with Soulfire they were formidable when working together, if highly destructive of their surroundings. Neither was foolish enough to scorn a strategic retreat either, which was always refreshing in Gryffindorks. Most only had enough room in their heads for 'charge!' and weren't even half as capable as they thought they were due to being too busy being the centre of attention to actually _learn_ anything.

Hurrying down to the dungeons to grab his daggers, the small stash of Prewett Pranks he had been given for 'testing purposes' and the various vials of medical potions he had been experimenting with, Draco slipped back out of the common room before Pansy noticed him –she was still adamant in her pursuit of him– and hurried up towards the upper floors. Dorea had graciously made room for him in her circle of friends and he wanted to ensure she never had second thoughts about that unexpected generosity. Leaving school grounds to sneak into Magical Britain's only hospital was rather minor in the grand scheme of things; it wasn't like he'd been asked to kill anyone.

Though if Dorea asked, he might.

Draco was contemplating that slightly disturbing thought as he met up with Perks and Dunbar again right outside the empty Defence Professor's Office.

"I got through to Rhea," Perks said promptly, "and she's getting in touch with Healer Tonks for us. She said to call back if the Longbottoms are actually missing so she and Lord Black can storm the Ministry, since House Potter is allied with House Longbottom." Perks grinned. "I think she's looking forward to some action actually, though she'll definitely have Rence and a few in-laws backing her up."

Draco nodded sharply. The Zabinis were rather infamous on the Continent for being Italy's answer to the Blacks in both politics and warfare; it would be interesting to see if that was actually true. That Dorea had married into their family despite keeping her own name for inheritance reasons made impressing each-other all the more imperative, so they'd probably pull out all the stops.

"How are we getting in?" Dunbar asked curiously.

Draco smirked. "Through the front door, of course." Nobody ever stopped you if you looked like you knew what you were doing.

* * *

Entering the Ministry Atrium through the Floo, Tracy's first impression was that it was far too quiet. Yes, it was now six thirty in the evening, but that meant the Public Access Floo should have been locked for the night. That it wasn't locked was the first bit of evidence they had of things not being as they should. None of those breaking and entering –did it count as breaking and entering if they didn't technically break in? – commented out loud, but there was an air of resigned determination hovering over the group. Zee stood off to one side, rapier at his hip, while Millie fingered her axe and the other girls checked their knives. Neville and Roger only had their wands, but Leo was absent-mindedly juggling four paper throwing stars with one hand while keeping his wand grasped firmly in the other and Theo had his broadsword.

The party split without a word, Theo and Ginny setting off ahead of the Investigation Group while Hannah and Susan hung back, leaving Tracy in the middle. That wasn't because Tracy was in any way a softer target than the others, but because Tracy's favoured combat style involved spells that immobilised and disabled rather than stunning, injuring or distracting. This meant she was better off as long-range back-up when fighting as part of a team and placing her in the middle meant she could reinforce either pair depending on where an attack came from.

Theo and Ginny at the front were the close-combat, heavy assault specialists, while Susan and Hannah were the rearguard as defensive illusionist and markswoman respectively. Hannah favoured precision duelling and had exceptional aim, while Susan preferred to use her environment against her opponent. Neither had any practice with weapons beyond their knives of last resort, but Tracy was certain that both would be looking for a weapon that suited them come the summer; learning to use Soulfire had taught all of them that wands simply weren't enough.

It wasn't that wands weren't perfectly effective tools for controlling magic, but Soulfire tended to _burn_ things and wands were made of _wood_. Rhea's accident with her wand had proven that, for all that she'd somehow ended up with the phoenix feather that was her wand's core embedded in her hand. A person could only use the tiniest _thread_ of Soulfire to enhance their magic unless they wanted to permanently damage their wand. Then there was the fact that, if you pitted magic against Soulfire, magic _lost_ every time. Enhancing wandless magic or Runes with Soulfire was all well and good, but _Muggles_ could use Soulfire –particularly certain criminal fraternities if Dorea's books were to be believed– and breaking the Statute of Secrecy by obviously using magic against Muggles, even in self-defence, would get them into trouble. Accidental magic was covered but from the moment a witch or wizard bought a wand they were subject to the Statute of Secrecy, which was something that should rightly be covered in their first history lesson as firsties but wasn't.

This meant they needed other weapons, preferably mundane weapons that could be used as focuses for Soulfire. Even if those weapons were nothing more than short metal rods.

Tracy tried to keep her mind on the situation at hand, but the silence was making her jumpy. It should not be this quiet, for all that they were taking the back staircase rather than the lift. Tracy hadn't even known there _was_ a back staircase in the Ministry, but it did make sense for there to be: how else would people get around when the lift was out of commission?

As they reached the second floor of the Ministry Tracy felt her senses prickling. Somewhere on this floor, something was not as it should be. She was completely pants at using the fire in her soul for offensive purposes, but she had almost the best range for detecting area effect Enchantments out of all of those in their group who could use Sun Flames. Activation was the trait associated with Sun Flames, and in Tracy this manifested as heightened awareness of just about everything. Her senses were not any better than before, but she was actually _noticing_ everything now, rather than it all passing her by in a blur of 'not really relevant –ignore' as had previously been the case.

For instance, right now she was aware of the faint pressure of magic against her mind, whispering that nothing important was going on at all, that what she was doing was _boring_ and that it wouldn't matter if she shut her eyes for a moment.

"Theo, Sue?" she murmured gently. "There's a Mind-Numbing Ward up."

"Ministry-wide Wards can only be placed and modified through Maintenance," Susan said quietly, the glimmer of yellow-orange Flame particles at her fingertips giving away how very tightly wound the Bones Heiress was right now. The Ministry –especially the Auror Office– was traditional Bones Territory and whoever had done this had just stomped _hard_ on her family's generations of service.

"Lead on then," Tracy said when Theo failed to respond; apparently she was in charge. How did that happen?

Theo fell back beside Hannah as Susan took the lead beside Ginny; the Ward made encountering other people unlikely and Ginny needed to be at the front because she was the only person with Storm Flames in the party and there was nothing like Storm Flames for ripping Wards apart. Conversely, Wards made _with_ Storm Flames were practically indestructible because the Ward shredded and _ate_ any other magic that came into contact with it. Ginny had not been the only member of the Study Constellation to enjoy those tests.

As soon as the intrusive Ward was down everyone napping in their offices would be roused from their enforced complacency and if the Aurors were any good they'd sound the alarm at once; hopefully they'd be in time to help the others with whatever was going on down in the Department of Mysteries.

* * *

During the lift journey down to the bottom of the Ministry, down to the Department of Mysteries that predated the seat of Wizarding self-government by several centuries, Daphne did her best to breathe evenly and keep her mind on the situation at hand. What did they know, what was still unknown?

The known was unfortunately limited: she knew the capabilities of the team; knew they'd be getting an update from Draco soon; knew that so long as the combat pairs stuck together they were unlikely to be taken down even by superior numbers.

The unknown was more troubling. They didn't know how many Death Eaters were down here. The total of known Death Eaters at large was thirteen, not including Snape who was stuck at Hogwarts in a very delicate position: ten broken out of jail, the unknown who had abducted Rhea, Draco's father the Lord Malfoy and Theo's father the Lord Nott.

Daphne had deliberately made sure neither boy was in the team backing up Neville, so as not to precipitate anything considering both boys were still underage and therefore under said father's authority. However that meant there were nine of them potentially facing off against thirteen adult wizards. Soulfire gave their group the advantage, but just because they had it didn't mean using it openly was a good idea. What was known could be replicated after all.

The lift stopped and the automated announcement of, "the Department of Mysteries," rung out as the grilles slid open to reveal a short, stone-hewn corridor lit by flickering torches that ended in a black door.

"Let's wait here until Draco calls, shall we?" Daphne said firmly, catching Neville's arm. "It isn't even seven yet; we've got time."

Neville scowled thunderously but didn't disagree.

Nine people in a short corridor with no windows is distinctly claustrophobic, especially when one of them is so incredibly angry that their magic starts to project around their body in anticipation of casting really damaging spells at whoever sets them off. Daphne quietly resolved never to do this again while doing a more detailed check of each person present in her mind.

Roger Malone, Muggleborn and likely to be employed as Adviser to the Longbottom Family as soon as he graduated; Sun Flame and specialising in Charms, which he had a deft touch with. Roger had imagination, flare and enjoyed using basic Charms in unexpected ways in order to surprise people. That adding a hint of Sun to a Charm made it about ten times harder to cancel was a bonus and adding Sun Flames to an Animation Charm –of any kind– was just _asking_ to spend the next week running around trying to corral your possessions as they fled on little legs.

Luna Lovegood, with a Mist Affinity that was far too potent for her to control without help and sufficient imagination to be both versatile and highly dangerous with it; she wore her rollerblades everywhere and was quite brilliant in Battle Magic. Luna did not combine her Flames with Magic, preferring to duel directly with one or the other. She could switch methods on the fly though, which was very tricky to defend against.

Padma Patil, quiet, serene and graceful while possessing a sharp mind and sharper wit; she had a very minor talent in manifesting her Rain Flame and a remarkable aptitude for Arithmancy, which she had weaponised by specialising in time-delayed spells and traps. She thought four steps ahead of her opposition and was a complete nightmare if given time to prepare her field. She barely used Flames at all in combat, preferring to use them internally to smooth out her thinking and enhance her voice for a slight mesmerising effect.

Hermione Black-Granger was Padma's favoured combat partner and best friend; a Cloud with a strong secondary Storm Affinity she hadn't actually started trying to use yet, the Muggleborn was a precise and tactical duellist who however lacked the imagination to fight creatively despite knowing a truly incredible variety of spells. Her tendency to 'multiply' the power and range of her spells with her Flames however offset that very well, making her a very heavy hitter indeed. When faced with Hermione people tended to overlook Padma, which was why the two were so effective together, especially since practice had allowed both girls to refine their tactics so as to take advantage.

Millicent Bulstrode was a Lightning, but still too new to the group to have been taught anything more than theory. She was however a power duellist, capable of throwing out destructive spells in quick succession, and quite unexpectedly quick on her feet for a person of her bulk. That she could wield her axe one-handed gave her a truly marvellous intimidation factor and her fondness for getting up close and personal kept her opponents on their toes.

Blaise Zabini was interesting to watch when duelling; he wove around his opponent, dodging their spells and lunging in close to stab with his rapier. He almost exclusively used Elemental spells while duelling, specifically Water Magic which he was incredibly skilled with. If there was actual water anywhere on the battlefield Blaise had an automatic advantage and his fondness for using diffused Rain Flame to slow the reflexes of his enemies just made him more dangerous.

Anthony 'Leo' Black, bright and cheery and happy to play the fool, was not someone who looked like a fighter despite having the traditional Black height and striking good looks. He was a Sun, almost hyperactive in the way he bounced from one thing to the next, but when duelling his irrepressible cheer took a turn for the sinister; a person who could be cheerful while ricocheting spells everywhere and effortlessly avoiding friendly fire _had_ to have several screws loose. His combat style was chaotic, unpredictable and very, very fast. He might even have more weaponised origami on hand to attack with as well.

Neville Longbottom was what Daphne's mother would have called 'solid': he didn't dodge much, had plenty of brute power and very good shields, which made him a good partner for Roger, as the combination of nuisance Charms and sudden hard strikes that could pierce shields was hard to defend against. Neville used both his magic and his Forest Flames in combat, but separately: while throwing spells and holding up shields his Flames would seep into the surroundings, conjuring plants out of nowhere out of his opponent's range of vision. As he favoured dangerous magical plants over the more mundane ones, Neville was actually good enough to hold off two people at once all by himself.

Daphne knew her own skills well enough; she generally worked with Blaise, sticking to long-range spells chosen to complement her combat partner's tactics and unsettle her opponent. Daphne didn't use her Storm Flames externally very much; they were too destructive and insufficiently versatile for that. Internally however was another story.

Disintegration was the characteristic property of Storm Flames, but a slightly incoherent and rambling letter from Rhea –likely written while her friend was under the influence of pregnancy hormones– had led Daphne to ponder what the word actually _meant_. Disintegration… Dis-integration… the opposite of making whole or bringing together… taking apart.

Taking things apart did not have to be destructive or explosive. It could apply to theoretical things as well as solid objects and the theory _worked_: using the finest, thinnest wisp of Flames within herself made it easier to take apart her opponent's tactics in a fight, but also made learning spells easier as she could see all the components and how they fitted together. Her comprehension speed rocketed, her ability to plan soared and suddenly she had so many ideas for how the Constellation could work more efficiently. She had them implemented them to spectacular effect.

A gentle carillon chimed in the quiet; Daphne pulled out her mirror. Finally, Draco was getting in touch.

"Dee?"

"I can hear you, Draco." So could the others; Daphne had deliberately put the mirror on 'speaker', overriding the Secrecy Ward.

"Both Longbottoms are missing and the Healer on duty is dead; Aunt Andromeda is coordinating but the Aurors aren't answering the Floo. I'm going to call Dorea next; take care." The mirror went black again.

"Well, over to you Neville." Despite her Flame-enhanced analytical ability, Neville was still better at command decisions than she was. She could modify on the fly and take advantage of sudden openings but that was tactical, not strategy.

Neville stiffened his spine and marched up to the black door, Roger at his shoulder and the rest of the group falling into pairs behind him, except for Millicent who attached herself to Luna and Leo. It was time.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy was very, very sure that this was going to go badly. Being put in charge of Bella's crazy plan was definitely a punishment, as there was no way it was going to succeed the way Lady Lestrange thought it was. It was bad enough that he was enslaved to a lunatic revenant –being technically undead yet incarnated made his Lord such– but his business prospects were deteriorating, he hadn't seen his wife and son in nearly a year and the Blacks had so paired down the Dark Lord's support base that he, Severus, Nott, the new Lord Avery and Barty Crouch had been all that remained before his Master stormed Azkaban.

Barty Crouch had been a shock; Lucuis had thought him long dead, but it turned out his father had been hiding him in the Crouch family home under Imperius. As Barty seemed markedly less sane than Lucius remembered him being, the Lord Malfoy hadn't challenged the plausibility of his story. That Barty somehow managed to combine his fanatical loyalty to Lord Voldemort with a warm fondness for Dorea Black, the Lady Potter, was more proof that the last Crouch was an entire hamper short of a picnic.

Part of the reason Lucius was so certain this attempt to seize the prophecy his Lord was so obsessed with was going to fail was that Voldemort was growing increasingly irritated with Bellatrix's wailing and sulking over getting expelled from the Ancient and Noble House of Black due to the machinations of the 'blood-traitor' Sirius. Another part was that, rather than stash the catatonic Longbottoms somewhere out-of-the-way so they could be used as bargaining chips, Bella had taken out her frustrations on them until Alice's heart gave out and Frank was so near death he was unlikely to survive until the midnight deadline.

Severus had been keeping Lucius informed of his son's progress at school, and mentions of his son's peers had peppered those letters. The Longbottom Heir was one of these and Lucius got the impression that Severus considered the boy to be one of those rare Gryffindors who recognised the risks but charged in anyway; those lions were the dangerous ones, because they knew _exactly_ what was at stake. As it was, he considered it likely that even if the incapacitated Lord Longbottom survived the night, House Longbottom would be declaring Feud and Emnity against House Lestrange over the death of their Lady. Rodolphus wouldn't care –Azkaban had destroyed what little of his will his wife had not already crushed– but Rabastan might.

Lucius felt pity for Rabastan really: he had three children and a wife, all of whom were hiding from him. Though since they were hiding under the wing of House Black, at least there was a chance that House Lestrange would survive this debacle in some form of other. Rabastan probably wouldn't though.

* * *

The circular room full of identical doors was designed to confuse, as only one door at a time could be opened and in between times the doors would switch around, but one of Neville's great-uncles –_not_ Great-Uncle Algie– had been an Unspeakable and how the doors worked was not as secret as it perhaps should have been. Neville focused very hard on the mental image of Bellatrix Lestrange, visualising it and projecting it towards the Sorting Wards on the round room and when the doors stopped he marched forward and opened the door directly in front of him.

It was full of glittering light, sparkles bouncing off clocks of every size and shape, but Neville ignored it all in favour of storming straight ahead past the suspiciously empty desks –where were the Unspeakables anyway? – to another door that had slid open of its own accord as he entered the room. Bellatrix was ahead, through there.

Drawing his wand and quickly checking that the bracelet with its Flame gem was in its usual place around his wrist, Neville pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped through, his friends right behind him.

It looked like a store room, one larger even than the Come and Go Room when it was full of centuries of Hogwarts' clutter. But rather than being packed full of oddities and junk this room was full of dust, candles lit with blue flame and tiny glass orbs.

Prophecies, Neville realised; this was the room Dorea had mentioned once. The place where the prophecy supposedly relating to her was. He shivered, his reaction not entirely connected to the chill of the room.

"So, where now?" Roger murmured in his ear, careful to pitch the words so they didn't carry far.

Neville produced the letter from his pocket; under his eyes the ink twisted together then came apart to read 'the Hall of Prophecies, row 97, far end'.

"Row ninety-seven," he said quietly; "and this is probably a trap."

"Then I'll take Leo and Luna down row ninety-five and Hermione and Padma can go down row ninety-nine," Millie said calmly; "that way we won't all be bottled up in one place."

Neville nodded acceptance of her suggestion and they set off towards the right, where the larger numbers were. Everybody kept very quiet and alert, but Neville found himself wishing Tracy Davis were here; her senses were incredibly sharp and she would likely be able to tell him if he parents were here and if so, what kind of state they were in. She might even be able to tell him why in Merlin's name the Department was completely deserted, despite his great-uncle Alfred Gamp mentioning that several of his colleagues practically _lived_ down here… or the missing Unspeakables might be dead, courtesy of the invading Death Eaters.

Upon finding row ninety-seven, which looked exactly like all the other rows, the party silently divided up with Zee and Dee going ahead of Neville and Roger taking up the rear, Hermione and Padma taking the second row further ahead and Leo, Luna and Millie the second row back. Neville reminded himself of their orientation relative to the door they had entered by –getting cornered or lost would be _bad_ if things went wrong– then followed quietly behind the two Slytherins. Zee was still taller than he was, but he had passed Dee in height about a year back. Neville however didn't think he'd ever be taller than Zee, who was six foot three. Dee was only five foot six and slender enough to look shorter than she really was.

It really was suspiciously quiet.

* * *

Zee reached the end of the row first, taking up a position just outside the narrow corridor between shelves and to the left, leaving him plenty of space to draw and swing his sword. Daphne slid over to the right, eyes darting everywhere and constantly returning to the deep gloom of the alley before them. There were no candles lit there, which was suspect.

Glancing back at Neville, who was looking miserable with nerves, something odd caught Daphne's eye.

"Neville?"

"Dee?"

"There is an orb to your right, slightly above your eye level that is strangely dust-free."

Neville stepped back so as to get a better view and narrowed his eyes as he saw what she had: a prophecy orb lacking the thick coating of dust that blanketed the entire room. The lion rose on tiptoes and peered closer.

"It says, 'S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D, Dark Lord and question mark, Neville Longbottom," he said quietly. "Aren't those Dumbledore's initials?"

"They are," Zee said quietly, "and we have company."

Daphne turned to face the alley as eleven cloaked figures emerged from the shadows, wands pointing towards the four of them; clearly the other five were yet to be noticed.

"Now, Longbottom, pick up the orb and give it to me."

Neville turned slowly, raising an eyebrow in a manner that reminded Daphne forcibly of her lion friend's formidable grandmother.

"Lucuis Malfoy," he said coolly, "I would say it was a pleasure, except that it really is not. Where are my parents?"

A harsh female voice laughed bitterly from away to the left of the group. "Ooh, the ickle baby wants his mummy!"

Daphne ignored what could only be Bellatrix Lestrange in favour of focusing on Lord Malfoy. He had flinched ever so slightly when Neville asked that question.

"I'll give it to you when you give me my parents," Neville said.

"They're dead, aren't they," Daphne stated flatly, fingers gripping her wand tightly when Lord Malfoy failed to answer quite as swiftly as he should have.

There was a short and very tense pause.

"Well, Lord Malfoy?" Neville inquired gently and Daphne desperately wanted to flinch and the sheer _fury_ lacing those soft words. The hooded head of Draco's father bowed slightly.

"I am afraid we are at an impasse then," was all that Lucuis Malfoy actually said, but Daphne could read between the lines as clear as day. Lord and Lady Longbottom were dead.

That made Neville, Lord Longbottom, for all that he wouldn't be able to claim the title until he was seventeen unless he married before then, well legally at least. Magically speaking Neville had the Longbottom Family Magic now and had done since his father rattled out his last breath.

There was perhaps half a second in which Daphne felt Neville's Will gutter like a candle, then it was back, brighter and hotter than ever.

"I claim vengeance for the deaths of my Lord Father and Lady Mother," Neville said, serene as though he was commenting on the weather. Then he charged forwards between Daphne and Zee, Roger right behind him, and everything dissolved into chaos.


	59. Chapter 59

Beta'd by the busy InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of grief and battle **

Padma had been casting frantically and silently from the moment the Death Eaters emerged from the shadows, safely hidden behind Hermione's hastily erected Secrecy Ward. It was glaringly obvious that they weren't going to get out of this without a fight, so the sooner they got started the sooner they could escape. When Neville charged out of the shelves he triggered her first layer of traps, causing the shoddily-disillusioned Prewett Prank fireworks to explode at ear-burstingly close range. The noise, light and fire scattered the Death Eaters as they clutched at their ears or tried to extinguish their robes, enabling Padma and Hermione to dart out of the stacks and down the alley towards the exit, dragging Neville with them.

The silly lion struggled of course, but the combined efforts of a Rain and a Cloud were more than enough to immobilise him for a little while. Padma wasn't trying to stop him fighting after all: she just wanted to move to a more advantageous battlefield.

As soon as they were back in the room full of clocks Padma set Neville down again and stopped feeding Hermione her Rain Flames. The Indian girl did not have enough personal strength to paralyse someone as strong in their own Flames as Neville was, but if she fed Hermione what Tranquillity she had her best friend could Multiply it until the result was strong enough to hold. It was one of the moves they'd practiced until it was second nature and barely required any thought at all.

"Neville, that room was a trap," she said quickly, hoping to prevent a scene, "out here we can distract those who were not directly involved in your parents' deaths and you have plenty of room to work with."

Neville subsided, but Padma could still feel his Flames seeping into everything around them. "Fine. But Bellatrix is _mine_."

At that moment three Death Eaters burst into the room, their robes smoking and a flock of what looked like miniature pink, polka-dotted and bat-winged ant-eaters harrying them; Luna's work no doubt. Their masks had been knocked off, revealing two faces Padma recognised from the Ministry bounty posters –Antonin Dolohov and Robert Jugson– and a third that she could only identify due to its strong resemblance to one of her other friends.

Justinian Nott; this was Theo's father.

Padma did not allow the shock of recognition to hinder her, the Flame-induced Tranquillity of her mind allowing her to set the matter of identities and potential repercussions aside as her wand flicked and swished through the air, layering spells even as the three adults noticed the two girls standing firmly in the middle of the room. A cruel sneer twisted Dolohov's face as he idly blasted aside Luna's creations and advanced on them, disregarding Padma in order to focus on Hermione.

Everybody always looked at Hermione first, because Hermione made a point of being impossible to ignore. Padma suspected she was actually doing something with her Flames there, because her best friend had not used to have such an expressive and confrontational aura. Her temper used to be more even too, but the new and improved Hermione was far more sensible than the old one had been so Padma was not inclined to complain.

Hermione started off the fight by wordlessly firing off a neon blue spell that made Dolohov's eyes widen as he dived for cover; the explosion of shrapnel as it gouged a crater in the stone wall behind him made it quite clear to Padma that her friend was taking a page from her adopted family's book and playing for keeps. Nott was down, stone splinters piercing his body like arrows but Dolohov and Jugson had managed to shield in time, though both had been blasted off their feet. Neville, secure behind layered shields and a Concealment Charm, was untouched.

Padma layered a few more subtle nuisance Wards into their surroundings, ensured that none of their friends would be entangled in them then grabbed Hermione's arm and fled out into the circular room of doors. Soon the other Death Eaters would be showing up and in order to survive until reinforcements arrived they needed their enemies strung out, disorientated and preferably completely disabled.

Dolohov, visibly irate at having been made a fool of by an 'uppity mudblood', chased after them, Jugson at his heels. However once they were through the door it slammed behind them, the room spun and Padma quickly pulled open a door at random, Hermione following behind her.

The room they had entered looked rather like a courtroom hewn from stone, save that rather than a chair for the accused there was a strange archway at the centre. It was unsettlingly quiet, which Padma ignored in favour of settling in to the task of casting again. Hermione did likewise, the two of them working in tandem to secure the room against anyone incapable of calling up Soulfire and prepare for the inevitable confrontation.

* * *

As soon as Neville was rushed off by Hermione and Padma –doubtless in search of a position to fortify and secure because when it came to defending an entrenched position nobody could beat those two– Blaise advanced aggressively, drawing his sword and activating its passive Enchantments so as to make it an effective weapon for Wizarding combat. Confident that Dee would be just fine partnering Roger for a little while, the Italian began a quiet chant under his breath as he dove into the disorganised posse of Death Eaters and set about cutting the group into more manageable chunks.

Three of the Dark Idiot's minions had spotted that Neville was getting away and had given chase, leaving eight behind for the rest of the group to deal with. Eight against six wasn't bad odds at all, Blaise felt as the magic he was shaping manifested into a sinuous, distinctly crocodilian-looking serpent of almost transparent bluish light that flowed into being and twisted around him, deflecting spells back at his attackers. The Italian then infused the minor Water Elemental with Rain Flames, enabling it to absorb as well as deflect spells to enhance its defensive properties.

There was no water in this room at all, well none that was easily accessible, so he was currently limited in how much water he could call on unless he risked exhausting himself. Next time he was going to bring his own water, possibly in an enchanted Ever-Full Flask.

The Death Eaters had split into three groups: two of them were chasing Roger as he hared off after where Neville had been taken; three had fled in the opposite direction, pursued by Luna, Leo and Millicent and the last three remained facing himself and Dee.

Speaking of Dee…

Blaise spun around and used his flamberge to deflect a spell aimed at his pretty blonde duelling partner's back, then easily expanded the range of the Elemental guarding him to protect Dee as well.

"So, names?" he asked his friend as all five present paused to adjust to the change in circumstances.

"Skinny is Rabastan Lestrange," Dee said blandly. "Shorty is Carl Mulciber. The older one is Augustus Rookwood." Augustus Rookwood was tall and broad-shouldered, the hood of his robes ripped off to show his Death Eater mask framed by greasy gray hair. The other two men stiffened slightly at being so easily identified despite having somehow managed to keep the hoods of their badly singed robes up.

"Do you think Hildegard will be angry with me if I manage to kill her father?" Blaise mused idly, quickly going through what he knew of those three men and their respective Family specialties.

"I think she'd understand; I know Jennet doesn't give a damn about her uncle either way so we're safe there," Dee replied, her slightly abstracted tone giving away how hard she was having to concentrate to prevent her Flames from getting away from her. "It's Rookwood we have to worry about. Rookwoods are like cockroaches; _evil_ cockroaches who mock your best efforts."

"I'll take that as a compliment, Miss Greengrass," Augustus Rookwood said hoarsely, his tone betraying genuine amusement. "Reginald and Atalanta's oldest, I believe?" He raised his wand. "I look forward to seeing whether Barty was accurate in his assessment of your capabilities."

Shifting his blade into a more appropriate position and getting a better grip on his wand, Blaise dove once more into battle.

* * *

Millie knew the three Death Eaters she, Leo and Luna were pursuing included Lucius Malfoy and hoped that Draco wouldn't be _too_ cross with her when she killed him. She wasn't sure who the other two were, but by the sound of their voices they were youngish. Not recent Hogwarts graduates, as most of those had avoided forced recruitment and potential family pressure by throwing themselves on the mercy of the Blacks, but not old enough to be parents to her school-friends either. That was good; nobody she cared about would be upset when they died.

The three of them were gradually forcing the Death Eaters to retreat, step by reluctant step, as Luna bombarded them with her peculiar and aggravating conjured animals, Leo blitzed then with spellfire and razor-sharp origami and Millie herself attacked head-on in short rushes, swinging her axe and forcing them to dive out of the way or risk losing limbs; she and Leo just needed to work out the timing so that their enemies couldn't dodge them both at once, but the space they were working with was just too narrow for that to happen.

The statuesque and curvaceous fifth-year was completely devoted to the friends she had tentatively made towards the end of her third year at Hogwarts, as unlike Pansy or the other Pureblood girls she was forced to 'make nice' with during the summer holidays they did not belittle her for her heritage and appearance. They accepted her, helped her, supported her and wanted her to do things she enjoyed. They'd even been the ones to get her into Combat Class in fourth year, which Millie was never going to be able to pay them back for because it meant _that_ _much_ to her. To be allowed –encouraged! – to fight was a dream come true and she _loved_ it.

Adult Wizards with experience in terrorism or not, the three Death Eaters clearly had no experience in fighting as a team and the narrow corridor along the edge of the shelves of prophecies was too narrow for them to spread out and retaliate separately, so the teenagers currently had the upper hand. Millie didn't think they'd be keeping it unless they managed to back the grown-ups into a corner, but being forced to run away from students would be a blow to their Pureblood egos which would make then reckless.

Millie was a halfblood, considered slightly less than that actually as her father's mother had been a Muggle and her own mother was a squib. She wasn't Muggleborn, but she wasn't far off in the eyes of her more bigoted peers. Being able to drive three grown Wizards into retreat with an axe and some judiciously placed spells gave her a warm feeling of accomplishment.

Then she spotted the door in the wall a few yards behind the three cloaked wizards and snarled quietly; there went their advantage. She had no idea what was in that room, but whatever was there likely included a lot more open space to spread out in. They needed to finish this quickly!

Millie lunged, but Mr Calm –as she had mentally dubbed the Death Eater who was coping best with being herded by a bunch of teens– was clearly familiar with the department and aware of his surroundings despite wearing a stupidly dramatic hooded cloak and put up a shield so he could yank the door open and escape through it. Mr Angry –the Death Eater who was taking his humiliation very personally indeed– seemed inclined to linger, but Lord Malfoy dragged him along and Millie dashed after them, Luna and Leo right behind her.

The sixteen-year-old's first thought after passing through the door was, _why am I floating?_ Her next thought was less of a thought and more of a reaction as she dived sideways to knock Luna away from the curse headed her way after Angry shouted,

"Avada Kedavra!"

He didn't get a chance to throw another spell because Leo proved once again that the Blacks were all the best possible kind of crazy and bombarded the three Death Eaters with a confusing barrage of Hexes and target-seeking origami; Millie really needed to find out how he did that. The Death Eaters scattered, barely visible in the vast dimness of the room which didn't seem to have walls, floor or ceiling but looked like a model of the solar system, complete with planets against a backdrop of stars.

Millie had to suppress a hysterical giggle at how worried she'd been about the Death Eaters having space to spread out; this was rather more literal than she'd intended. Moving through this very odd environment was not as impossible as it seemed though.

However the sheer size and the fact that the door had dropped them somewhere in the middle meant that getting out might be problematic and that an ambush could come from any direction. The darkness also meant that the Death-Eaters' cloaks provided excellent camouflage.

"Luna-bell?" Millie asked quietly.

"Yes Millie?"

"Could you lend Leo and me your turquoise until we get out of here?" the older girl asked seriously. "I think we'll need it more than you."

Luna's wide, silvery eyes went distant as she pondered the implications; Millie hoped the fifteen-year-old would agree. Luna without her turquoise was unsettling to deal with, but at least that way they wouldn't have to worry about being ambushed.

"Okay Millie; do you want my earrings?" Luna said agreeably after a second or two.

"Yes please; your earrings and one of the necklaces, as your ring won't fit me." Luna's fingers were far more delicate than Millie's.

"I'll take the ring and the other necklaces then," Leo said cheerfully. "There's plenty of space here for all manner of creatures, Luna-bell; just think of how much fun you can have!"

Leo, as always, had effectively destroyed any tension there might have been and Luna giggled happily as she handed over the semi-precious stones that kept her Flames in check. Wearing turquoise would diminish the effect the petite blonde's illusions would have on the other two, but they would still have to pay close attention. Even knowing that Luna's creations weren't real didn't mean they couldn't affect you, be it by upsetting your footing or muddling your mind.

Millie hefted her axe again and grinned wickedly as the emptiness around her warped and twisted into a new form; this was going to be _fun_.

* * *

Roger was really worried about his best friend because Neville was quite rightly devastated by the loss of his parents, even though he'd never really known them, so probably wasn't anywhere near his best for this fight. However Roger also knew better than to try and get Neville to change his mind because the only person who could do that was Rhea and she wasn't here. Besides, Neville has sworn a magical oath and despite being Muggleborn Roger knew those were important and binding, so he had to make the best of the situation and support his friend as much as he could.

So here he was, using the many, many clocks in the room they were in as targets for a variety of useful Charms so as to make Neville harder to target directly and give his friend the time and space to make a proper showing of his skills.

Bellatrix was a pain to deal with, taking a scattergun approach and prone to taunting as she fired off spell after spell without apparent effort, while Rodolphus was utterly single minded and completely ignored Neville, instead attempting to corner Roger as his wife had ordered him to. Roger suspected he could outlast the Lord Lestrange if it came to it –Sun Flames were an excellent source of additional energy– but didn't want it to come to that. So he went on dodging the very nasty curses Rodolphus was sending his way and Charming more and more of his surroundings into motion.

Roger finally managed to fell the former Azkaban inmate with a determined grandfather clock, knocking Rodolphus into a rack of Time-Turners, and dashed over to where Neville and Bellatrix were having at it so he could provide his friend with proper backup.

Seeing how freakishly resilient the female was proving to be, Roger had to wonder if she was somehow accessing her Flames for internal reinforcement; Bellatrix certainly had the Will for it. Neville's heavy spellwork was being deflected or dodged and she was casting back curses with a manic disregard for absolutely everything, Roger's Charmed clocks and furniture barely giving her pause, merely prompting her to cast sweeping Blasting spells every now and then but otherwise not hindering her at all. Not even triggering the occasional trap left behind by Padma –Merlin that girl was scary– gave her pause for more than a second.

"I've killed better wizards than you, Longbottom!" the Dark witch laughed cruelly as she fired off another wordless spell, "Though your parents don't really qualify; they didn't exactly fight back!"

Neville's eyes narrowed, natural hazel battling with fiery golden green as his mouth compressed to a thin, pale line and his wand flashed with incredible speed. Spell after spell flew at Bellatrix, all of which were deflected, dodged or outright cancelled, but behind the cruel witch a desk had sprouted and was shifting ominously. Roger was standing beside his friend now, deflecting what he could and dodging as much as possible, but he didn't feel like he was making much of a difference.

"I wonder if you'll hold out as long as they did before you break, little boy!" Bellatrix crowed. "Your mother did _so_ much better than your father there; she went on calling for you for _hours_ after he had completely given up!"

Neville abruptly flicked his free hand forward with a sharp twist of the wrist and the desk behind Bellatrix exploded into an animated tree, a branch as thick as Roger's thigh slamming into the side of her ribs and propelling her through the air and through a closed door into the entrance hall with a crash of splintering wood. Roger was pretty sure he'd heard the crack of breaking bone among the creak and groan of the animated tree. The desk-turned-tree still whipped and creaked ominously as it rooted itself more firmly in the floor, reminding the teenager of the Whomping Willow that stood on Hogwarts' grounds. Neville clearly wasn't thinking things through clearly if he was picking things less… final than some of the more exotic plants his Forest Flames could bring into being.

Then his friend took off towards the shattered door, furiously pursuing the witch who had tortured and now murdered his parents, so Roger hurried after him.

* * *

Millie emerged from the room full of stars and planets and into the circular entrance chamber in a distinctly less than graceful fashion: tumbling backwards and sideways to avoid being cursed full in the face. Letting Luna have her way with reality had been devastatingly effective in putting Angry out of their misery –Leo had likely shredded several important joints with his paper shuriken while she had taken a chunk out of his shoulder as the extensive space had enabled them to finally work out their timing– but Calm had proven startlingly resilient to the experience and Malfoy had seemed slightly less affected than the other two. Malfoy hadn't coped as well as Calm despite that though, and had lost his cloak, mask and left shoe while trying to get away; the shoe had taken an origami barrage to the heel and his sock was slightly bloody from it. Millie knew that because some of Luna's creations generated their own light, which had made targeting the man slightly easier.

As she rolled across the floor Millie saw Malfoy stumble out after her, eyes wide and rolling crazily like a startled horse. Bracing herself she fired off a few silent spells, all of which he dodged by darting through an adjacent door. Well, doorway: the door was gone entirely, leaving a splintered frame through which the sounds of battle and spellfire could be heard. Luna and Leo then tumbled through the open door as well, ducking under a lilac-white barrage and darting sideways after Malfoy. Millie quickly rose to her feet; Calm was the only person who could have done that and considering Luna had most of her necklaces back on again, Leo had clearly decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

Gripping her axe and wand firmly, Millie waited for the Death Eater to emerge. She still didn't know his name, had not been able to recognise his face at all, but he very clearly was as nutty as Bellatrix what with the manic, fanatical glee he took in Cursing them while critiquing and praising their strategy by turns.

"Ah, Miss Bulstrode," he said brightly, blue eyes glittering through a dishevelled mop of fair hair in a freckled face that was pink from exertion. "It's so lovely to see that my efforts weren't wasted."

"I'm pretty sure I've never seen your face before," Millie said as several loose ends came together in her mind and a tentative theory emerged, "but might you be my fourth-year Defence professor?"

The Death Eater actually laughed. "Why indeed yes, Miss Bulstrode; my congratulations on your acuity! I must confess I had a wonderful time teaching you all, but my prior commitment to my Master meant I had to leave you all behind. How is dear Lady Potter fairing? Has she bought a new wand yet?"

This lunatic was the one who abducted Rhea! Millie sent a series of quick but low-effort spells in his direction then lunged forwards with her axe as he blocked them. The crazy darted out of the way, smile still firmly in place.

"Now then, Miss Bulstrode, there's no need for that kind of behaviour!"

Millie raised an eyebrow. "Who are you, my mother? This is the _perfect_ time for this kind of behaviour!"

The older wizard laughed again. "Oh, you're right, so it is! I suppose I'd better make more of an effort then; do your best not to die, Miss Bulstrode!"

"My name," Millie said as she dodged, ducked and parried the sudden rapid flurry of Curses, "is _Millie_!"

"Delighted to be on first-name terms with you, Millie-dear!" her lunatic opponent carolled back. "I'm Barty!"

Millie launched a barrage of prank Hexes that she'd cast so many times since starting Hogwarts that she barely needed to think about them. One of them actually hit, giving 'Barty' a head full of octopus tentacles rather than hair and blocking his vision. Millie took advantage to dart closer to the empty doorway Leo and Luna had vanished through, keeping her back close to the walls and making sure not to look away from her opponent. Fun as he was to fight, he was the enemy.

Then another door was blasted open, this one by a tidal wave of greenish water that swept across the round Entrance Chamber and through the open doorway on the other side. Spellfire ceased abruptly as the inimitable sounds of people panicking floated through the air and as the water flowed away Millie had to grin, quickly flicking off a spell to dry her soaked robes.

Say what you wanted to about Zee, but he certainly had style.

The Italian stepped through the ruined doorway, Dee right behind him and both entirely dry.

"Who were you fighting that you felt the urge to drown them?" Millie had to ask, her eyes not moving from Barty, whose hair was back to normal but looked slightly dazed by the sudden tsunami and was on his hands and knees amongst the mess carried out from the room Zee and Dee had just left.

"Augustus Rookwood," Zee drawled, spinning his sword as the water pooling on the floor rose once more to do his bidding; "Mulciber was pathetic, Lestrange the younger is still wrestling with a brain-thing that wants to eat his face but Mr Former-Unspeakable needs to learn when to lie down and die."

"Who's your friend?" Dee asked, red-flecked eyes darting over at the sodden blond Death Eater who had recovered slightly and was scrabbling around for his wand in the wreckage.

"Dee, Zee, this is Barty, who says he taught us Defence in our fourth year," Millie said dryly, flicking her wand to cast a wordless _Accio_ and summoning the missing wand to herself. Barty froze, crazed eyes focusing on her with the intensity of a cornered wolf.

"Barty," Dee said musingly. "Barty… Do you know, he looks a _lot_ like my late great-aunt Regina, who married Bartemius Crouch Senior."

A vein throbbed in the Death Eater's temple but he did not move.

"But then again, you would," Dee said, her voice as gentle and implacable as a late winter snowfall. "She was your mother, wasn't she, Barty Crouch?"

Millie paused. "Rhea's dead cousin Barty?"

"Not so dead after all, but yes," Dee agreed. "Her betrayer or not, she'll be delighted to hear you're still alive, you know."

"I serve my Master in all things," Barty said softly, voice fanatically intense.

"Did you know that my Lady Potter is your Lord's heir?" Dee mused. "No? Well, she is. When he died fourteen years ago she inherited _everything_ and resurrected or not, it is still all hers. She's merely allowing your Lord to make use of it for a while so as to avoid forcing the Goblins to untangle it."

Barty made no move to show he'd either heard or understood, but his stillness was very telling. A flash of red light later and he was lying unconscious on the floor courtesy of Zee.

Millie pondered what she'd just heard then decided it didn't matter: Rhea was still Rhea, no matter whose heir she happened to be. Then yet _another_ door exploded and Bellatrix Lestrange was flung the entire width of the room, right through the open doorway Zee's tidal wave has gone through, and all three of them joined Neville and Roger in dashing after her.

The fight wasn't over yet!


	60. Chapter 60

Beta'd by the incognito InsaneScriptist.

I shall specify here that all non-canon Varia appearances, traditions and details in this story -though there are none in this chapter specifically- are the joint creations of myself and InsaneScriptist, so many elements may well be repeated in her stories. This is **not** plagerism, so please be nice. Thank-you!

* * *

**Of arrivals and departures **

Despite her father's protests that she was a new mother with two eight-week-old children and should really not be throwing herself headlong into battle, Dorea refused to be left behind. By the end of her pregnancy she had been getting incredibly irritated by the enforced bed rest and twitchy from developing cabin fever; the first thing she did after recovering from giving birth was sprawl across the terrace in her nightgown, soaking up the sunshine and greedily breathing in the fresh spring air. The last fortnight of her pregnancy had not been fun for anyone except possibly the house-elves in charge of clearing up all the crockery she had deliberately thrown at her bedroom walls in her frustration. The people she had tossed the crockery at had enjoyed it far less, for all they had dodged the worst of it: shrapnel from the inevitable impact with the wall was harder to avoid.

Since then she'd spent most of every day outdoors, her children tucked up in the perambulator and pushed around the gardens of Black Manor either by Dorea herself or the nanny, Sofia Zabini. Dorea was breastfeeding her babies, so she couldn't go far from them until they were old enough to go more than a few hours between feeds. That she hadn't been able to do more than catnap for a few hours at a time since little Marius and Cassie had been born as a result of this decision had not done anything for her temper, but that irritability had thus far only been directed at the hordes of in-laws traipsing through her home to coo over the _principino e principessina_, her own blood relatives, the staff and the continued absence of husband.

Dorea had done quite a bit of target shooting –with a Family wand rather than her handguns since she had limited ammunition and no way of getting more– to deal with the hurt and resentment she was feeling over her husband's continued absence. Well, so as to take the edge off at least, since violence had never solved this kind of problem. Forgiving her husband was _hard_, but forgiving herself for not looking for him yet and Zia Angelique for her limited progress was harder. She very much wanted to go to Italy immediately and join the search now her babies were born, but that would mean abandoning her newborns for the _possibility_ of finding her husband a little faster and she refused to do that, even though part of her desperately wanted to.

She was also seriously considering moving into Potter Manor, just so as to have space that was _hers_ even though she'd inevitably have to share it with house-elves, staff, attendants and Rence. Much as she loved her father, living with him while she was struggling with being a single mother just wasn't working. That she'd had to remind him that she was an adult, a Lady and _not_ under his authority before dashing off to help _her_ friends in the bowels of the Ministry was more evidence that a bit of distance might be just the thing. The continued absence of her husband meant her father was still thinking of her as his little girl and not as a married Lady in her own right.

She stepped through the Floo just in time to see Susan, Ginny, Trey, Theo and Hannah hurry into the Ministry Atrium and hear an alarm start to wail. Nodding hurriedly at the friends she'd not seen face-to-face in months, Dorea fell in step beside them, Rence at her heels, as they all hurried towards the lifts.

With her were Vincenzo and Maurizio Zabini, her cousin-in-law Graziano's sons, both fully adult and exceedingly combat-capable. Both had been visiting Black Manor when Sally-Anne called her on the Mirror about Neville's parents and had promptly volunteered to back her up. Both clearly considered her going on the offensive to retrieve her people to be completely normal and expected, which was very gratifying. She was liking her in-laws more and more, for all that they were legion and invading her family's home at all hours.

Standing in the lift, one hand on her sword hilt and the phoenix feather scar on the other tingling in anticipation, Dorea sincerely hoped there'd be someone left for her to fight. She had a lot of aggression that needed bleeding off.

* * *

Hermione had decided that she didn't like combat. Oh, sparring was great fun, a fantastic challenge and trial of her abilities that enabled her to test out various theories and strategies with her friends, but actual violent confrontations with people who wanted her maimed, if not dead? Not her thing. Not because she wasn't _good_ at it, she amended privately as she side-stepped a sickly yellow curse and Hexed her opponent –Dolohov– into silence, but because it made her blood burn with the urge to slaughter indiscriminately and beat out her opponents' brains on the stones of the floor beneath her feet, which was an unacceptable loss of control. She could behave herself better than that.

She was not a murderer or a psychopath; she would not allow those feelings to rule her. So in future it would probably be wise to avoid violent confrontations of this kind, so as to prevent accidents. Accidents of the lethal variety for others and potentially herself as well; magical fights were not the time or place to go into a berserker rage and break people's faces in, no matter how satisfying it would be.

However in the meantime, faced as she was by criminals, killers and scum of the worst sort, it was best that she get used to those feelings so that she could steer them to her liking and learn to not be overwhelmed. Keeping a cool head was one of the cornerstones of victory in combat, regardless of how serious you were about killing your opponent.

Behind her Padma was laying still more traps, across the room and up the wide stone levels Luna and Leo were double-teaming Lord Malfoy and down by the stone arch with its ragged curtain Jugson lay face down and still, cocooned in woven filaments of stone steeped in Rain Flames. Hermione didn't know if he was alive or not –Rain Flames could very well tranquillise a person to death if not carefully monitored– and didn't really care. She and Padma had whittled their pursuers down from three to one and it was a significant achievement. It might actually be a worthwhile use of her time to take her NEWTs a year early after all.

Dolohov dodged the spells she hurled at him in rapid succession then slashed his wand down, sending a long purple spell her way. Hermione rolled sideways, taking Padma with her, then rose swiftly to her feet and carried on casting as the spell passed harmlessly through the space where she'd been and hissed on the stone behind her like acid. She'd not seen anything like _that_ before; possibly a Family Curse?

Then there was a rushing sound all of Zee's friends had come to recognise in combat –fast-moving water headed their way– and Hermione bounded further up the stone steps around the edge of the room, Padma shielding their backs, just in time to miss being swamped by a tidal wave of green that smelled slightly chemical. Clearly the Unspeakables had been keeping something in tanks and Zee had taken advantage. It may not necessarily have been water, but it was liquid and had a watery component and that had clearly been enough for Zee to make use of.

Dolohov had looked around rather than chase directly after the two teenage girls, which had been a very bad idea since he'd not managed to get up high enough to avoid being swept away. Malfoy however was still above the water level, for the time being at least. Strangely enough the water seemed to be draining away, despite there not being anywhere in the room for it to _go_. Hermione watched the surface attentively, leaving the task of fortifying their position to Padma, and noticed with interest that there was an eddy forming at the centre of the room, over where the archway was.

The archway that went nowhere, yet seemed to actually lead _somewhere_ if the water current was any indication.

A flash in the corner of her eye had her raising a triple-strength Shield without even thinking; what was she doing, woolgathering when there were still enemies at large? The spell pressed against her Shield rather than dissipating, but it took a mere flick of her wand to reverse the Shield's curvature and send the unknown spell rebounding back at its caster.

The Death Eater ducked, shoulder-length grey hair plastered flat against his head and neck, his robes completely sodden. Straightening up again, Hermione was given a good look at her new opponent's gaunt but substantial frame and the self-deprecating smile on his face; Augustus Rookwood looked just like his picture in the papers.

"Miss Black-Granger; sharpest witch of your generation, or so I hear." The smile widened. "Let's see if you're as good as you think you are."

Hermione felt her lips thin out into a parody of a grin. "I'm certainly better than Dolohov thought I was." A challenge had been issued; she couldn't really refuse now, could she?

* * *

Sirius had realised as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he should never have tried to tell his daughter that she couldn't go and help her friends, but by then it had been too late and she had given him a right telling-off, Lily style, before marching off and leaving through the Floo before he and the rest of the group were ready.

He would have been more worried about her abrupt departure had he not known that Rence would be right behind her, alongside two of the Zabinis who were invading the Manor at all hours to coo over the new heir to their tiny but highly influential magical nation. It had got to the point that Dorea had organised a house-elf rotation to let them in or out every other hour, because getting them through the Wards was otherwise impossible. Sirius had managed to remember the first thirty or so names, but after that faces and names had started to blend together and he no longer had a clue who _any_ of his daughter's visitors were or their degree of relation to her still-absent husband. The in-laws were distressingly endless in number and confusingly similar in appearance.

He arrived in the Ministry Atrium to the sound of an alarm and the more subtle sound of a lift rattling down towards the lower levels; as he had left barely a minute behind Dorea, that was probably her going down. Summoning another lift, Sirius shifted impatiently from foot to foot as beside him Dawn stood still with a faint smile on her face and Patricia tapped her wand against her sleeve, the latter keen to get down to where her baby brother Leo was so she could curse into oblivion any Death Eater who might have damaged so much as a hair on his head.

It didn't bother Sirius that his backup was entirely female: both his nieces were ridiculously competent adult witches and a credit to House Black.

The lift arrived, Sirius darted inside and pressed the button for Level Nine and then he was stuck waiting again as the rattling lift slowly descended into the depths on the Ministry. He hoped Dorea's friends were all still alive; his daughter may have worded her intentions as 'backing up my friends' but Sirius was well aware that a great many highly capable witches and wizards had been murdered by Death Eaters in the last war. No matter how confident and skilful, Dorea's friends were still Hogwarts students and had no experience of any kind of combat beyond practice duels and weapons' training. They didn't even have the advantage of numbers!

When the lift _finally_ reached the right floor and the doors opened, Sirius hurried out and down the torch-lit, stone-hewn corridor to the door leading to the Department of Mysteries' antechamber. Pushing through, he paused even as the doors spun around them.

The floor of the antechamber was strewn with splintered wood, stone and broken glass and there was an unconscious Death Eater lying over to one side, face down and soaked to the skin. Three of the doors spinning around him were in fact open doorways with shattered frames, giving brief, dizzying glimpses at the rooms beyond them. Which room the fighting was going on in was however clear: through _that_ open door were flashes of spellfire and quite a bit of shouting.

Ignoring the insensate blond man lying face-down in the rubble, Sirius dashed towards the noise as soon as the walls stopped moving, his nieces right behind him.

* * *

As soon as Dorea entered what the Unspeakables called the Death Chamber she had instantly been drawn into the fight going on between Neville and Bellatrix Lestrange. Neville had Roger as backup and she herself had Rence, but even so the fight was on pretty even footing. Hermione and Padma were duelling Augustus Rookwood alongside Ginny and Theo –the former Unspeakable was steadily losing ground– Susan and Hannah had joined Leo and Luna in battling Lucius Malfoy and Trey had paired up with Millie to fight Antonin Dolohov alongside Zee and Dee.

The battle-pairs idea that Dee had come up with all those months ago had really paid off: everyone was working effectively, using teamwork to off-set their lack of experience and whatever skill differences existed between her friends and the Death Eaters. The two Zabinis she and Rence had arrived with were not partaking in this particular melee, having decided instead to locate the missing Death Eaters and ensure they wouldn't be causing trouble. Dorea suspected the two men also intended to indulge in a spot of shameless theft, but wasn't really bothered. If the Department had better security this would never have happened in the first place.

However the fight was on and Dorea had to keep almost her entire attention on Bellatrix, so furiously and destructively was the half-mad former Black duelling, though she was aware enough to have noticed that the other three Death Eaters were all struggling to keep up with their opponents despite nobody actually using Flames to attack with. Hermione had used the occasional power-cast but that was mostly in shielding when she didn't recognise a spell headed her way and couldn't dodge it.

The Lady Potter shifted to avoid two more curses, threw up a Shield then launched a few curses back as Rence stepped forward to parry and deflect the Lady Lestrange's next few spells aimed in their direction with his kite shield. Off to their left Roger was controlling a small whirlwind of rubble and transfigured junk to intercept the Curses headed Neville's way as the furious lion bombarded Bellatrix with all manner of Hexes, Curses and Jinxes. None of them were connecting, but the gaunt, mad-eyed woman was certainly being kept on her toes and her face was twisted into a rictus of hatred.

Her father had told her that Bellatrix was fond of taunting those she fought, but there was no evidence of that now. Though it might have something to do with her being sopping wet from being launched down the stone tiers into the thigh-high puddle at the bottom around the Veil –which was barely knee-high now and still emptying– and the distinctly darker stain across the right side of her ribcage. It was possible to convert pain into spell energy, especially with Dark Magic, so that was likely what Bellatrix was doing considering that otherwise she would probably be sprawled on the stone and gasping for breath. It wasn't a good however: the female Death Eater would likely puncture her own lung at this rate, not that Dorea actually cared. It would be an anti-climactic end to the feared witch though.

Dorea was fully in the flow when her father joined in the fight against Bellatrix, which threw them all off slightly as now they had to be more careful about where they deflected spells because her father not having active Soulfire meant they couldn't sense him well enough to avoid him; predictably, the escaped convict noticed and instantly took advantage, driving them all down the tiers until they got their momentum back, by which point they were all calf-deep in semi-opaque green water at the very bottom of the room, around the Veil. Roger quickly took advantage of the water to Charm some of it into flying water balloons without an actual balloon bit, which was silly but effective as they exploded in big bursts of bright colour and forced a pause in the fight.

Dorea quickly moved past her father with Rence so that he wasn't between them and Neville and Roger –that was a bad place to be due to ricochets and deflected spells– then quickly started casting again, this time focusing heavily on Potter Transfiguration and Alchemy.

Alchemy was not just about melding Potions with Transfiguration, but also a valid combat art, if a highly difficult one to learn but bed rest had given her the time and the inclination to learn, especially the minor alterations. Transfiguration merely altered the form of a thing; Alchemy changed the _nature_ of a thing. A block of stone Transfigured into water could be changed back with the flick of a wand, but stone Alchemically transformed into water really _was_ water and could only be turned back into stone through a completely different Alchemical procedure.

Minor Alchemical modifications to the nature of things were not hard: water into alcohol for instance was very simple and rather quick. Note that this was water into pure alcohol, not wine: wine was a mixture of a great many highly complex substances and appropriately much harder to create. Pure alcohol on the other hand was very basic, so Dorea was turning some of the water around her into it and launching it at Bellatrix in an attempt to either set her on fire or seriously inhibit her ability to duel; either was fine, Dorea wasn't picky.

She then sent a sweeping arc of conjured fire over at the madwoman, which did actually manage to set Bellatrix's hair on fire for a few seconds before the mad witch doused it, making her father laugh.

Unfortunately, being laughed at by the man who had cut her off from her birth family just made Lady Lestrange angrier and she screeched like a banshee before unleashing a dizzying barrage of spells at him in every colour of the rainbow.

The Lord Black blocked, deflected and ducked, still sniggering but having to keep moving so as to avoid being overwhelmed. Dorea quickly picked up her casting, hoping to call back some of Bellatrix' attention to herself, but the former Black was utterly focused on her father and all but ignored the four teens.

Neville promptly recognised the opportunity and charged _forwards_, Roger at his heels, but as he entered close range Dorea saw her father fail to block fast enough; the navy blue spell hit him full in the chest, knocking him backwards–

–to trip over a prone, bound body lying right in front of the Veil–

–and fall through the archway, vanishing completely.


	61. Chapter 61

Beta'd by the bellicose InsaneScriptist.

I am almost out of chapters again, so this story will be going on pause once again until I have a sufficient buffer. There will be one more after this one and no more for some time.

* * *

**Of confrontations and prophecy **

Neville cast _Expulso_ at Bellatrix Lestrange at close range, far too close for her to dodge. She did just manage to bring her wand up to block but was thrown violently backwards and up a few tiers just the same, her head slamming hard into the stone. The new Lord Longbottom was about to give chase when a scream distracted him.

"Papa? _Papa!_"

Spinning around, Neville saw Rhea staring in horror at the stone archway with its fluttering veil, her face white and her sword slipping from the fingers of her right hand. Her father, the Lord Black, was nowhere to be seen and Neville had an awful feeling that he wasn't the only orphan in the room now.

"_Papa!_" Rhea screamed again, Rence catching her sword with his wand hand and stepping sideways so she couldn't go any closer to the fluttering veil. Neville winced as his favourite cousin leaned her head against her knight's shoulder and hiccupped once, the sound choked and horrible.

There was a bark of bitter laughter and Rhea spun around, a ball of crackling orange flames that weren't quite Soulfire igniting in her left hand as she faced Bellatrix.

"Dead," the Lady Lestrange gasped smugly. "Miss your daddy, do you, wittle girlie?"

Rhea threw the fireball, which soared through Bellatrix' shield with the hiss that Neville usually associated with Storm Flames eating through Warding and carved a sliver off the woman's shoulder as she dived frantically out of its way. It impacted with the stone behind the Lady Lestrange with a sound Neville could only describe as 'whumph', and as the smoke cleared it revealed a two-foot-deep crater in the granite; those Flames were _not_ Rhea's Sky Flames. Bellatrix, her left arm hanging limply, was already scrambling up the steps towards the exit.

"Get back here and _die!_" Rhea shrieked, the fury twisting her face making her look altogether too much like the woman she was chasing after as another fireball ignited in her hand and was launched upwards. Neville gave chase, knowing that Rence probably wouldn't make it as he had a shield, a sword and a wand he was juggling. As he darted up the steps somebody else fell in step behind him; it was Zee, looking more worried than angry.

The two of them caught up with Rhea at the lift, where she was waiting in simmering silence and glaring at the closed grilles as though they had personally wronged her. The witch that had ruined and now killed his parents had clearly left the floor.

"_Sorellina?_" Zee murmured tentatively.

Rhea grunted, eyes still fixed on the lift shaft even as a lift rattled down from above. The grilles opened and she stalked through them, jabbing at the button labelled 'Atrium' as Neville and Zee quickly followed her.

As the lift began its ascent, Neville cleared his throat. "Bellatrix murdered my parents," he said quietly, "and I swore vengeance." It had been a true Oath, which meant he had to follow through or else bear the consequences.

Rhea's shoulders sagged slightly. "Fine. But make it _hurt_," she mumbled, tears welling up in her eyes. The young Lady Potter –who was now Lady Black as well– fumbled for a handkerchief, scrubbing away the moisture that was trailing down her cheeks. Zee tentatively reached out an arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, leaning his forehead against her temple as she leant into his grip, shuddering and sobbing.

Neville very much wanted to cry too, but couldn't. He had to kill Bellatrix first.

* * *

When her father had tripped backwards through the veil, the look on his face one of complete surprise, Dorea hadn't been able to believe it. This _couldn't_ be it; it was a ridiculous way to die! Her shock had sublimated into fury when Bellatrix mocked her grief, but standing in the lift with Neville and Zee and hearing the Longbottom heir say that actually, he was heir no longer because Bellatrix had murdered both his parents, all that anger had abruptly away. The horrible hole in her heart just hurt, misery descended like a deluge and Dorea couldn't help the tears that tricked down her face. It was all too much right now. It was too sudden and far too soon for him to die!

It probably wouldn't take much to goad her pain into blossoming with anger again, but for the time being Dorea couldn't see the point. She had to leave Bellatrix to Neville and the alarms she could hear ringing in the Ministry told her that soon the Aurors would arrive on the scene and she would have to take up the mantle as Head of House Black and all that entailed which right now included a war. A mantle she hadn't wanted and had recently started hoping she would never have to assume, since as soon as her baby son was of age he would replace her as primary inheritor. Her father had only been in his mid-thirties; he should have had at _least_ another sixty years ahead of him.

As the lift arrived at the Atrium and the doors opened, Dorea let Neville and Zee sprint ahead after Bellatrix, who was limping along not far ahead, heading towards the Floo. The fifteen-year-old Lady of two Ancient and Noble Houses really couldn't see the point in joining in; Bella was pretty much done for once the boys caught her. What was more important was deciding who she was going to delegate the War to now that it was her responsibility, encouraging Remus to retire so he could mourn her father properly and making sure she spent as much time as possible with her two beautiful babies, who needed her more than anyone else.

She also had to arrange a memorial service for her father and sort out White Mourning for herself and her little ones, because even without a body to bury Papa had been Lord Black and a funeral was expected.

Dorea dashed away more tears and noticed that Neville and Zee had indeed caught up with Bellatrix and, as predicted, she was losing. The younger woman watched dully as Zee's combined swordsmanship and water magic drove the female Death Eater into Neville's heavy-duty combat spells, barely batting an eye as ricocheting spellfire exploded against the walls and occasionally blasted holes in the fittings.

Where were the Aurors anyway?

Deciding to intervene –if only to make it easier for Neville to call on his Forest Flames– Dorea sidled closer to the fight, wand-hand twitching and fingers flicking as she silently cast another relatively basic Alchemy transmutation aimed at the smooth marble floor beneath their feet. Forest Flames could derive sustenance from anything, but they worked more quickly on organics than on minerals. Her spell fully realised, Dorea brought her hand down sharply to point at the floor, which rippled and then shattered into powder in an area nearly twelve feet across; all three fighters were thrown off-balance as clouds of stone dust billowed upwards and they dropped down a good foot.

Now having nothing solid separating him from the London Clay on which the capital city was built, Neville's flames lashed out, conjuring a Venomous Tentacula almost from thin air which swiftly coiled razor-sharp vines around Lady Lestrange, all but severing her hands from her wrists as it expanded to massive size and engulfed her completely. There was a scream from within the rustling foliage, but it quickly petered off in a gurgling death-rattle. Blinking at the plant through streaming eyes –the marble dust got everywhere– Dorea noticed that Neville was holding Bellatrix's wand in his off-hand, looking at it as though he'd never seen it before.

"Neville?" Zee said conversationally, "Could you remove the plant please? Leaving a Venomous Tentacula lying around would be terribly irresponsible."

The next Lord Longbottom pocketed the spoils of his victory and absently waved his hand at the eight foot plant, causing it to gradually shrink down into nothing and reveal the torn, broken and very dead body of Bellatrix Lestrange. It seemed almost anticlimactic. Zee sheathed his sword, drew a knife and cautiously approached the corpse.

"Zee? What are you doing?" Dorea asked curiously, still feeling like this couldn't quite be real. It seemed so unlikely for Bellatrix to have fallen so quickly and to a plant of all things after all the crimes she had committed against both House Longbottom and House Black.

"It's a Zabini thing," the Italian boy said unhelpfully as he bent over the body, knife in hand. Dorea would have asked for further clarification, but the Ward in her forehead abruptly burst into life for the first time in almost a year and she realised that the fight had only just started. Wading through the billowing dust, she reached the far edge of the pit she had created and stepped out of it, walking calmly towards the Floo.

Tom Riddle was in the building, and as a Black she was sworn to see him destroyed.

* * *

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, recently reinstated Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Apparated into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, phoenix perched on his shoulder–

–and promptly had to duck as the severed head of the witch from the rather ostentatious Fountain of Magical Brethren flew his way. Straightening his hat, Dumbledore dodged another broken chunk of statuary and gazed contemplatively at the fight unfolding before his eyes.

On the one side was Tom Riddle, flinging Dark Magic around with violent abandon and on the other was Dorea Black, the Lady Potter, standing untouched within a golden inferno with a red lightning bolt livid on her forehead as she wandlessly commanded wide swathes of orange fire and Transfigured her surroundings to attack her opponent.

It was a confirmation of everything Dumbledore had ever believed, proof that the convictions he had been ridiculed and ignored for were nothing less than the truth: Dorea Black was Rose Potter, the Chosen One, who was destined to die fighting the Dark Lord and bring him down with her. The aged wizard felt tremendous relief that, despite her undoubtedly Dark upbringing, Rose Potter had nurtured the Light in her heart and eschewed darker and more violent spells. Clearly the situation was not as desperate as he had believed; he needed to inform her of the prophecy concerning her and its meaning, so that she could be guided to her fate.

Movement in the corner of his vision drew the Headmaster's attention to the two boys standing well back from the fight, slightly around the corner of one of the fireplaces: Neville Longbottom, who had been his first choice for the Prophesied One until Tom had chosen to pursue Rose, and Blaise Zabini, who Severus told him was his Chosen One's closest friend. She had even married into the Zabini family, though the glimpse Albus had caught of the Lady Potter's new husband suggested he was a Dark and violent wizard; that much had been obvious at a glance, brief and distant though it was when the young wizard presented his children's birth certificates to the Department of Magical Births, Deaths and Marriages. Thankfully however he was also heavily involved with the running of his home country -which was mildly concerning for the future of Sabina- so seemed content to leave British matters to his wife's discretion.

Then abruptly the flow of battle changed: Aurors burst from the Floo alongside a number of Ministry wizards in various stages of undress, a group of other students dashed up the corridor leading from the lifts and Voldemort threw one last curse towards Rose Potter before Disapparating. Not before he had been seen by dozens of upstanding witnesses though.

Dumbledore knew he had to act quickly: Having Rose Potter –who was also Dorea Black– seizing this moment to further her own agenda would be disastrous! She had to know what was at stake before being permitted to interact with the Ministry and the Press. Striding forward, he quickly collected one of the severed heads from the ruins of the Fountain of Magical Brethren and cast a Portkey Charm on it, so that it would carry the next person to touch it to his office. Rose Potter had proved highly elusive and he did not trust her adoptive father not to squirrel her away again. In fact, it was most surprising that Sirius Black was not here already for all that he might still be battling Death Eaters on one of the lower levels.

Fortunately everyone was so stunned and shocked by the undeniable existence of You-Know-Who that Dumbledore was able to walk right up to where Rose Potter was conversing in low, serious tones with Cornelius Fudge, who had calmed right down and had commandeered another wizard into taking notes. Albus caught the conversation as he drew nearer:

"–must not show quarter to these criminals or allow them to limit our freedoms: my friends and I have defeated a number of them, who even now are bound in the Department of Mysteries where we caught them trying to steal from the Ministry. If _students_ can defeat them then surely adult wizards can too! We outnumber these outcasts over a thousand to one, Minister! They may delight in spreading fear and confusion, but Magical Britain will not be cowed! We shall triumph!"

Cornelius was nodding frantically and looking like he could see a way to cling onto his position despite denying the Dark Lord's return for the better part of a year, while the wizards within hearing distance all appeared to have found new courage. Rose Potter was certainly inspiring as a figure of the Light despite her background.

"Well said, Lady Potter," Dumbledore said warmly. "However you must be quite exhausted from battling the Lord Voldemort singlehandedly. If you would allow me," he handed over the golden head which the young woman attempted to avoid touching, but lacking the space to back away still managed to graze her fingers. As it did so young Mr Zabini's hand clamped down on her upper arm and both were abruptly swept away.

Albus had intended to spend a few more minutes re-establishing his political capital before returning to Hogwarts, but as soon as Rose Potter vanished he was accosted by two extremely loud and angry Italian gentlemen who accused him of abducting '_la sorellina del principietto_' and refused to be placated. He was lambasted from both sides for nearly a quarter of an hour before Mr Higgs, whom he remembered had left Hogwarts the previous year, finally stepped in and managed to persuade the two rather violent young men that they should all return to Black Manor and await the Lady Black there.

It was most distressing to learn that Sirius had been killed by the late Bellatrix Lestrange, but Albus was more concerned by the fact that someone had mutilated the dead woman's body. He could not think of a reason for someone to cut off and take away Bellatrix' hands that was not utterly Dark and it worried him.

* * *

Blaise had intended to yank Rhea backwards and away from Dumbledore, but the old man had slipped her a Portkey before he could do more than grab hold of her and so he had to settle for being dragged along with her. As they flew through the air the Italian silently cursed meddling old fools, idiot in-laws who didn't look where they were putting their feet and the sheer _ridiculousness_ of Portkeys generally. They were uncomfortable, undignified and outright dangerous to both pregnant witches and small children; surely there were better ways to travel? Rhea didn't like brooms but Lark and any number of hippogriffs were happy to have his oath-sister ride on them around the grounds of Black Manor, for all that her children were still a bit too small to be taken along with her; maybe he should look into getting a flying carpet, which would involve breaking the broom-makers monopoly in the Department of Magical Transportation. That might be interesting and would certainly be something Hermione would relish joining in with as a summer project…

Upon landing –on their feet, thank Merlin– and looking around, Blaise felt Rhea's misery and chilly determination begin the shift back into burning fury: they were in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Blaise quickly checked the door –locked– then the fireplace –no Floo powder– before grabbing a chair, setting it against the wall under a window slightly across from the door and gently herding Dorea into sitting down. Then he loosened his flamberge in its sheath and placed himself firmly in front of her; she was his sister, his future Principessa and his best friend and he could give nothing less than his all for her.

Rhea let him manhandle her, eyes blank and unseeing as within her raged a furious emotional battle, her Flames quivering on the edge of perception as hot rage vied with cold fury.

They remained like that for the next ten minutes, Blaise keeping an eye on the clock, and probably would have remained like that for a few minutes more except that his sister happened to glance over at the timepiece and froze in horror.

"Zee! I need to get home _now!_" she hissed frantically, eyes darting around the slumbering paintings as she tried to find a way out. "My babies need feeding!"

_Merda._

"A fireball would probably take care of the door," Blaise admitted, spinning around and giving his back to the room so he could grasp Rhea's hands and calm her a little, "but we'd still have to dash down the stairs and down one of the passages out of the grounds before you could call an elf. Hogwarts' Wards are such that only Hogwarts elves can be summoned while you are inside them." He didn't say that destroying the door would probably trigger all manner of security measures, or that even without said security measures it would still take them a good twenty to twenty-five minutes to get her to a point where she could succeed in leaving. She knew that already; his sister wasn't stupid.

Rhea dropped her head into her hands. "Bloody overbearing manipulative senile old fart with a god complex," she mumbled bitterly, fumbling for her handkerchief. "Why can't he just do us all a favour and _die_ so we can get on with living?"

Blaise tried not to show how very tempting that idea was. The Headmaster was _hurting his sister_, damnit! She was _his_, part of _his_ family and _nobody_ got to hurt her without paying disproportionate consequences for their audacity!

The Rain Flame user was pondering various ways it might be possible to achieve such an end –hypothetically of course– when the fireplace flared green and Dumbledore stepped from the Flames. As he did so Rhea instantly leapt to her feet, pushed Blaise firmly aside and lit into the Headmaster with a truly commendable verbal onslaught:

"If you think I will simply let this slide, Professor Dumbledore, then you are greatly mistaken! I am a Lady of two Ancient and Noble Houses and this _abduction_ is affront to my person and position! I have duties to be carried out, responsibilities to see to and your presumption that I should be pleased to wait upon your _permission_ to carry them out is the height of discourtesy! If this is an example of your abuse of the position you hold in Hogwarts then I fully intend to approach the Board to see to your immediate dismissal!"

It was beautiful. Dumbledore was quite taken aback and the portraits, roused from their slumber, were all completely speechless. Well, most were speechless: a few seemed to be enjoying the show. He hoped they gossiped madly about the Headmaster's misstep all over the school and everywhere else they had portraits hanging.

"My dear girl–"

"I'm not your _anything_!" Rhea roared, her Flames tightly contained beneath her skin but the overwhelming power of her inner Harmony still resonating in her voice, compelling everyone within earshot to not just _listen_, but _pay attention_. "I am Lady Potter, Lady Black, a princess of Sabina" –thankfully she wasn't so far gone in anger as to proclaim herself _the_ princess of Sabina, which she had every right to do– "and a married woman! Such familiarity with my person is most inappropriate from a man with whom I lack even a passing acquaintance and is over one hundred years my senior! You will release me right _now_ so that I can return home!"

"Lady Potter, I'm afraid that must wait–"

"_You do not have the power to command me!_" Never before had Blaise seen Rhea so magnificent and unassailable in her own authority.

The Headmaster paled, sinking into the chair behind his desk and bowing his head. "No, Lady Black-Potter, I do not. However I would ask a few minutes of your time, upon a matter that I have been attempting to bring to your attention since the previous summer."

Rhea, still standing straight and proud as any Queen, tilted up her head in a gesture of imperious command. Dumbledore continued, sounding terribly weary:

"It the matter for which Voldemort sent his Death Eaters to infiltrate the Department of Mysteries at all; the reason he has repeatedly sought to take your life and why he will continue doing so. A prophecy–"

"Professor Dumbledore," Rhea interrupted icily, "why are you _wasting my time?_ I am aware of the prophecy you refer to; I visited the Department of Mysteries _three years ago_ and the Unspeakables agreed that it _does not refer to me_. The prophecy speaks of a _male_, which I am _not_. It speaks of being born to those who have thrice defied this 'Dark Lord', which my parents _did not_. Tom Riddle is only interested in my death because I witnessed his defeat at the hands of my mother; he actually _told me so_ to my _face_. I will not cater to your delusions for another instant: allow me to leave or I will _burn down your door_."

Truly, Rhea was never so compelling as when she was holding onto her temper by her fingernails. Blaise watched the Headmaster sag, then stiffened as the elderly man raised his eyes to Rhea's and stared right at her for a few moments before waving a hand. Behind them the door opened and Rhea instantly turned on her heel and strode out. Blaise did not, calling subtly on his Rain Flames to lull the Headmaster into overlooking him for a little while.

Dumbledore shook his head, clearly unaware of his audience as he addressed the phoenix that had flamed into the room while Rhea was in mid-rant. "So much like Gellert," he said quietly, closing his eyes. "How did I not see it before? I feared she would follow in Tom's footsteps but this is so much worse. What should I do, old friend? Surely her friends are as ensnared by her as I was once by him."

The phoenix trilled comfortingly but Blaise was too busy panicking. Like Gellert? Gellert Grindelwald? Dumbledore thought his precious, generous, loving Rhea was like _Gellert Grindelwald_?! The man was off his rocker! Worse, he was a danger to her! The tall, dark boy knew he had to do _something_, before the crazy but still powerful old man hurt his sister. Blaise's eyes dropped to the bowl of lemon drops sitting innocuously on the desk.

Something that the Constellation had discovered in the pursuit of their studies was that sugar held Flames very well indeed and in remarkable concentrations, but that those flames inevitably bled off over the following six hours, saturating the surrounding area. It had originally started as an accident by Prewett One that resulted in hallucinogenic Sugar Quills, but it had been Leo's subsequent curiosity that had proved how insanely dangerous the combination of sugar and Sun Flames could be. Rain Flames could have an equally perilous if totally opposing effect, although he was aiming at just one man rather than a room full of students who spent two hours all hyped up on Sun-Active sugar until the giddiness faded.

What Blaise was currently contemplating would probably kill the Headmaster outright, but right now he did not care. Dumbledore was a threat to Rhea and Blaise _could not_ let that stand. Not his precious sworn-sister.

As the Headmaster got up and paced behind his desk Blaise reached forwards, still completely overlooked, and touched a finger to the lemon drops, infusing them with all the Rain Flames they could hold without exploding. Then he quietly backed up towards the door. A soft coo from his left had him glancing over at the phoenix and he nearly lost control of his Flames then because it was _looking right at him_. Frozen where he stood, the Italian was fully prepared for discovery and failure when the bird cooed again and started preening itself. Shaken, Blaise retreated out of the door and down the staircase, not letting up the Flames smoothing him from people's attention until he reached the entrance of the Slytherin Common Room.

Rhea would be long gone by now, but Blaise couldn't be assured of her continued safety until the morning, when Dumbledore would hopefully be discovered to have passed on in the night. If it didn't work then he would have to find another way to murder the meddling and delusional old fool; hopefully Dumbledore really was as fond of those sweets as he claimed to be.

* * *

Unknown to anyone, in the Hall of Prophecies in the early hours of the morning, the prophecy that had instigated the entire conflict abruptly went dark, the events it had spoken of having come to pass. Prophecies are after all very nebulous things and were frequently mislabelled by the Unspeakables; this one, referring to a 'Dark Lord' and his nemesis, 'born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies' had never referred to Voldemort at all.

Prophecy is never random: those to whom it is given are always personally involved in them somehow, be it as ancestors to the participants or as participants themselves, but never having put any stock in Divination –or even having taken an OWL in it– Dumbledore had not known this. If he had, he might have been a little more open-minded about the identity of the 'Dark Lord' spoken of and the risk posed by the child of 'those who have thrice defied him'.

Three times had Dumbledore had his proposals to the International Confederation of Wizards thoroughly contested by the Representative from Sabina in the time leading up to the prophecy being made, despite those protests never actually leading to a change in ICW policy; Sabina however had not signed any of those three treaties and openly flouted them still.

Blaise Zabini had been born just before midnight on the night of the thirtieth of September, the seventh month of the Roman calendar; little more than a month after the prophecy had been made.

Albus Dumbledore had never even _heard_ of Soulfire.


	62. Chapter 62

Beta'd by the daydreaming InsaneScriptist.

This will be the last chapter for some time and winds up this 'arc'; I'll be moving forwards a bit more quickly through the timeline now that I am mostly done with the events of HP cannon, but that will be later.

* * *

**Of bitterness and moving on **

Dorea didn't use a passageway to leave Hogwarts grounds: instead she followed her friends' example and invaded Umbridge's former office to take the Floo to Potter Manor. She didn't have a password for Black Manor and despite being _legally_ the Lady Black she wasn't _magically_ such, which meant she didn't have an automatic pass on those Wards. However as Lady Potter she could get into Potter Manor from anywhere, so that was easier.

She also had decided to follow through on moving out. She could perform minor changes to the Black Wards but could not take them down from War Footing, so moving to Potter Manor where she could do whatever she pleased to the security of the house and grounds was preferable. Black Manor she would close until little Marius was old enough to read and control Wards, at the very least. That would take until he was five, probably longer as the Black Wards were a mishmash and took practice to read.

Arriving in Potter Manor, Dorea ordered the elves in residence to thoroughly clean the building to prepare for her moving in, which they set to doing at once, then called Kreacher to take her to her babies. She was already ten minutes late for their feeding time!

She landed in the Heir's Parlour with a crack, the sound of angry wailing instantly filling her ears. Dorea dashed down the corridor to the nursery, where Rence was attempting to soothe her eight-week-old daughter and failing miserably. Little Cassie was hungry _now_ and Rence wasn't equipped for that particular need. Dorea quickly slipped off her duelling armour and loosened the front of her under-robe, taking her screaming baby girl from her knight and sitting down in one of the room's easy chairs. Fizz was lurking over by the fireplace, as the boomslang had expressed distaste for the inanities of "_noisy human hatchlings"_. Snakes were not mammals and lost all interest in their young once the eggs had hatched, sometimes even before then.

Little Marius, in contrast to the raging of his slightly younger sister, was only whining a little as Nanny Sofia held him close and hummed, swaying as she did so. Only eight weeks old and already Cassie was making it abundantly clear that she was the loud twin, the fussy twin and the twin most likely to _demand_ attention when you wandered into her field of vision. Marius on the other hand was quieter, slept better, smiled more and vocalised less; they were clearly different even at this tender age and Dorea could tell that would only become more pronounced as they aged, especially now Marius was Lord Black by Right and Magic.

Little Cassie, with her blood red eyes and a face that matched Dorea's own baby pictures, was very definitely her father's daughter even at such a tender age. Little Marius, with blue eyes, Zee's ears and a slightly broader face than his sister, was however a much more happy baby. Her father had said she had been like that when she was little, too.

Dorea ruthlessly suppressed the internal spasm of emotional agony that thinking of her father had prompted. Later, once her babies were fed and asleep again, she could have her breakdown. On the other side of the house, or possibly even the other end of the grounds so she could scream and cry and break things without disturbing them.

Cassie stopped feeding as Marius started to get a bit more intense in his protests, so Dorea handed her baby girl over to Rence to be burped and accepted her son from Nanny Sofia. Nanny Sofia was in her sixties and had five grown-up children, all of whom worked in the Palazzo in Sabina in various roles. Dorea had a feeling her eldest son was a chef and her second daughter was a gardener, but couldn't bring the others to mind. She was too tired.

Feeding her children was incredibly soothing: time seemed to slow and nothing mattered except the tiny, utterly dependent new person she and her husband had helped create. It may have been an illusory serenity but right now Dorea would take any peace she could get.

* * *

By breakfast the next morning all those who had left Hogwarts to invade the Department of Mysteries were back at school, eating toast and drinking tea as though the previous night hadn't actually happened. Well, almost: Neville was eating mechanically, practically falling asleep where he sat; Hermione and Padma were discussing something heatedly as Luna sat beside them with a serene smile on her face, two Dicta-Quills scribbling away on a sheet of parchment; Leo had an arm wrapped comfortingly around Susan Bones at the Hufflepuff table while Hannah coaxed the redhead into eating; Ginny was whispering furiously with Colin Creevy and at the Slytherin table Dee, Theo, Draco, Millie and Trey were having an eminently civil conversation about their intended summer activities and how those might best be coordinated.

The sheer level of civility was slightly disconcerting, but understandable. Blaise was only paying half an ear to the conversation though.

Blaise would have joined in, except that Dumbledore hadn't come down for breakfast and he was waiting to see if he would have to take further action against the senile old man threatening his favourite princess. Now that he'd had a few hours sleep he was even more offended by Dumbledore's likening Rhea to Grindelwald, though he was also intensely curious as to how that simile had come about. Had Grindelwald been a Latent Sky? Exactly how well _had_ Dumbledore known him before the infamous duel and Grindelwald's subsequent imprisonment in Numengard?

Well, the former Conqueror Of Europe _was_ still alive, so that was an idea of something to do during the holidays; he could even coax Rita Skeeter into joining him, so as to get started on his personal 'discredit Dumbledore' scheme that would proceed regardless of whether the man was still alive. Blaise might consider Ms Skeeter to be a muckraker of the worst kind and as vicious as a rabid dog, but she had an excellent sense of narrative and a solid grasp of what the Wizarding Public wanted to hear. Dumbledore's less-than-noble history would be right up her alley and would serve as an adequate distraction to keep the bespectacled journalist well away from Rhea and Neville's recent family tragedies and Rhea's oddly absent husband. Well, nobody had cottoned on to his being absent at all yet, but there was no need to risk journalistic interest if it was possible to avoid it.

A burst of flame and a gentle trill startled Blaise out of his scheming and he nearly flinched as the phoenix from Dumbledore's office fluttered down to land on the table next to his plate, cocked its head on one side and started eyeing the Italian boy's breakfast.

This might possibly be confirmation that the Headmaster was dead.

The phoenix stole a few mandarin segments off Blaise's plate before hopping over to beg a head-scratch from Trey, who obliged bemusedly as the bird trilled happily. As the meal progressed the phoenix gradually worked its way around the Great Hall, taking at least a few seconds to inspect every single student capable of manifesting Soulfire. It had taken Blaise until the bird reached Odile to come to that conclusion, which was distressingly mediocre but it _was_ only breakfast time and yesterday had been hard on his nerves.

The professors seemed rather bemused both by the phoenix' sudden uncharacteristic partiality to certain students and the Headmaster's continued absence; at the end of the meal Blaise noticed McGonagall leave in a different direction to usual and guessed she was going to see if there was anything the matter; which there was, of course. Dumbledore was almost certainly dead, likely comatose if not. However Blaise intended to be as unsuspicious as possible and simply borrowed Dee's morning newspaper and took it outside to read by the lake so as to get a feel for how the Ministry was responding to the previous evening's upheaval.

Unfolding the paper, Blaise was unable to prevent his eyes from being drawn to the big, blocky headline that screamed, _**You-Know-Who Returns!**_ and took up a good third of the front page. Below it was a photograph of the trashed Atrium taking up about half of the remaining space and the article was squeezed in next to it in typically tiny print beneath a slew of subheadings, _**Lestranges Dead! **_and _**Longbottoms Murdered!**_ being just two of those. Sitting comfortably on the grass and angling the paper so that he had enough light, Blaise started reading.

_Yesterday evening a party of Death Eaters invaded the Ministry of Magic after hours,_ the article began, _Imperiusing the Maintenance staff on duty into disabling the security systems so that they could rob the Department of Mysteries. This attempt on our nation's freedom from oppression was thwarted by a party of Hogwarts students and the arrival of Lord Black (36) with a small entourage including his daughter Lady Potter (15), who between them defeated all comers in a spectacular display of the quality of the education being provided by Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry despite recent murmurings to the contrary._

_However upon the defeat of all the invading Death Eaters, including the death of Bellatrix Lestrange (45), You-Know-Who himself entered the Ministry! He was held back by the valiant and selfless Lady Potter, who duelled the Dark Lord one-on-one until the arrival of the Auror Force, before whom You-Know-Who fled._

_For details of the battle to defend the Department of Mysteries, see page 3._

_For the names of those captured, see page 4._

_Bellatrix Lestrange, a history of madness, see page 4._

_Longbottoms found murdered, see page 6._

_Lady Potter, heroine and role-model, see page 8. _

Blaise snorted at the blatant spin present in the article; Fudge was clearly in full political flood in an attempt to preserve his position and make it look like the Dark Idiot's return was entirely unexpected. With Dumbledore dead the Minister was likely to succeed too, as the Headmaster would not be there to remind people that he'd been talking about Voldemort being back among the living for nearly a year. Some of the supporters of the so-called 'Leader of the Light' might mention it, but without Dumbledore they would be slow and disorganised and were therefore unlikely to have much attention paid to them. Dumbledore was the biggest and best-known name in the 'Light' party by several orders of magnitude, with a good number of the lesser members only getting time in the spotlight because they were known associates of 'the great Albus Dumbledore'.

He carefully moved ahead to page four, to see how many of the Death Eaters had survived long enough to be thrown back in Azkaban. Blaise was pretty sure that he and Neville were not the only members of their group to have killed somebody yesterday, though the other deaths had probably been in the heat of the moment or not entirely deliberate. Padma might have got one with her traps, but that was a different sort of deliberate.

Scrutinising the page, Blaise hummed. Theo's father was dead, having bled to death from damage caused by stone shrapnel. Robert Jugson was also dead, having drowned in the Death Chamber; that was Blaise's fault, though he'd not at any point so much as _seen_ Jugson. Maybe he'd been caught in that spell-trap of Padma's by the Veil, the one Lord Black had tripped over?

Rodolphus Lestrange had been directly exposed to Time Sand and had aged three thousand, seven hundred and twenty four years in a few seconds, which had killed him instantly and reduced his body to a shrivelled husk. Of Carl Mulciber only his upper half had been found –which was because that was all Dee had left of him to find– and Adam Avery, the new Lord Avery, been hacked up and left to die in the Space Chamber. Then there was Bellatrix Lestrange, whom Neville had killed in the hall leading to the Atrium.

Four Death-Eaters had been captured, which was irritating because there had definitely been thirteen to begin with. One had got away; scanning the page Blaise realised the missing Death Eater was Barty Crouch, who would be keeping his continued existence from the public for a while longer. Come to think of it, Blaise hadn't seen Barty in the Entrance Chamber when he dashed through following after Rhea, though they'd left him lying there only five minutes previously… and he had been recently stunned then.

Of the four captured, Rabastan Lestrange was comatose and deemed unlikely to recover from the injuries he had sustained from the floating brain-thing Blaise had launched at him while taking control of the greenish liquid it and its fellows had been floating in like jellyfish. Not that Blaise was sorry; the man shouldn't have tried to separate him and Dee.

Lucius Malfoy had sustained mild injuries and was suffering from a slight case of magical exhaustion but nothing more, probably because Luna and Leo hadn't wanted to kill Draco's father and the Lord Malfoy had possessed the good sense to surrender when Susan and Hannah joined the fight. Dolohov however had not surrendered when Trey and Millie had teamed up with Blaise himself and Dee to take the Death Eater on, and was now lacking his wand hand as a result.

Rookwood, who had proved to indeed be an irritatingly persistent cockroach, had however met his match in the form of the Hermione and Padma team backed up by Ginny and Theo, and had been thoroughly subdued and –according to Theo– was even now afflicted by an inability to speak anything other than the truth and a compulsion to answer any questions posed to him. If he ever got out of Azkaban again the former-Unspeakable would probably not live very long, because the chances of him telling his Master something the Dark Idiot didn't want to hear were very, very high.

Blaise however considered the outing a failure. They had not achieved their goal of recovering Neville's parents and while they had managed to subdue their ambushers, Lord Black had still died. That however wasn't his fault, as Lord Black was his own person –he was an adult after all– and had come along of his own free will. Yes, they had taken fewer losses than the Death Eaters, but _any_ loss was a tragedy. Thankfully none of his friends had died.

Setting the newspaper aside, Blaise pondered what to do next. They still had two weeks before they could go home for the holidays but classes were over and done with for the fifth-years. Maybe he could mention the flying carpet idea to Hermione and see what she did with it?

* * *

Dorea woke to sunshine peeking through the curtains of her bedchamber, the muffled whine of her daughter just starting to realise that she was hungry and a deep feeling of peace that was tangled up in a vague memory of birdsong. Possibly a dream? The Lady Potter absently grabbed her wand from the bedside table and went to feed her daughter, privately looking forward to the time when her children would not need feeding during the night. It had been two months since her last unbroken night's sleep and Dorea was no longer entirely certain that he behaviour –no matter how sensible it seemed to her– was what an impartial observer would necessarily call sane. Then again, Blacks laughed in the face of conventional social limits anyway, so it probably didn't matter.

Zabinis were honestly just as bad as Blacks that way, as their perception that throwing crockery was normal and expected from pregnant women proved. They were generally approving of her setting things on fire as a coping mechanism for her anger and grief, too.

She burped little Cassie, indulged in silly baby-talk to make her daughter smile then tucked the girl back up in her cradle so she could feed little Marius. It was not until Marius had also been burped and tucked back into bed and Dorea was standing under the shower in the bathroom that she realised what about her morning was not as it should have been: the wand.

Dorea hadn't picked up a wand –except for target duelling on the Long Lawn– since she lost the heirloom wand Arcturus had left her to the Death Eater who had abducted her. She'd been firmly and very capably wandless for almost a year and saw no reason to be otherwise.

Where had that wand come from then?

Rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and turning off the water, Dorea stepped out of the shower and gazed thoughtfully at the wand sitting on the shelf within arm's reach. Idly grabbing a towel to wrap around her dripping but still curly hair, she pondered where it might have come from.

It was quite a long wand, probably about fifteen inches, medium brown in colour and a number of delicately carved bulges along its length, with the end of the handle looking rather like a thistle in flower. It sat comfortably in her hand and Dorea could tell that any spell she cast with it would come out perfectly and with considerable power behind it, but the wand lacked a certain something. Setting it aside again, Dorea started drying herself off as she pondered that faint but certain absence. It took her a while to put a name to it –she'd all but dried her hair by then– but when she did, it was with absolute certainty:

Her new wand lacked warmth. The feeling of attachment, the partnership between witch or wizard and the unique, magical tool that was their wand. Some wands worked only for their first wielder while others might be good for a variety of witches and wizards over time, but they were all very picky and tuned to specific qualities in the wielders they 'favoured'.

This wand wasn't like that; Dorea was pretty sure anybody could pick it up, cast something complicated and have it work for them regardless. However despite that mercenary chill it still felt comfortable in her hand. It reminded her of a griffin, she decided: it didn't care who you were, so long as you complied with how it saw the world. Regardless of how this wand had come to her, it _was_ hers now.

Everything else would have to wait until she had eaten breakfast.

* * *

His Lady's decision to move the entire household to Potter Manor following her father's death was both understandable and somewhat logical, all things considered. However Rence would have preferred Rhea to have given him slightly _more_ than half an hour's prior warning and a deadline further away than 'this time tomorrow'. Yes, it could be done. Yes, it would be done. But that didn't mean it would be anything other than a frantic, undignified scramble with all the elves dashing around while the wizards tried to keep track of what had been done and what still needed doing.

With the death of Lord Black, Rence found himself thrust into a position of greater responsibility as he was no longer merely the head of household to the Black Heir, but to the Lady Black. Being head of household to Lady Potter was a doddle: there were no Potter dependants beyond the house-elves, Fleur Delacour took care of all matters financial and Dawn Woodmore dealt with the political side.

However the Blacks had numerous families of vassals, the Stewarts most prominently, and Lord Black had taken a personal interest in the family finances despite delegating most of the accounting to Remus Lupin and recently taking on Narcissa Malfoy as a 'social advisor'. Sirius had also taken a personal interest in current politics, had frequently sat in the Wizengamot and taken considerable interest in current affairs. His doing so had prevented any Death Eaters getting a say in recent government policy, as the Declaration of Enmity meant that anybody affiliated with the Dark Lord approached him at their own risk. Lord Malfoy had not spoken in the Wizengamot for nearly a year now.

Then there was the matter of organising a funeral, or more accurately a memorial since there was no body to bury. As head of household to the current Lady that was also Rence's responsibility, though thankfully Dorea had taken pity on him and located in the library the two-inch-thick volume on etiquette that detailed how the funeral of a Lord of an Ancient and Noble house was supposed to go. She'd also made Trish –Patricia Black– responsible for sorting out suitable robes for everyone, which was a relief since apparently close family wore _white_ at this kind of funeral. Rence just had to sort out the venue and date of the event, who would be invited and how to arrange the seating so that nobody would be too offended.

Rence suspected he'd end up delegating that last bit to Dawn, because social silliness like that was incomprehensible to him. It was a _funeral_; who cared if so-and-so was sitting closer to the middle that you were? The purpose of attending a funeral was to mourn, not flaunt your superiority!

None of the house-elves would be accompanying them on the move, because Potter Manor had plenty of elves already and even 'closed' Black Manor would still need tending to and the greenhouses and gardens kept looking their best. However this did mean a lot of teary faces as Filly, Mimsy, Wispy, Grubby, Moppet and Kreacher were all very attached to their 'Mistress Black' and were rather downhearted at the prospective reduction of work.

Dorea had dealt with that herself, ordering Kreacher to ensure the Planetarium stayed clean and free of pests, assigning Filly to number twelve Grimmauld Place to do likewise and suggesting to the remaining four elves that it was probably time for a full spring-clean of the entire house, curtains, carpets, furniture and all, including everything in storage and in all the outbuildings, and that the Black Keep could probably use a good wash as well, since there was some ivy crawling up the walls and the stone probably hadn't been scrubbed in _centuries_. All the elves had perked up at once at the prospect of so much work and Dorea had Mimsy and Wispy promise to let her know when they ran out of jobs that needed doing, so she could assign them elsewhere. Moppet and Grubby were permanently assigned to the house and gardens respectively, so neither would ever run out of work.

The elves reassured, Dorea had departed for Potter Manor by car with both her children, her ladies-in-waiting and today's husband look-alike, Costanzo. Costanzo was almost ten years older than Dorea, though he certainly didn't look it, and his eyes were usually a piercing shade of pale jade. The taciturn Italian generally treated Dorea like a little sister, though he never babied her and was more likely to bellow back when she lost her temper than attempt to placate her. Rence found those moments slightly unnerving, as Dorea in a snit was bad enough without adding a snarling, fire-throwing Italian to the mix. However he was resigned to them since once his Lady got her husband back those flare-ups would likely become rather commonplace. Hopefully he would adapt soon.

On the upside, moving to Potter Manor meant he would have full and unrestricted access to the Alchemy Library and Dorea had promised to look into finding somebody connected to the Potter Family willing to teach him about Alchemy generally and Jewelcraft in particular, which Rence was really looking forward to. Gemstones _sang_ in way he'd never realised was possible and there was no other branch of magic that interested him nearly half as much.


	63. Chapter 63

Yep, updating again! Only for a week though, as I only have that many chapters.

Beta'd by the flourishing Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of doppelgangers and omertà **

Squalo scowled furiously as the car he was riding in zipped around a corner, jumped the lights at the crossroads and accelerated onwards, towards the latest reported sighting of the Xanxus doppelganger. It had been two months, eight entire weeks since he'd started hunting for the person wearing his Boss's face and the bastard was proving ridiculously elusive. He'd first been sighted in Sessa Aurunca, then in Telese, then Pozzuoli, then Gesualdo and now Avellino; it was pretty obvious he was gradually working his way down Campania from the northern end, but why he only showed up in some Camorra towns and not others was a mystery. Squalo suspected they were missing something, something major, but hadn't said as much to anyone. The Camorra was choking on its own fear, devouring itself in desperation as it tried to find out what was going on and how to make it stop. It was pretty amusing really, but would have been funnier had it been the Vongola actually pulling the strings.

The people being picked off were of all kinds, high-ranking Famiglia members, associates, specialists, grunts; it didn't seem to matter. A month ago one seventeen-year-old heir had only vanished for four hours –from right outside his own damn home– before being found two hours' drive away, having been burned alive until his body was nothing more than a pile of charred bones and ash. What impressed Squalo was that the immolation had clearly taken place _in situ_, yet despite it being in a bloody public square in front of the local church, nobody had noticed until it was all over and whoever was responsible had left the scene.

Of course it had taken a while to connect the spontaneously-appearing dead body that the _Polizia di Stato_ were investigating with the missing Camorra heir, the connection having actually been made by the _police_ of all people and passed along back to the Famiglia in question through informants. Being in the area with a small team at the time, Squalo had got the news shortly after the locals did and had immediately summoned Bulldog, the Varia's medical examiner and forensic Flame specialist, to break into the Questura and do his own examination on the remains. Bulldog actually insisted on giving his report in person, which was unusual as the man hated being away from his autopsy room, but when he showed up and started talking, Squalo understood why. Bulldog was quite understandably spooked, as the first thing out of his mouth was,

"If I didn't know Boss was on ice back at Vongola HQ, I'd have said this was his doing."

Reading the report Bulldog had compiled and the copies of the original Police report he'd included –mainly so he could mock their incompetence– Squalo had to agree. The damage done to the very late Claudio Sturno matched Wrath Flames _exactly_, except that the teenager hadn't been reduced to ash in seconds. Bulldog's professional opinion was that whoever had set him on fire had very deliberately kept the Flame intensity low, so that he burned slowly and left actual identifiable bone matter behind. The fire had probably lasted an hour and a half, possibly two hours on the absolute outside. Which was very suspicious because, two hours' drive away from where he'd vanished from or not, you couldn't _actually_ drive along that road in two hours at that time of the morning due to the traffic congestion.

Bulldog was certain that the Sturno Heir had been alive when he was set on fire, based on the evidence he'd found, and that he'd actually accessed his own Flames in an attempt to protect himself, but the person burning him had been able to subvert his efforts into feeding the fire killing him. Which was interesting, because that kind of thing was not easy but was again something that Xanxus could probably have managed if he'd ever bothered to try. Boss generally didn't bother with torture: he either reduced you to ash or settled for breaking a few bones.

Squalo considered the facts. Firstly, Boss was _definitely_ still on ice, because if he wasn't Vongola Housekeeping would have noticed he was missing from the basement and raised hell. The Vongola still hadn't fully recovered from the last time Nono had given them the all-clear to do more than just keep the estate pristine; a number of people had just _vanished_ –some of them quite highly placed– and it hadn't been the Varia's doing no matter how busy they'd been during that time. Squalo would know because he was the one who read everybody's mission reports. The fallout had been impressive and galvanising for everybody else too, so Boss going missing would have Housekeeping throwing seven kinds of fit while shaking the Vongola to see if he fell out, which would be impossible to miss.

Secondly, there was clearly somebody out there –probably not affiliated with the Mafia or any other organised crime group– who could use Wrath Flames well enough to use them to immolate somebody slowly over several hours. Thirdly, whoever this somebody was, he either had a Mist accomplice or could use Mist Flames himself, because only Mists could create illusions and there was a definite sense of Mist-melodrama over this whole business.

Fourthly, whoever this Wrath Flame user was, he might possibly be connected to the Boss-doppelganger terrorizing the locals. Squalo thought there might well be a connection, but an indirect one as he didn't think the person impersonating his Boss had actually done the deed as it didn't fit the pattern. The double was just showing up in towns, sitting outside a bar or pasticceria and buying a drink then vanishing a while later, generally after the local Camorra had noticed him and worked themselves up into such a panic that the associated disappearances went unnoticed; he was probably no more than bait. Very skilled and intimidating bait though, since they had managed to get Boss' imposing aura down well enough to fool even those mooks who had actually seen Xanxus in person.

With all this in mind, Squalo decided that they were faced with a group operation of some kind, probably not actually Mafia-related, that had somehow stumbled across the fact that using someone who looked like Xanxus made all the local crime families run around like headless chickens and were taking advantage to get whatever it was they were _really_ after. What that was, really was anyone's guess.

Knowing that however did not make the doppelganger any easier to find.

* * *

Which was why Squalo was sitting in the back of one of the fastest cars the Varia owned, being driven through the streets of Avellino at a speed that would have been suicidal had the driver not been a Sun –though Clouds could drive like this too– and the steering not specially augmented to be hyper-responsive. The doppelganger sighting had been slightly under an hour ago and according to Oversight one of the local Camorristi had decided to approach the man directly.

Oversight was a Mist, specialising in long-distance surveillance. Squalo was pretty sure this particular Varia member was female, but used male pronouns anyway because the gender Oversight had on her paperwork was 'male'. Not that it meant anything; it was Traditional to put 'male' on the paperwork because when the Varia had started up back in the forties –during the war– women were not officially allowed to join the armed forces. On paper, there were two women in the Varia. In actual fact, there were currently a further five members who had 'female' listed as a medical condition in their doctor's notes and billed the Varia for the hygiene products and chocolate that their 'condition' made necessary to purchase every month.

Oversight was one of the latter, so was probably not actually a man. However Oversight took the whole gender thing a little further than the others and actually _looked_ like a guy, if a rather short guy, so Squalo had decided that using female pronouns would be impolitic and insensitive and therefore didn't.

Assassin etiquette was not quite the same as normal Mafia etiquette, or even normal Vongola etiquette.

As they skidded around another corner Oversight hissed through his teeth, eyes narrowing angrily.

"Gone," the assassin snarled, the hand not braced against the car door clenching into a fist. "Just, just _gone_. I've been looking at an illusion for at least five minutes, possibly longer."

Squalo ignored the _sotto voce_ swearing that followed this statement, being more concerned about the existence of an illusionist who could fool someone of Varia Quality. Oversight was one of those Mists who was obsessive about his craft, constantly trying to improve his skills; his Flame senses were very sharp, even through intermediaries such as birds and cats. That there was a Mist out there better at hiding things than Oversight was at finding them was not good news, but did explain why the doppelganger was proving so damn illusive.

"What about the moron he was talking to?" Squalo asked instead.

Oversight snorted. "Tied to his chair and snoring with a note pinned to his chest. We'll be there in less than a minute."

Squalo braced himself to dive out of the car as soon as they reached the square; he wanted to be the first person on the scene so he could see what was so different about today's situation compared to the previous ones. He'd arrived late in Gesualdo too, but then it had been a matter of seconds rather than minutes: he'd seen the doppelganger vanish around a corner, ran after him and found an empty dead end. He'd been in a bad mood all week after that because how the devil had the doppelganger vanished like that and where did he go?!

Throwing himself out onto the square, Squalo sprinted over to the man snoozing in a chair outside a fancy patisserie and stopped dead at the sight of the envelope pinned to the idiot's chest.

The envelope –thick, creamy paper with a visible texture, definitely not factory-made– had a sketch of a shark on it, done with a calligraphy pen. Squalo removed the pin –long, probably a hat-pin with a decorative knob on top that would make a decent hilt if a person decided to use it as a weapon– and removed the envelope, turning it over to look at the back.

On the back was written 'Superbi' in elegant, curling Italic script that looked like it had come off a renaissance manuscript. Squalo's eyebrow twitched; the doppelganger had known he was coming. Turning his back on the cretin tied to the chair –like all the others they had recovered, he would no doubt remember nothing– he examined the envelope more closely on his way back to the car. Determining it was trap free, he ducked inside the door Oversight had opened with his Flames, ignored it slamming shut and opened the letter.

It contained a location, a time and the numbers denoting today's date all in that same curling Italic script. Squalo's eyebrow twitched again.

"Voooi! He's making fun of us," he groused. How was he supposed to travel the better part of eighty kilometres in slightly over half an hour when half the roads between here and Sorrento were utter crap? Well, it could be done but they'd only just make it which meant no time for reconnaissance and taking the mountain roads at a frankly suicidal speed.

"What's it say, boss?" the driver asked. Squalo could hear the difference in what the Varia members called him and what they'd called Xanxus; Xanxus had been Boss with a capital 'B'. Squalo wasn't _the_ Boss, but _was_ a boss they were willing to follow until Xanxus was defrosted.

"Gelateria by the Mezzaluna Pizzeria on Via Nastro Azurro, Colle di Fontanelle, at eleven thirty today," he said sharply. The driver cracked his knuckles than grasped the steering wheel firmly.

"Right boss. Oversight, cover for me?" The Mist grinned ferally, leaning forwards to partially drape himself over the back of the front passenger seat. He would need to be able to see the road to work his mischief, but most Mists preferred to sit in the back whenever possible; even when they were technically driving, which over the years had spawned all manner of shitty puns about Mists generally, possession and 'back-seat driving'.

"Ready."

Squalo braced himself as the car leapt forwards; he'd given his men a challenge and to assassins of Varia Quality, challenges were meant to be crushed.

* * *

It was eleven twenty-nine when the car swerved into the car park at the 'panorama point' by the ice cream place mentioned in the letter, and for a moment Squalo thought it had all been a wild goose chase: there was nobody there who looked even slightly like Boss. Then Oversight gasped sharply.

"_Helvetti_," he breathed reverentially, staring across the road as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Squalo twisted around and couldn't help the hitch in his breathing: sat sideways to them on the roof ridge of the house across a side-road from the bus stop, silhouetted against the sky, was someone who looked _exactly_ like Boss. They even _felt_ like Boss, or how Boss would have done had Boss ever not been angry and that really hadn't ever happened. Sitting there in full view of the street like that was a totally Boss thing to do too, even though it was clear that the three of them in the car were the only ones who could see him. Nobody else was even glancing up at him in passing.

"Park up, but keep your distance," Squalo said mechanically, opening the car door and stepping out across the road, headed for the Xanxus doppelganger. He didn't expect Oversight and the driver –whose name he couldn't be bothered to remember since the man had yet to distinguish himself enough to get a nickname– to actually stay _in_ the car; they'd probably get ice cream or something and pretend to be looking at the view.

Getting up onto the roof was easy, but Squalo still nearly fell off again when the doppelganger stopped staring south across the sea and turned to meet his eyes; those piercing jade green irises had given the swordsman the abrupt but fleeting impression that Secondo had somehow resurrected himself. Squalo then found himself wondering how much of Ricardo Vongola's family had chosen _not_ to join the Vongola and why the Famiglia had never followed up on them, even though they weren't Vongola because they were still family. Because this man was related to Ricardo or else Squalo was no swordsman at all.

"No-one can hear us," the doppelganger said, his voice slightly gravellier than Boss's and his accent quite distinct from any Squalo had ever heard before. Vaguely similar to the way people around central Lazio spoke, but not exactly. "Your two associates can see us though."

Assured of privacy, Squalo let rip. "VOOI! What's the big idea?"

The doppelganger swayed backwards slightly, then his lips twitched into a smile that looked just _wrong_ to the swordsman: Boss _never_ smiled like that, sort of self-deprecating and rueful but with steely determination just under the surface! Though the smile also looked so _right_ that it sort of hurt, because Squalo could see that Boss probably _should_ smile like that, right after being surprised but before repeating that no, he wasn't going to change his mind about making them do punishment duty with Lussuria because they _deserved it_.

"Let's start properly, eh?" the green-eyed doppelganger said calmly. "I'm Costanzo Zabini, Financial Inspector for the Principality." He said the word 'principality' in a way that indicated it was capitalised, which did not make it any better that Squalo had spent the past two months running around after a glorified auditor. Now he was closer he could see the slight differences beyond eye colour between this man and Xanxus. Like the subtle difference in nose shape, hairline across the forehead and how the feathers hanging from his hair were mottled brown instead of burnt orange.

"Squalo Superbi," the swordsman gritted out, not mentioning the Varia connection at all. This man was not Mafia, so he was under omertà.

"A pleasure," the Zabini said mildly, eyes cool and as keenly perceptive as Boss's had ever been. "Do you want me to tell you why?"

Squalo nodded sharply, keeping his mouth firmly closed. He was now absolutely certain that this man was considerably older than Boss, possibly even a full decade older despite looking in his late teens. It was in the way he held himself, something that spoke of being completely comfortable in his skin and confidant of how he fitted into the world.

"The Princess of my country recently decided to track down those of her relatives who left our borders," Zabini said smoothly, "and she found them all save one, a woman with a son who would by now be seventeen years of age. The woman was last known to be in the slums of Palermo, her mind irreversibly damaged and over half her memories gone forever, about fifteen years ago. She was blonde, beautiful and very fierce; her name was Mariella and her son was called Alexandro."

Squalo nearly forgot to breathe. Xanxus had been found in Palermo!

"Mariella is my second cousin twice removed, making her son my third cousin once removed," Zabini continued, eyes fixed on Squalo's own so intently that the swordsman had to make an effort not to betray himself and look away, "and I am very keen to find them both in good health. Alexandro especially: I do not hold out much hope for Mariella, despite my Princess's orders. The one we spoke to who knew Mariella before she was taken to Palermo said that her son had red eyes and could call fire."

Squalo's eyes widened as the green-eyed doppelganger effortlessly called up a handful of orangey-red fire; somebody else with Wrath Flames?! Wrath Flames were vanishingly rare in the mafia, Secondo having been the only documented wielder until Xanxus came along.

"You know my cousin, Superbi," Zabini said flatly. "I know you do; the Camorristi were certain of it. The question is whether you willing to tell me what you know."

Squalo said nothing. He _could_ say nothing, even though he actually rather wanted to, because this man was not Mafia –was _law enforcement _even– and as a Mafioso Squalo had to keep omertà. It was the most fundamental law of the mafia and Squalo could not compromise his honour like that. It would be a betrayal of everything he'd ever worked for, a betrayal of his Boss and his Boss's ideals. If the whole law enforcement thing was traditional, it did at least explain why the Vongola had never invited Secondo's not-Vongola side of the family into the Famiglia.

But at the same time, this man was very likely Xanxus' family and was looking for him on behalf of his princess, which implied Xanxus was distantly related to said princess as well. These were his Boss's blood family and they were _looking_ for him. Possibly had been for some time.

Then something else clicked in his head and Squalo found something to say.

"Vooi! You were the one who burned the Sturno Brat!"

Zabini raised an eyebrow. "You actually care?"

"What the hell did you do it for?!" Squalo demanded loudly, ignoring the other man's very accurate observation; no, he didn't care. But it was something else to talk about.

"He was a rapist." Zabini said it as though that explained everything.

"Vooooi! What has that got to do with anything?"

Zabini frowned, then started speaking again, this time in Latin of all languages with an accent Squalo had never heard before, ever: "_According to the law laid down in AD 326 by Constantine, any man who abducts and forces sexual contact with a man's daughter without that man's consent will be burnt alive without possibility of appeal._" He switched back to Italian. "Of course we've amended it slightly since to allow for women's lib and so forth, but the original sentiment remains."

Squalo stared. "Nobody's burned rapists in Italy for over two hundred years. Well, not _legally_ at any rate." Vigilantism had never gone out of fashion after all and had been what got the Vongola started in the first place, though Primo hadn't ever burned anyone at the stake. That Squalo knew of.

Zabini looked offended. "Why ever not? It prevents repeat offences and is an excellent deterrent."

Squalo… actually found he had to agree there. He resolved to find out what kind of weird hick country this man came from that they were still using original Roman Laws. Some tiny speck country left over from the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire.

"So you did burn him then."

Zabini shook his head. "Not personally."

So there were other Zabinis capable of using Wrath Flames out there; good to know. Wrath Flames were clearly a Zabini-trait. This particular Zabini looked a little miffed to have missed the show though.

"Decided to tell me about my cousin yet?"

Squalo turned away to look out across the sea. No, he was still conflicted. Deeply, fundamentally conflicted. Boss or Omertà?

"Will me letting you think this over bring harm to my cousin in any way?" Zabini asked.

This the swordsman _could_ answer: "No," he said firmly. Xanxus was on ice; nothing could harm him until after he was defrosted.

The man nodded acceptingly, then slowly reached into a pocket and produced a gold coin; it looked like a late Roman _solidus_ except that the pictures were all wrong. Rather than having the head of an emperor on one side and some decorative shit on the other, one side was marked with a bird in flight and the other with a relief of a walled city. The bird looked sort of eagle-ish, but not quite. Zabini offered him the coin, which Squalo accepted; it was heavy. Real gold? Seriously? In this day and age?

"When you decide you want to talk, go to Rome and throw the coin in the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastavere," Zabini said evenly. "I'll get a letter to you and we'll discuss things from there. If you decide against talking, just chuck it in the sea."

Clearly the coin was booby-trapped somehow, which as it was a precious metal would actually be pretty easy with Flames.

"If you lose it I'll assume you weren't interested in talking," Zabini added, making Squalo decide against just handing the coin over to the Mist Squad Leader and asking her to dispel the traps on it. He'd have to hire a deposit box in some bank instead. A bank in Rome was probably a good idea, as that way Zabini wouldn't get any ideas about following him in order to get answers that way. The swordsman pocketed the coin and slid off the roof.

"Until next time," floated quietly on the breeze behind him. Squalo ignored it. He needed to hit something; he always thought better while fighting.

* * *

Squalo stalked back to the car and put his back to the railings it was parked by, glaring up at Zabini who was staring south across the bay as though their conversation had never happened. He stayed staring venomously at the doppelganger until Oversight wandered over with his own mostly-eaten ice cream in one hand and a pristine cone in the other; Squalo accepted the treat, serene in the knowledge that Oversight considered poisoning people to be 'tacky'. Over half of the Varia _would_ hand him poisoned food just to check he was paying attention, but Oversight was more likely to booby-trap his bedroom or sabotage the car pool than stoop to ruining good food.

Nobody in the Varia was exactly what you could call sane, even by Mafia standards, but they were all remarkably consistent nonetheless.

Squalo bit into his ice cream without so much as glancing at it; stracciatella and green apple. Somebody had been paying attention then, as this was one of his favoured ice cream combinations; Squalo liked ice cream that wasn't particularly sweet and had a bit of a crunch to it, unlike Boss who rarely ate any flavour other than chocolate, and _good_ chocolate at that.

"So," Oversight finally said once Squalo had made a bit of a dent in his ice cream.

"Costanzo Zabini," Squalo said evenly, still glaring at the man say on the roof ridge. "Financial inspector in some principality where they still burn people alive for rape according to Classical Roman Law, related to said nation's princess and a Wrath Flame user. Almost certainly related to Boss; claims to be a third cousin." He paused. "Has other relatives who can use Wrath Flame and their nation's currency doesn't seemed to have changed since pre-medieval times."

"That does narrow it down a bit," the driver said from three feet to Oversight's right. "Also explains the Sturno mess; Claudio liked them young."

Squalo had not known that, but then again it hadn't really been relevant until now. "I want somebody researching Roman Law, particularly around the time of Constantine," he said shortly, "and somebody to go through the histories to see what we can find out about who Ricardo Vongola was before he became Vongola."

"We should probably ask Bel too," Oversight added, "what with Zabini being from a European principality and probably royal in some way if he and Boss are related to a princess."

Squalo's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Bel made a really big deal about being royalty, but he'd always followed Boss without hesitation. The way things were going Boss was probably of royal blood to some degree or other and if so, had Bel known that already?

"Vooi, we're going to Rome first, so I can stick the contact coin he gave me in a deposit box," Squalo said, finishing off the ice cream and tossing the coin in question to Oversight. "I want a report on it when we get back."

Oversight hummed, already so utterly engrossed in the gold coin that Squalo had to manhandle him into the car. Glancing out of the window as they drove off, the interim head of the Varia could see Zabini still sat on that roof, staring out to sea. He wondered what was so significant about this tiny town that it had been chosen as a meeting place; that kind of choice wasn't casual.


	64. Chapter 64

Beta'd by the elated Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of eccentric relatives and unlikely connections **

Blaise did not like wedding anniversaries. It was not an almost-phobia such as his aversion to weddings, but it was still a very powerful distaste. Most of his mother's husbands had made it to their first wedding anniversary; one had even made it to his second. As a result Blaise did not believe that wedding anniversaries were joyous occasions, or at least the first three or four weren't. If you made it to five years married than it might possibly be time for cautious celebration, but not before.

But Rhea's first wedding anniversary was coming up despite her technically having only experienced one day of wedded bliss and a further week of reluctant but contented separation and Blaise knew that his sister was going to be so, so _miserable_ come August third. He couldn't let that stand, no matter _how_ he felt about this kind of thing! Rhea was his darling sister, his princess-to-be and the reason he was now wearing feathers; she would get a special wedding anniversary despite not having a husband on hand to do the honours.

He just had to find a suitably discreet restaurant that would let him book a table at such short notice, preferably somewhere in Central Europe. Not France though; maybe Austria?

* * *

Getting in touch with her 'Uncle Nick' was not the easiest of tasks; the Master Alchemist had been around for a long, long time and had spent an awful lot of it improving the security of his home. His homes, technically: the house in Devon, the French Chateau and the _cascina_ in Sicily, and those were just the residences Rhea knew about. Being a rather famous figure, he had ways of ensuring that letters he did not want to receive never reached him; he'd likely forgotten more about Warding that most wizards ever realised existed.

If Nicholas Flamel wasn't reclusive enough, there was Perenelle to consider as well. Dorea was almost positive 'Perenelle' wasn't her real name, but the eccentric and ageless women who had insisted an eight-year-old Dorea call her 'Auntie Nellie' was no pushover and remarkably good at making conversation without giving away anything about herself.

Dorea had met them through Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, been told amusing stories about various Potter ancestors by Uncle Nick and doted on by Auntie Nellie, but it had been just one meeting and she'd not seen or heard from them since. Then again, she hadn't written to let them know about the fake Philosopher's Stone fiasco either. The Flamels were people who were distant relatives and with whom she exchanged Christmas cards, but nothing more. It was a bit odd to Dorea that, despite the Flamels being longstanding friends of the Potter Family, it was her Great-Aunt who had introduced her to them, but looking it back it could easily have been _them_ getting in touch rather than the other way around.

However her Rence needed an Alchemist-Artificer to apprentice to and it would be insulting of her to ask anyone other than her Uncle Nick. He might not agree, but if he did turn her knight down he would at least recommend somebody else, so Dorea had to go to _that_ room in Potter manor with the special mirror that has been in the family for over six hundred years and had probably influenced any number of ludicrous muggle fairytales.

Dorea didn't like magic mirrors very much; wizards seemed to go completely insane where mirrors were concerned and tended to charm them in all manner of inappropriate ways. It they didn't outright curse the bloody things, of course. She did like her communication mirrors, but _she_ had made those and they hadn't been given a completely superfluous personality 'just because'. This particular mirror was a burnished silver oval, plain as plain can be, but when she breathed on it the surface cleared rather than clouding up and revealed a pretty pastoral view.

"_Lady Potter requests an audience of her cousin,_" Dorea said clearly in Ancient Greek; she wasn't sure why that was the only language the mirror responded to, but she had been taught that phrase by heart long before she learned the language properly and it suggested odd things about the Flamels' history.

The view in the mirror vanished with a bell-like peal and Dorea left the room again; it might take anything from a few hours to a month for Uncle Nick to get back to her and she had no shortage of other things to be getting on with in the meantime.

* * *

Dorea rarely knows how she feels these days. Her father's death has left her torn up inside, but the Flames of her husband's soul burn brightly in the void, warming her and consuming her depression before it can really set in; she's not morose or numb so much as dull. Diminished. Her friends and family are all helping her there as well: she would not have managed even half as well at the funeral without Dawn making sure everything ran smoothly, Dee agreeing to take over as Black Steward so Rence can go back to 'just' being Potter Deputy, Zee always at her left hand offering an arm to cling onto and Rence himself standing at her right shoulder, ever-patient and steady for her to lean on.

Her knight was being so wonderfully supportive it had made her cry several times, in a good way that was. Mostly by helping her with her precious babies, soothing them when they were tired, changing their nappies and talking to them when they were fractious. Part of why it made Dorea cry was that it really should be Xanxus doing all those things, but in his absence Rence was the least upsetting possible substitute. Mostly because he looked, acted and felt _nothing_ like her missing husband. She had cried, in a really bad, painful, awful and not-to-be-repeated way, when she'd got up in the middle of the night for a feeding and walked in on Gaetano soothing a very disgruntled Cassie. He wasn't her husband but for a moment he might have been and it had _hurt_.

It had taken two weeks after that incident to persuade her male in-laws that no, she _wanted_ them to bond with her babies, but she also wanted to be warned _beforehand_ so she could be prepared. Rence had very helpfully created a schedule which everybody followed religiously; it was a bit silly really but it did help and kept the tension down.

It was possibly a bit –well maybe a lot– vindictive of her, but following her father's death Dorea completely withdrew the entire Black Family and all allies and assets onto Warded land, leaving both Voldemort and the Ministry to their own devices. Riddle Junior was down to just two Marked Death-Eaters –the not-dead-at-all Barty Crouch and Severus Snape– and whatever rabble he'd managed to hold together in the face of so many failures, likely including Fenrir Greyback. There had never been any concrete proof of Greyback being a Death Eater, but even if he wasn't he was still on Dorea's hit list for Remus' sake alone. The werewolf had been evading arrest from the Ministry ever since it had been confirmed that he was a werewolf who deliberately infected others; that had happened when Remus was nine, which was nearly thirty years ago now.

He would probably Mark a few more to make up the ranks again, but with Lucius Malfoy in Azkaban Riddle could no longer access the Malfoy money and Draco's first act following his father's sentencing was to visit Gringotts and use a little-known legal clause to transfer control of the vaults to his mother until his father was either pardoned or had completed his sentence in full. It was a thoroughly Slytherin move, especially since Narcissa's first act as Regent Malfoy was to close Malfoy Manor, forcibly evicting any who might have been living there save the house-elves.

Theo had asked Dorea to act as Regent Nott for the few months until he turned seventeen, which she had accepted and promptly turned to Remus who, having just retired from being Black Steward, had both the time and experience to do something about the ailing Nott estate. It being a fraction of the size of the Black Estate, Remus would have plenty of free time to mourn in, but having a job to do meant he wouldn't end up sinking into depression and not getting out of bed for days at a time. Remus was, in some ways, taking her father's death worse than she was. Holding little Marius seemed to help with that though, so Dorea made a point of dumping her son on the werewolf for an hour every few days.

Hermione had for some reason decided that the broom-makers' monopoly on the Department of Magical Transportation had gone on for long enough and had somehow co-opted Percy Weasley –of all the unlikely people– into assisting her. Dorea wasn't touching _that_ with a ten-foot pole, so had left her friend to her scheming. She had no doubt that Hermione would succeed and that if her Storm-Cloud friend needed help she would not hesitate to ask for it. Until that point came, Dorea would cherish her ignorance; Hermione schemes were always tremendous fun to watch and hear about and ruining the surprise would be unsporting.

Zee, when not sitting with her and doting on his new niece and nephew, was talking with Luna about a 'summer project' which seemed to involve interviewing a range of people involved in the Grindelwald War. Luna seemed delighted and had somehow managed to drag Colin Creevey into Potter Manor to discuss a photography section, so Dorea had again left her friends to their scheming. They were happy and keeping busy to the point of not requiring her input at all, which meant she didn't have to worry about them. When they showed up in her suite, shifty-eyed and shuffling their feet while asking seemingly-unconnected questions, _then_ she would worry.

Dee had been delighted to be sworn in as Black Steward and was even now cheerfully immersed in her new duties, happily making use of her education as the former Greengrass Heir to benefit the Black Family. Being Black Steward meant she was technically in a formal relationship with the current head of the Black Family that was equivalent –legally speaking– to an arranged marriage, which meant her parents could not arrange anything on her behalf. If anyone wanted to marry Dee they would have to ask Dorea. Or Dee would have to ask herself, which was equally likely. It was similar to the situation with Hermione, as by Magical law Hermione was Dorea's adopted daughter. Never mind that the Muggleborn was actually most of a year _older_ than Dorea… sometimes legalities could be ludicrous.

Dorea didn't actually see much of Theo, Draco, Millie or Trey over the summer. Oh, they all came to visit at Potter Manor once a week, but they didn't stay for more than a few hours and it was more to check that everything was going well enough and everyone was coping rather than a proper sit down and chat. George and Fred had made themselves scarce too, spending most of their time at Prewett House working on their inventions; she had fielded a few calls from them over the mirrors, mostly giving a second opinion on various ideas or ways to make potions work since she now had a Mastery and was therefore 'an expert'.

Ginny wasn't at Prewett house, even though her mother probably thought she was; instead she had fled to Weasley Hall, appealed to her Grandmother's Black sensibilities and thereby secured lessons in armed combat for herself. According to the weekly letters Luna read at the breakfast table Ginny was happy as a clam and showing a talent for hand-axes. The idea of the Stormy redhead waving an axe about was utterly unnerving in the best possible way, so Dorea was looking forward to seeing Ginny's form in person.

More hopefully, Costanzo had recently assured her that they did have a lead on Xanxus, but that it would take time to follow up and check properly and that hurrying would destroy all their progress. Dorea had accepted that as graciously as possible, then spent a full hour duelling furiously against Millie and Draco in the Training Hall to bleed off her frustration. Mille was just starting on Soulfire and practically living at Grimmaud Place with Draco, so that their spontaneous experimentation could be monitored and contained by Trey and Pavarti Patil, who had surprised everyone this year by turning out to have a very reliable and finely controlled Lightning Flame. Millie and Pavarti had a mutually beneficial alliance going on this summer, in which Millie introduced Pavarti to People of Importance in Bristish Magical Society at various events and Pavarti in return helped Millie dress in a way that looked fabulous and that the larger girl was comfortable with. They were also exploring the more subtle uses of Lightning Flames and taking copious notes –carefully– which was useful as the books didn't actually offer anything for Lightning users to do with their Flames that wasn't combat related and Pavarti considered that shortcoming to be outrageous.

Not that Millie wasn't already rather unfairly imaginative in applying her Flames in combat; in that hour's duel the axe-fighter had tried something new that Dorea had had to improvise a defence for and said improvisation had exploded rather than defended. Draco had not been impressed, mostly because he had been in the blast radius.

* * *

Dorea didn't arrange a party on her birthday that year. As her father had just died it wasn't appropriate, but more importantly she just didn't have it in her to celebrate when her father had been in the ground for six weeks and her husband was still missing. Rather than a party, all her close friends and a number of in-laws had come over for a picnic lunch in the garden, watched her open her presents then just chatted about what they'd been up to. Some of them were very vague indeed –Zee and Luna in particular– but Hermione had more than made up for that with the sheer volume of detailed outrage she had called up, which was just so Hermione it was hilarious. Dorea did love her friends, even when they were being obsessive. She also loved her new in-laws, but could they not poke at Hermione's obsessive tendencies? Please?

But much as she enjoyed her birthday, modest though the celebrations were, the following morning Dorea woke up feeling very down indeed. Not because the memories of the day's party were any loess lovely in retrospect, but because her wedding anniversary was coming up. Soon she would have been married for an entire year, followed promptly by the anniversary of her husband's incapacitation.

Dorea wasn't looking forward to either.

She had been vaguely puzzled when Tizzy, the Potter elf that was her personal attendant, had gently but briskly manhandled her out of bed on her wedding anniversary and chivvied her through bathing and getting dressed. Her ladies-in-waiting were clearly in the know on whatever was going on, but Dorea could not muster up the interest or energy to ask. So she fed and cooed over her babies, ate breakfast, went for a ride on Lark in the grounds and did her best not to think about anything at all. The fresh air and exercise left her feeling slightly more alive, but not so much so that she put up more than token protest when Rence insisted she dress for a semi-formal lunch at a Muggle restaurant after feeding her babies again.

The idea of getting out was more than welcome, as she'd not left her properties at all since her marriage –barring the trip to the Ministry and subsequent abduction to Hogwarts– and that somebody had organised this for her was vaguely welcome; it also reminded her that she really needed to take charge of her schedule and get out more of her own initiative, if only to show to the rest of Magical Britain that she was not cowed by Riddle's continued existence. In the meantime however, distraction was good.

That her escort consisted of the two Zabini footmen plus Carla, the elder of her two ladies-in-waiting, all wearing Muggle formalwear in shades of black and grey, gave the impression of attending a shady business deal rather than just lunch. It was vaguely amusing really, so Dorea did her best to enjoy the moment, a resolution that lasted through the Floo, past meeting the Zabini relatives whose home they passed through in Vienna and all the way to the large, elegant coffee house that was their destination, at which point her resolve crumpled because the person waiting for her, smartly dressed in a magnificent suit, was Zee.

Zee, who had confided in her once that he loathed wedding anniversaries and everything they stood for. That they existed reminded him of weddings and everything else he associated with weddings –and funerals– due to his mother's many marriages.

Her bursting into tears went rather well, all things considered: Zee was on his feet in an instant to guide her gently into a seat at the table he'd staked out in a corner of the building while her three escorts settled themselves on the tables around them, barricading them in and ensuring nobody would be able to get too close. None of the locals had noticed her outburst, suggesting that either Zee was using some rather sophisticated Wards –since the waiter would need to be able to approach them– or was simply abusing his Rain Flames. Probably the latter; it was the more flexible solution.

"Z-Zee, why?" she finally managed to mumble past her handkerchief.

"_Because you are my sister, you are hurting and I care about you_," her best friend and brother said in Italian. "_This should be a special day for you and I want it to stay special. I want you to be happy, little sister._"

Dorea snuggled more closely into Zee's side and shook under the force of her tears, leaning heavily into his firm hold and closing her eyes. She loved her oath-brother so, _so,_ much.

"_What are we doing then?_" She finally managed to ask, sticking to Italian.

"_We will eat, we will talk and then maybe wander around town,_" Zee said lightly. "_Nothing heavy, I promise_."

"_You are a treasure,_" Dorea declared, dabbing at her eyes and blowing her nose.

* * *

Having returned from a wedding anniversary lunch which had somehow managed to warm her from the inside despite the continued absence of husband, Dorea found that there was a message waiting for her on the mirror. A message not from her Uncle Nick, but from her Aunt Nellie. That was… odd. Especially since what the ivory-haired, grey-eyed lady said boiled down to 'come and visit on Tuesday and bring your candidate, I'm sure he'll agree.'

Dorea had to admit that she had approaching zero personal experience of how a marriage could work out between two people, not having been raised by married people herself, but this seemed a bit… hasty? Presumptuous? Oh well; she had been invited and that was that. She would take along the twins, so as to avoid having to hurry home early, and Rence. Nobody else, because Uncle Nick would ensure their safety and the whole point of the visit was for Rence to meet the Alchemist-Artificer. Dorea could sit with Aunt Nellie, spoil the babies and gossip for however long it took for Uncle Nick to make up his mind.

She'd not actually taken her children off Family grounds yet, but this was as secure an excursion as anyone could hope for. Both Flamels doted on children, Potter children in particular if the various diaries, journals and grimoires in the Potter Library were to be believed. There was a family story –one she'd actually been told by one of the portraits– that a long time ago the Flamels had adopted an illegitimate Potter as their own, or it might have been that a young Potter had come across the babe and had asked Nicholas Flamel to care for it in his stead. Nobody was quite sure anymore and the Flamels weren't telling.

Still, a trip to the mountains of Sicily would be a pleasant change, no matter how appallingly hot it would be at this time of the year.

* * *

Nicholas Flamel had always derived much amusement from the fact that he did not look at all like most people expected a legendary alchemist to look. He was rather short –by current standards anyway– with a rounded face, receding hairline and rather stocky build. He was also going grey and what of his hair was not grey was a rather mousy brown. All in all he looked like a petty bureaucrat rather than a pioneer of modern magical science and he very much liked it that way. Petty bureaucrats were something people went out of their way to overlook and Nick rather liked his privacy, thank-you.

He'd had a very interesting life, with the interesting parts starting long before his study of alchemy and jewel-crafting led to his accidental immortality, and had made a point of not doing anything he did not enjoy for its own sake. It was a motto that had stood him in good stead over the centuries, through four name-changes and numerous extremely enjoyable fresh starts. Those were always fun and he had made it into the history books with three of those past aliases. Generally not prominently, but that was better than being subject to too much scrutiny.

Being rather ordinary to look at was part of why he really enjoyed acting and dressing up; transfiguration and alchemy made doing so quite ridiculously easy and great fun. When people nowadays thought of 'Nicholas Flamel' they thought of a tall, aristocratic geezer with thick white hair who wore brightly coloured robes, which was always good for a laugh. On the other hand, the people who knew him as 'Talbot' thought he had a mohawk, was heavily tanned and equally heavily wrinkled and wore a dozen layers of raggedy coats and weird jewellery. Oh, and a blindfold; wearing the blindfold was pure theatrics, but great fun!

Nick didn't feel old despite his centuries; why should he? Feeling old was about feeling you were tired of the changes life threw at you and Nick was never going to get tired of being pleasantly surprised. His lovely wife had been the first of those truly wonderful surprises and really, she still was the best of them. His lovely spouse was constantly surprising him and he loved her for it.

Her latest surprise had been inviting his current Potter niece and her children over for tea, which had seemed innocent enough except that, when Dorea arrived, Nick could see that a great many interesting changes had taken place in the dear Lady Potter. An Active Sky with two Stormy children whose parentage was quite blindingly obvious –at least to him but then again he had noticed more about young Xanxus Vongola than less observant people even realised existed– accompanied by a devoted and quite exceptionally balanced Lightning attuned to the Song of the Earth? Nick hadn't seen anything this fun since their little Giotto had started his vigilante group!

"So, introduce me!" Nick demanded cheerfully.

Dorea smiled brightly. "These are my babies, Marius and Cassie Black, and this is my knight-vassal, Terrence Higgs. Rence has an affinity for gemstones and is interested in alchemy, so I thought I should bring him to you. I'd like to ensure he gets a proper apprenticeship and this is your field, so…"

Nick smiled. "Of course, of course! This way, green knight! Let's see what you're made of then!"


	65. Chapter 65

I don't update on Sundays, so the next chapter will be out on Monday.

Beta'd by the sensible Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of stately homes and interviews**

Blaise really liked staying in Potter Manor. Not that he hadn't liked Black Manor, but Potter manor felt more like a home. It had innate warmth and was somehow unpretentious despite being a sprawling, three storey Tudor palace. Black Manor _had_ felt home-like, but that was entirely due to the unparalleled arrogance of its inhabitants: the Blacks somehow managed to fill those large, airy rooms with their elegant and stylish decor and expensive accents, dismissing it like it was cheap theatre scenery. This, the Blacks said with every gesture and casual movement, is _normal_. Commonplace; barely worth paying attention to. They somehow drew you into their shared delusion and you never noticed until it was too late and you were sprawled on an eighteenth century fainting couch in clothing dirty from play-fighting in the flowerbeds with the hippogriffs, not caring that you were staining the plush with mud, sweat, feathers and Merlin alone knew what else. Blaise and Dorea had actually _done_ that before, after a day spent with the hippogriffs and riding the winged horses in the grounds rather than in the sky above them.

Potter Manor on the other hand was not all cold stone, silk wallpaper and elegant sculpted plaster; instead it was red brick and garish tile, glossy wood panelling and vibrant tapestries. The rooms were all different shapes and sizes, the windows and staircases seemed to have been fitted in as something of an afterthought and there were half-hidden nooks and crannies everywhere, all filled with evidence of past generations. Not just portraits, samplers, soft furnishings and furniture either: there were _lots_ of names carved into the ends of wooden beams and the backs of panelling, with dates going all the way back to when the house was built. Zee loved it: like the Palazzo he had grown up in with his cousins, this was a house people _lived_ in. Walking in the front door was like being hugged by the accumulated family feeling of every Potter that had ever lived there and Blaise had never found any building so marvellous in his life. Not even Hogwarts could match it.

But despite having a new home that really _felt_ homey, Blaise still had a summer project to be getting on with. Considering his partners in crime were Luna Lovegood and Colin Creevey, he could not honestly say that his summer project would keep him out of trouble, but at least any trouble found would be well-documented, properly researched and highly enjoyable. The Italian wasn't sure what Colin wanted to do for a living once he graduated, but there was definitely space for a photographer of his calibre in Sabina's newspaper consortium, _especially_ if said photographer was willing to gets his hands a bit dirty.

Politics was a cut-throat business in the mosaic of duchies, principalities and republics that made up Italy's Magical landscape and a dedicated photojournalist would be paid his weight in galleons. The Magical nations of the Italian peninsula had never united under a single rule like the Muggle states had; most of them would never think of identifying themselves as 'Italian' either. It made politics far more interesting, though Sabina dominated thanks to having a longer, richer history and hosting a respectably sized school of magic. Having power over people's education gave them a considerable edge over the other, less influential states.

If Dorea actually let him finish school before snapping him up that was, which, considering she was the reason the eager little blond had developed a blackmail habit at all, was unlikely. She'd probably wait until Colin was seventeen though. Until then Blaise would just need Colin's parents to agree for the younger teen to go abroad for a while to gain experience.

Beyond having a vague sense that his current plans would be worthy of being called an Evil Plot for Local Political Dominance –not quite World Domination but definitely a stepping stone in that direction– if he'd intended to use his results to destabilise the government rather than just discredit the recently-deceased Albus Dumbledore, Blaise wasn't too worried about how his summer scheme would end up. It would be the truth, probably not the whole truth but definitely nothing but the truth, and that would be a breath of fresh air. It would also be _educational_, and after spending most of a year teaching Zee knew just how double-edged a blessing that was. It was amazing how much you picked up from your students when you paid attention, it really was… and he was not going to think about how those teaching at La Scuola Sabina might use such information.

Then again, any plot in which Luna was a major contributor was bound to take a sharp turn into Underhill via orange and E# Major, so attempting to predict the outcomes of tossing this particular rock into the pond that was British Magical Society was a lost cause. What would be, would be and it was bound to be interesting, so who cared about the details?

* * *

Nurmengard was not ever going to become one of Germany's top ten Wizarding tourist attractions. This was partly because it was still in use as the most secure Magical prison in Western Europe, but also due to the frequently dismal weather of the Ore Mountains where it was situated. Nurmengard had been built in a semi-desolate area that had been extensively mined and then abandoned, so all there was to see was naked rock, slag heaps and the fortress itself, tall, black and ominous. There were a few narrow windows in the upper reaches, but the only opening within fifteen metres of ground level as the door and _that_ was eight metres up, accessible only via specific Charms that the guards had to trigger both from the inside and the outside.

The prison had a resident guard population of twelve, who each served staggered six month stints on duty after which they got to serve elsewhere for a year. The prisoner population was currently thirty-seven, slightly under half of whom had been there since the end of the Grindelwald War. Grindelwald himself was in the most secure cell at the top of the fortress and was not allowed out; Wards inherent in the fortress' construction saw him fed, provided water for drinking and bathing and ensured the room never got so cold he froze to death, although he could doubtless be very uncomfortable. It was possible to hold a conversation with him from the room below via a clever bit of acoustics, but not to see him face to face. Well, in theory anyway. Blaise was sure Luna –for whom compliance with reality was strictly optional– had a way around that already laid out in her head.

Getting the guards to agree to let them in to conduct the interview in the first place had been the tricky part, but being a Zabini had helped Blaise there as had making a generous donation to the prison's funds. Not quite a bribe, but definitely a sweetener. The money encouraged the guards to cooperate and ensured that he and Luna would be left to conduct their interview in private, though neither of them would be allowed to carry their wands inside the prison.

One more reason why Soulfire foci were so practical: nobody ever confiscated them. Most wizards never paid attention to jewellery at all outside of a quick glance to make sure the person they were dismissing didn't happen to be an Heir or Lord to an important magical family, because that could get messy and political. Beyond that, rings were either for those getting married in a Christian fashion –which was more common than you'd think– or for deeply paranoid wizards who used them to anchor various protective Wards and Enchantments. Rings that told you if your home was being broken into for instance, or whether the goblet you were about to drink out of was poisoned. Strictly defensive magic, so nothing a prison guard would bother confiscating. There were Cursed rings out there too, but anybody stupid enough to put one of _those_ on was doing the gene pool a favour by killing themselves.

Blaise handed his wand over without complaint, as did Luna and Colin. Colin was smartly if soberly dressed in tailored grey robes with mint green pinstripes, a significantly less expensive but otherwise similar fashion choice to Blaise's own royal blue silk robes. Luna on the other hand had hollyhock, marigold and chicory flowers woven in a wreath of her head and wore a layered, gauzy robe marbled in cheerful shades of orange and lime. Her turquoise earrings, necklaces and ring looked very vibrant indeed against such a backdrop and the shocking pink rollerblades just added to the colour explosion. In the dark, dreary prison she stood out like a macaw in a rookery.

That she was smiling brightly, clutching a pad of teal paper in one hand and had a glittery flamingo quill tucked behind one ear just added to the incongruity. It was utterly adorable. Between their Luna-bell looking so very conspicuous and Colin's bright, eager babble the guards' eyes were already glazing over and the three of them were being hustled up to the top of the fortress with all due speed; regardless of prison policy, Blaise was certain that as soon as they were settled in the guards would all retreat back to their common room for a stiff drink. Privacy doubly assured, as no guard would _want_ to wait outside the entrance of the visitor's chamber.

This was a _good_ thing, because the visitor's chamber had no door –total lack of privacy was traditional in Magical prisons– and having the guards see how Luna-bell could break reality without ever using magic would have been detrimental to their goal, which was to be polite, subtle and Not Cause A Panic. Because we are kind people, Luna, and upsetting people by dragging them out of their comfortable mental rut is cruel like kicking a puppy. It's their choice to live inside their constrained, restricted worldview like it's yours to experience the vastness of Actual Reality and Choice is Important. We Respect people's choices and that makes us kind people. Not nice people, or even good people, but kind people. Being kind is important.

Blaise had known for a while that Soulfire did odd things to a person's sense of reality, but that he actually _agreed_ with The Talk that Dorea gave Luna and Ginny over the mirrors back near the beginning of term suggested he was less sane than he liked to think he was. That he simultaneously agreed with Ginny that some people _deserved_ to experience the cold kiss of reality as it left a frozen imprint of itself upon their soul was another matter entirely; he was a Zabini and he knew his relatives would agree with her too.

That Luna was breaking reality in the name of better sound quality and the opportunity to interact properly with Grindelwald –oh and for pictures, can't forget that– was probably the part that would upset people the most. Using your immense and unknown powers to break people out of jail was fairly normal among Magicals; they did it in Muggle situations rather regularly. Using them so you could sell more papers was a bit… tacky? Was that the right word to use in this situation?

As the politically savvy member of the Interview Committee –as Luna had decided to name them– Blaise got to ask all the 'boring' questions about Call-Me-Gellert's childhood, experiences in the Durmstrang Institute and subsequent exploits, up to and including the War but only touching on it in passing. Blaise was more interested in the people the dictator had interacted with, the special ones who had not merely obeyed but joined in to expand and give structure to the grand vision of 'The Greater Good'. One of whom, surprise surprise, was Albus Dumbledore. Early-twenties Dumbledore had been intimately involved with the development of Grindelwald's ideology, meaning that the scar carved into Magical and Muggle Europe during the thirties and forties was an only slightly distorted reflection of how _Dumbledore_ felt the world should be.

Really, once they'd published the Ministry would be going over every single law and commentary the old coot had ever made, looking for 'The Greater Good'' between the lines so it could be ripped up and eradicated. They'd find it too; Dumbledore might have believed himself a benevolent force, but he was simply a more subtle and patient dictator than his former lover.

On a side note, Gellert Grindelwald was indeed a latent Sky. The only Sky Blaise had ever met other than Dorea, and indeed Dumbledore's comparisons were not too far off if you disregarded the fact that Gellert genuinely believed Muggles to be sub-human, was a bona-fide sociopath and had probably been delusional even before spending the past fifty years in solitary confinement. The drive though, the sheer _belief_, the ability to see a person's strengths and fit them into a grander vision, the acceptance of those around them for who they were regardless of myriad personal failings? Yep, Grindelwald had those. Just like Dorea, although Dorea was better at making you not notice she was doing it.

It was only after Blaise had got all the 'boring' questions out of the way that he let Luna ask all her 'human interest' questions for her planned Quibbler article, such as what he enjoyed doing with his time while alone in his cell, how good was the food and did Numengard have Wards against Blibbering Humdingers? Colin of course didn't ask any questions at all, but he had taken a lot of pictures, especially when Luna had done her party trick and flipped half the room's ceiling so Grindelwald was sitting upside-down facing them rather than being in the cell above. The elderly man's face had been utterly hilarious and Blaise hoped that it had been recorded for posterity. Of course, technically Grindelwald probably still _was_ in the cell above them, but the Italian preferred not to think too hard about the things Luna could do because that was a sure-fire way to break your own brain.

Of course, Grindelwald was not their first interviewee. Yes, he was the one Blaise had been overtly pursuing the longest –since June in fact– but as the cogs of bureaucracy were grinding ever so slowly he, Luna and Colin had found and spoken to others. Former secretaries, drivers, grunts and socially inept researchers, people who had been left in place after Grindelwald's fall because they were not important enough to be worth bothering with, nor powerful enough to be a threat. Little people who had seen their Lord and Master every day and been dismissed by him like furniture, people who had witnessed his interactions with his inner circle and had an endless supply of anecdotes about them all. It was those interviews that provided the structure upon which Blaise's investigation stood; Grindelwald was simply the icing on the cake.

According to the book Dorea had been given by Abraxas, the duty of a Rain Guardian was to follow in the wake of a crisis and wipe away all evidence, so that both the conflict and those involved in it were nothing more than fading memories. Dorea said that the Rain was the family peacekeeper, the balancer; Blaise liked his sister and princess's explanation better. It suggested he could actively _prevent_ things going down the tubes in the first place, rather than just being the gullible sap responsible for putting everyone back together after things had gone to shit. Writing about Grindelwald would permanently put to rest any thoughts of continuing Dumbledore's legacy and hopefully also prevent a whole lot of unnecessary conflict as well.

Blaise actually enjoyed diplomacy, in that it was a form of warfare between the minds of the participants and therefore more varied and unpredictable than actual combat. Being his princess's chief diplomat was looking to be a very interesting job already, and he wasn't even of age yet!


	66. Chapter 66

Again, Insane Scriptist and I joint-own all non-canon Vongola and Varia characters and behaviour that show up in our respective stories.

Beta'd by the friendly Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of tea and conversation **

Dressed in the current year's Varia uniform –which made him look like a delinquent member of an American biker gang without the tattoos– with a rucksack hanging off one shoulder, Squalo stood in the doorway of one of the apartment buildings that housed 'unattached' members of the Vongola and pressed the buzzer marked 'Paternó Castello, P.' while checking his watch.

It was still three minutes to four; good. He was on time. Petronilla was a Mist and a bit funny about time, especially tea-time, because she was one of those drama-queen Mists and had a Thing for traditional English fashions and customs. Thus, following his coming to her attention over the Drama exam swap, Nilla had refused to leave him alone until he came to terms and agreed to visit her for tea and biscuits twice a month, minimum. When exactly he scheduled those visits was up to him, but if he failed to visit twice a month Petronilla would descend on him at some highly unwelcome moment and drag him off to demand an explanation. He knew her well enough to realise that was a very real possibility.

That hadn't actually happened yet, but Nilla was very literal with her threats and Squalo was disinclined to make his life more difficult if it could possibly be avoided, so had attended tea with his new friend promptly and reliably throughout the past two years. This had inevitably led to him meeting and getting to know her handful of other friends, all of whom were Mists, female and dedicated socialites. They'd have gotten on his last nerve if they hadn't all been ruthless and devious manipulators of the social order dedicated to the advancement of the Vongola, preferably over the twitching but still-breathing bodies of their rivals. A flock of vicious harpies they might be, but they actually used their brains and Squalo could put up with a certain level of girly twittering for the sake of intelligent conversation.

To be honest, Squalo enjoyed taking tea with Nilla and her fellow Harpies because incisive and subtle Mist-drama could not possibly compete with erratic and all-consuming Varia-drama, which was what had eaten his life since Boss was put on ice the previous year. The Varia-drama had actually been gradually getting _worse_ since Enrico died, which had led to Squalo throwing Levi through a closed window three days ago and very loudly threatening to step down in favour of Tyrant if they didn't get their act together. They were fucking Varia Quality and they should bloody well act like it!

Tyrant had been the Varia Boss following the end of the Second World War and had retired to Housekeeping in favour of the guy that Tyr had killed to get the title, so he was damn old for an assassin, but that everyone in Headquarters had _instantly_ calmed down and started acting like professionals rather than toddlers said it all about how utterly terrifying the guy still was. Squalo had of course then needed to have a discreet chat with Tyrant about how it was just a threat and he wasn't _actually_ going to force the man to deal with paperwork again, but that had been a small price to pay for actual peace and quiet. Now he could leave Varia Headquarters for more than fifteen minutes at a time without dreading the chaos he would be coming back to.

Morons, the lot of them. Housekeeping and Intelligence _still_ had their witch-hunt on for people getting in the way of Vongola success and efficiency and just because the Varia were getting work out of it didn't mean that they wouldn't be targeted if they dicked around like they had been doing. At least he had the women, Housekeeping and his own Rain Squad in his corner, which was the only reason he hadn't actually resigned yet. The Varia Ladies –including the ones whose paperwork claimed they were men– were not people to be fucked with and they could all see that the current situation with the Vongola was too precarious for 'high spirited behaviour' to be a good idea. Lying low was the smart thing to do right now and they were all enforcing that as much as they could. Housekeeping liked Squalo because Tyrant liked Xanxus and Squalo had been the one to make Xanxus the Varia Boss, so he had their full support. The Rain Squad supported him because they were _his_ people first and disrespecting him was not something they were about to let slide.

Unfortunately that loyalty had actually caused a lot of the clashes and there had been a full-out feud developing between the Rain Squad and the Storm Squad before Squalo threatened them all with Tyrant and everyone backed down because, bugnuts assassins or not, they did still have survival instincts. Belphregor, who had been nothing but a thorn in Squalo's side for the entire past year, had abruptly shut up, knuckled down and even started backing him up on stuff instead of undermining him on principle, which the swordsman knew was more to do with the fact that Tyrant was currently in charge of the pre-teen psycho's health and education than anything else. As Head of Housekeeping Tyrant had to adhere to certain set limits, which would no longer be the case were he Varia Boss and Bel had already been severely traumatised by Tyrant within those limits. Homicidal little monster Bel might be, but he was a genius kid and smart besides: compared to Tyrant, Squalo was _nice_. He was also patient, forgiving and permissive, all of which the Varia _appreciated_ and did not want to lose.

The real reason Squalo had snapped three days ago was that he had less than a week to fit two visits to Petronilla into this month and hadn't even been able to make it as far as the front door since mid-July. Part of that was it being the anniversary of the Cradle Affair –still a fucking stupid name– but part of it was the weird Boss-doppelganger that the Varia now had proof actually existed and the fact that he'd completely vanished off the face of the earth right after his chat with Squalo. The Camorra were all incredibly grateful and had entered a few rather stringent pacts with the Vongola before they recovered from the trauma of the experience, but the Varia were more interested in the report Oversight had submitted about that damn coin and who on earth the guy actually _was_.

Squalo was certain that Bel knew a whole lot more than he was telling on the subject, but the nine-year-old was keeping him mouth very firmly closed. That Mammon had been unable to find a country that still used Roman Law and pre-medieval currency had not helped, as the Mist Officer could _tell_ that Bel knew something he didn't about the situation and it was creating tension. Levi of course hadn't noticed and Ottabio didn't care, but Lussuria cared and kept trying to diffuse it, which wasn't working because Bel refused to give an inch and Mammon found that stubborn silence utterly infuriating.

The tension had simmered down a bit since Squalo's dramatic threat, but the swordsman planned to give it a few more days before approaching Bel privately. Besides, he rather wanted Petronilla's opinion first, since she was Intelligence.

* * *

The first thing any member of the Vongola learned about Intelligence was that it didn't exist. There was no House that specialised in Intelligence, no budget for information merchants within the Famiglia and all information concerning other Families entered the Vongola via the CEDEF. There were various gossip circles of course, people who knew people and everyone kept their ear to the ground as a matter of course because getting taken by surprise was bad for your health, but the Vongola did not have an Intelligence Division.

Yet, somehow, the Heads of the various Vongola Houses always had all the necessary information to make effective and timely decisions and Nono knew far more about what was actually going on than anybody was really comfortable with, even if he wasn't necessarily acting on it. So even though nobody was getting paid to do intelligence, it was still happening. Somehow.

Squalo was in a vanishingly tiny minority because he had actual proof that Intelligence existed yet was not part of it. He still was not entirely sure how he'd earned that privilege and was absolutely certain that if he ever actually told anyone he'd wake up dead shortly after, but that the information was still in his head suggested that someone high up had a plan and he was part of it. It was not a comfortable feeling.

He had discovered Intelligence as a fact rather than just a valid working hypothesis when he recruited Changeling, because at that point Erica Lanza had been working for Intelligence. That she had actually _told_ him that rather than let him believe she was merely a part-time teaching assistant due to having been careless enough to get pregnant aged fifteen while messing around with a member of a semi-allied Famiglia suggested her Boss –whoever that was– was supporting Squalo's agenda in some way. Thus, Intelligence no doubt knew that Changeling was currently keeping the CEDEF afloat more or less singlehandedly and wanted that to continue. In return when Petronilla graduated early, in the summer following Squalo leaving school altogether to join the Varia, Squalo had sent Erica a message about his sort-of friend, because Mists were natural intelligencers and Nilla liked keeping secrets secret more than she enjoyed revealing them at dramatically damaging moments.

Thus, despite never having been told what had happened after that, Squalo was pretty sure that Nilla was in Intelligence and that she seemed to have a good handle on everything going on in the mid-to-high levels of Vongola society backed up that assumption. So when Squalo needed information or a second opinion on something information-related, Petronilla was his first port of call. Mammon was second, because Mammon demanded money but Nilla considered the amusement of unravelling his problems to be sufficient payment in itself. She also enjoyed teasing him, which was definitely a weird female thing. The Varia Ladies did much the same in their own unique fashion, Oversight included.

But the best thing about Petronilla was that she didn't actually care much about the Vongola beyond enjoying all the drama that belonging to the world's craziest Mafia Famiglia provided and was actually more attached to him personally than anybody else still living. He was her 'toy', as Mists generally called the people they found interesting enough to keep around, so he could tell her things that any other person would report him for. Well, he could hint at things at least. Actually _telling_ Petronilla the details of his 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma would inevitably lead to her persuading him to defect, which would not be good in the long run as Boss would be pissed. However Nilla could at least get him access to documents that would back up Xanxus' reasons for instigating the faux-coup, which would help.

* * *

There was a buzz as the door unlocked, so Squalo let himself into the apartment building and jogged up the stairs to the third floor. In Vongola-owned apartment buildings it was generally the Mists, Clouds and Suns who lived on the upper floors, because they were the ones who could survive jumping out of the window from that height, although the occasional Lightning might be placed between two Clouds if there was a need. However there were never two Mists living in adjacent apartments because that was a feud waiting to happen, so housing was assigned according to a complex set of rules that had existed for nearly two-hundred years now and were enforced by Housekeeping, because Housekeeping owned the buildings and didn't like dealing with the fallout from inter-domestic bickering, as that inevitably included holes through walls and destroyed plumbing. Destroyed plumbing meant water damage and considerable ill-will directed at you from Housekeeping; Squalo had been forced to placate Housekeeping over the plumbing at Varia Headquarters several times in the past month and he hated it a lot more on every successive occasion.

Squalo had nothing but respect for Housekeeping, because without them the Vongola would have imploded centuries ago.

When he arrived on the third floor the door to Petronilla's apartment was already ajar, so Squalo walked right in and closed it behind him, shrugged out of his jacket and made himself comfortable on one of the four fancily upholstered armchairs that didn't already have somebody sitting in them. Opposite him Petronilla picked up the elegant silver teapot and poured him a cup of Earl Grey, giving him time to choose a biscuit from the selection laid out and moved his cup and saucer over to his side of the table before starting the conversation. It was just her and him, which was rather fortunate since he didn't want an audience for this conversation.

"I was starting to think you might not make it this month," the curly-haired brunette commented, bringing her own teacup to her lips. She spoke in Spanish, which was one of the five languages she was fluent in. Their tea-time conversations generally meandered from one language to the next depending on the subject, context and subtext, because a language was more than just words. Language was about communicating ideas, so languages varied depending on what a culture considered important enough to have specific terminology for. With Nilla, any conversation lasting more than a few minutes would inevitably involve more than one language and Squalo was used to speaking Spanish, Italian, French, English and Japanese on any given occasion, with a smattering of Sicilian for added nuance and a bit of German if Nilla felt the need to swear a little more colourfully than usual. Nilla couldn't put together a coherent sentence in German if she tried, but she could swear in the language with impressive fluency and imagination.

"Every time I made a move towards the front door someone would throw a tantrum or start a fight," Squalo grumbled, switching from Spanish to English mid-sentence. "Fucking toddlers, the lot of them."

Nilla giggled. "Poor little shark," she cooed in Italian. "Daddy left you to raise the children all alone and they don't respect you anymore."

"Shut up." Nilla was always poking at his friendship with Boss, implying it was more than it was even though she knew damn well it wasn't.

"Fine, fine, dear; as you wish. Tell me what you've been up to lately?"

Squalo complied, getting through another two cups of tea and six more biscuits as he briefly touched on his encounter with Costanzo Zabini and spoke more comprehensively about the subsequent insanity that had overtaken Varia HQ. He also handed over the copy of the file Oversight had put together for him on the gold coin Zabini had given him and what limited semi-speculative data on Secondo's extended non-Vongola family had been available in both the Vongola Archives and in Palermo's historical archives. There honestly wasn't much and there had been quite a lot of looking. The entire Mist Squad had _volunteered_, for Christ's sake!

"I'd rather like to see what I can find in Nono's library," the swordsman finished with, setting his teacup back on its saucer and sliding it back and forth across the table. Nilla hummed thoughtfully, reading glasses balanced on the end of her nose as she perused the paperwork.

"If you come over for tea at the Mansion rather than here on Friday then we can probably get you into the library for a few hours, but it'll mean staying for dinner afterwards," she told him. "You'd be my escort for the evening, since Nono's trying to get Federico to settle down by introducing him to every last unattached female over the age of sixteen."

"Is it working?"

Nilla snorted. "Giulia slept with him last week just to keep him away from the Petroforte heiress, because that bitch really wants to get pregnant with a Vongola heir so she has leverage. She'll be there by the way, Giulia I mean, as will Chiara, Teresa and Michela. Valentina's in France on a shopping holiday." Which was all six harpies accounted for. Petronilla was the only one among them with a strong enough Affinity to do more than little tricks, but Mists didn't need to be strong to be useful. Giulia at nineteen was the oldest Harpy and had been engaged to some mid-level mook before he got himself shot last year. Federico was old enough to be the Harpies' father, but that didn't seem to be stopping him. Then again, older men marrying younger women was a fact of life not limited to the Mafia so it probably wasn't something he should bother himself with.

"I'll come," Squalo decided, resigning himself to an afternoon of gossipy teenage girls and an evening of schmoozing. "Can I come in uniform?"

Nilla eyed him critically. "It _is_ the Varia uniform and it's not a properly formal party, so yes," she decided, "even though it makes you look like a delinquent. Can you wear a proper shirt at least? Scratch that; do you even _own_ a proper shirt?"

"I've got shirts," Squalo protested a little defensively; Lussuria was a clothes horse and despite being gracious enough not to foist his rather _uniqu_e tastes on the rest of the Officers, he _did_ add various things he thought would suit their preferences to their wardrobes on a semi-regular basis. Squalo couldn't hate him for it, because Luss had a good eye and was generally right about what suited their tastes and personal style; the only person he didn't shop for was Bel because Bel was a clothes snob, but the Sun Officer was the only reason Levi actually owned clothing other than his uniform. Luss incidentally designed the Varia uniforms as well, which meant it was _his_ fault that they looked like a biker gang or a heavy metal band this year.

"Hmm," Nilla didn't look convinced. "Bring all your shirts over here Friday at three and I'll ensure you look presentable," she decided. "Bring a full change as well; depending on how the evening goes you might not get back to Varia HQ before Saturday morning."

"Can you and your fellow harpies come up with a semi-safe way to find out how rigorous Federico's Guardians are being about his safety now he's primary heir?" Squalo asked. Okay, so the man was a womanising arse but he was the only option for Decimo they had left –Massimo might be alive but nobody with a brain wanted that guy leading the Vongola– so they needed him alive until he married and provided the Famiglia with a legitimate heir with Sky Flames. Hopefully Federico's eventual offspring would be worth the effort of keeping the man alive long enough to procreate.

"Ooh, what an interesting idea!" Nilla chirped, eyes brightening. "I'm sure we can come up with something; don't worry about a thing! You really are a wonderful toy, keeping me entertained like this."

"Vooi! Don't call me that," Squalo protested in an entirely token fashion. She was never going to stop and he didn't actually mind, but it still had to be said because if it wasn't she'd start doing it more often and in public.

"But you _are_ such a lovely toy, Squalo-dear," the Mist cooed, batting her eyelashes at him over the rim of her teacup.

"Stop it."

"Methinks the shark doth protest too much," she sassed him. The swordsman snorted and poured himself another cup of tea.

"You can keep the documents; until Friday then?" he asked after emptying his cup for the last time.

"Friday," Nilla agreed affably.

* * *

Of course, it was Luss who noticed that Squalo was walking out of Varia HQ with an overnight bag, his sword and every last shirt he owned. The Sun Officer however actually possessed that rare skill called discretion and rather than calling Squalo out, got into the front passenger seat of the car as though that had been his plan all along. Recognising that shifting the older man would not be worth the hassle and would just make him late, Squalo resigned himself to introducing his colleague to his friend and turned the key in the ignition.

"So, where are we going?" Lussuria asked, propping his chin on his fist.

"_You're_ taking the car back to Headquarters," Squalo said flatly. "_I_ am attending an event at the Vongola Mansion."

"You hate those parties," Luss pointed out, his habitual smile nowhere in evidence. Squalo wished he could bang his head against the steering wheel; God help him, the Sun Officer was _concerned_. Luss was all sunshine and daisies until he was actually worried about you, at which point he ripped the situation apart like the professional he was and razed to the bedrock anything he considered a threat. It was _embarrassing_ to be mother-henned like that! He was fifteen, not five!

Squalo groaned. "Voooi! I've got this friend from school who's going," he explained curtly, "and I owe her one, so I'm her escort. It's a bloody social to try and get Federico to settle down and Nono's throwing every last woman in the Famiglia at him, so she wanted someone to talk to since she doesn't believe for a moment that he'll look twice at her."

Luss's lips twitched. "Doesn't she think she's beautiful?"

Squalo grinned, all teeth. "Nah, she knows she's smoking hot," he countered, "but she's also a sixteen-year-old Mist fully in touch with her inner bitch, so he won't want to get too close. She'd be bad for his delicate ego."

The Sun Officer laughed. "So, you owe her a favour? How did that happen?"

The swordsman shrugged. "We take it in turns. She's a friend, voi, so I do stuff for her and she does stuff for me."

"I didn't realise you had friends outside the Varia," Lussuria said brightly. "I really _must_ meet this young lady."

"I'll introduce you when we get there," Squalo stated, hoping that Lussuria and Petronilla wouldn't get on _too_ well. They'd probably hit it off after a bit of testing the waters, but them deciding they were kindred spirits could only go badly for the swordsman. No need for them to start colluding behind his back and gossiping about him where he couldn't see them.


	67. Chapter 67

Beta'd by the supportive Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of socialising and snooping **

Squalo had been lucky: Luss and Nilla had been perfectly civil to each-other despite their respective initial defensive posturing and had found common ground in discussing fashion. However it hadn't been a meeting of kindred spirits, so Lussuria would probably just be meeting up with Petronilla maybe once a month and doing the rest of his talking over the phone. Lussuria was also disproportionally delighted by Squalo having an actual friend and had promised to cover for him if necessary, which was a relief. Nilla could take care of herself but she wasn't Varia Quality, didn't want to be and the swordsman was just slightly concerned about what might happen if the Varia found out about her too soon. Things really weren't settled yet despite it having been a year since Boss was frozen.

But seriously, a whole _year_ on ice? What the fuck was Nono thinking?! Maybe he wasn't thinking and that was the problem; emotional responses were usually utter shite in the long run but still came easier than thinking things through and doing the logical thing. Witness three-quarters of the Varia pissing about despite it being the height of stupid. He could understand them not wanting to be sensible, but 'not stupid' was as low as he was prepared to set the bar for acceptable behaviour.

At least Lussuria had half a brain, the Ladies had most of one apiece and Housekeeping had a reserve of good sense the collective could draw on as necessary. Nilla also had a brain, though she didn't always use it in ways Squalo found helpful. She was a Mist after all and found his frustration entertaining.

On the other hand Bel refused to use his brain, Mammon used his but wouldn't do so for Squalo's benefit unless he was getting paid, Ottabio was about as trustworthy as thin ice and Levi didn't _have_ a brain. Having to put up with this shit was _definitely_ cruel and unusual punishment and Squalo hoped that Nono choked on his dinner and _died_; maybe that way Federico would get some sense beaten into him and start pulling his own weight. He might even defrost Boss, which would be fantastic. Squalo would then be happy to stand well back and watch Boss sort out the mess in short order.

Still, Squalo was attending afternoon tea and a social dinner party at the Vongola Mansion, accompanying Petronilla as her 'plus one' despite his utter loathing of such events because his friend and her fellow Harpies had promised to smuggle him into Nono's office so he could go through the man's diaries while they went through the older section of the Vongola Private Library on his behalf. The swordsman was well aware of the risks they were taking helping him out like this and was resigned to getting dragged along to a dozen more parties like this one in payment. All the Harpies agreed he made excellent arm-candy; that he could double as a bodyguard and make decent conversation was just gravy.

The swordsman would have been more pissed off about the arm-candy comment had he not been well aware that a large number of very dumb Mafiosi considered the Harpies to be purely decorative in function, when in reality having a Mafia girl on your arm was like having a viper up your sleeve: there was no guarantee whether it would be you or your enemy getting bitten. Arm-candy was not an insult among women who thought it was funny to spike the dessert selection with mild hallucinogens then augment the results with Mist Flames.

* * *

The tea party bit wasn't all bad, except that the person hosting it was the retired Ottava and nobody had warned him. Daniela Vongola was in her mid-eighties and starting to lose her mobility, but she was still sharp as a tack, smart as a whip and far, far too Intuitive for Squalo's peace of mind.

"So you are my fiery grandson's right-hand-man," was what she greeted him with once the tea was poured. "It is very good to see that he has better taste in subordinates than my other grandsons sometimes demonstrate."

Squalo sipped his tea, uncomfortably aware that he had personally murdered one of those other grandsons a few months previously. Hopefully she'd just take it as wariness and teenage embarrassment.

"So, how did you and Petronilla here meet?" Ottava asked archly.

"Voi, we were at Mafia school together," Squalo stated shortly. "Then I left to follow Boss and she graduated early, but we kept in touch."

"Aren't you a year younger than Petronilla, Superbi?"

Squalo shrugged. "I got sent up a year when I was seven. Nilla was too bored to be interested in moving up until I proved you could actually test out if you wanted to."

"School was far too boring to bother with once my toy had left," Nilla said blandly, "so I followed his example and am thoroughly enjoying life in the real world."

"**Voi, not your toy!**" Squalo bellowed furiously; Ottava was _right there_! It wasn't funny! The little old lady cackled in glee, probably at both his indignation and Nilla's indiscretion.

"It's so nice to see the younger generation making something of themselves," the retired Vongola Donna said cheerfully once she had stopped sniggering. "Cultivating connections in all areas of the Famiglia is a sign of a good leader, Superbi."

"I don't _want_ to be a leader, voi," the swordsman said clearly, glaring at the other Harpies until they too stopped giggling at him. Ottava set down her teacup and smiled sympathetically.

"Yet you are the best remaining of all the available options, so I trust you will do your best."

"Of course, Ottava." Squalo wasn't quite sure where the words came from; he'd just _said_ them without even thinking about it.

"Thank-you," the elderly Donna said with a placid smile. Squalo did not trust that smile. It was the smile of a woman with a plan, a plan that involved _him_ in some way. It then occurred to the swordsman that the retired Ottava was an extremely likely candidate for the role of Head of Intelligence and that this was probably the final stage in some kind of vetting process. As in, if he failed now nobody would ever find the body.

Ottava's smiled widened as she examined the contents of her teacup.

* * *

Squalo somehow managed to escape the tea party unscathed, but then had to deal with three hours of cripplingly dull schmoozing with disturbingly airheaded Mafia socialites, vapid but vicious Mafia socialites and subtly perilous Mafia heiresses of the various minor Famiglia who fell under Vongola rule. This included a few Visconti ladies, who were not at all boring to talk to but didn't actually _want_ to talk to him because he was Varia and they were holding a grudge over the Cradle Affair. In deference to the fact that as Mafia Ladies they had access to the unproven but probably extant Mafia Ladies Network –they _all_ knew each-other, seriously– Squalo kept his mouth shut and allowed all three female Visconti to pretend he wasn't actually there.

He was actually very good at being overlooked; all he had to do was not say anything and everyone subconsciously edited him out of the picture because they couldn't fit 'Squalo Superbi' and 'quiet' in the same mental box. Unfortunately that forced him to stand there and listen to disgustingly girly chitchat about boy bands, the Spice Girls, Nono's new Lightning Guardian –who apparently was 'so, so sexy!' – and the latest fashion for shoes. The swordsman weathered this by reminding himself this was technically a mission and eavesdropping on every other conversation going on within twenty feet of him, which was actually not hard at all and only took the tiniest smidgen of Rain Flames.

Rains were frequently devalued, overlooked and dismissed by non-Rains, because 'Tranquillity' didn't sound very impressive and Rains tended to be discreet and disproportionately aware of their own shortcomings. Unlike Storms or Lightnings, Rains really didn't talk about their skills because they knew very well they could be better –should be better– and didn't think what they could do was all that impressive. Squalo had started consciously noticing this since getting handed the Rain Squad, because the Rain Squad had the highest overall success rate of _any_ Varia Squad yet was pretty much invisible at HQ because they didn't brag. They trained, they played poker –and cheated of course– they pursued their hobbies and kept themselves up to date, but they never got asked for by name and very often got tapped for the nasty jobs nobody ever wanted to do because they didn't usually argue much. Squalo had changed this –there was now a rota for those unpleasant jobs– but the fact remained that very few people noticed Rains much unless they wanted something done because 'everybody knew' that Rains were dependable.

Squalo was still learning to take advantage of that, being himself a highly atypical Rain. Getting dragged to this dumbass party –and probably more in the near future– at least meant he was getting practice in not being noticed unless specifically being sought out.

Despite standing in plain sight in the Varia Officer uniform, having shoulder-length ivory-blond hair and being six feet tall, everyone around him had stopped paying attention to him about forty-five minutes into the pre-dinner chitchat as they realised he wasn't about to snap and kill anyone; help out with one not-a-coup and everyone expects you to be an insane killer on a hair trigger. That was about ten minutes after he'd stopped talking as well, so it seemed that not being able to hear him had led everyone to edit him out of the proceedings. He still had Petronilla hanging off his arm as camouflage, but some of the conversations taking place within earshot of him were things the participants probably didn't want him overhearing. He was after all the person who had veto over whether or not the Varia took on a job and the Independent Assassination Squad had a history of doing surreptitious pro-bono work if it benefitted the Vongola as a whole.

He'd have to get Mammon to look into the Cascatoni _and_ the Tegliori after this. Mammon was the best Mist the Varia had when it came to gathering information on anyone despite the associated price tag; considering the implications of the conversations he was hearing the information would be worth the expense. Why couldn't people just be loyal and reliable? Oh well, more proof that most people were trash.

When dinner came around everybody noticed him again because as current Head of the Varia he got a good seat near the head of the table despite not having actually been _invited_, which meant Petronilla got a good seat too as he was her plus one and he had probably severely upset Housekeeping by springing this on them unannounced. He'd have to send an apology through Varia Housekeeping along with a warning that he was going to be attending a few more of these flipping things in the near future; keeping both sets of Housekeeping sweet was something he'd become more mindful of now he was interim Varia boss, especially since he knew Vongola Housekeeping had knocked off more than a few targets lately that rumour assigned to the Varia. Squalo suspected that Housekeeping here was no less dangerous than Varia Housekeeping, if not more so due to the surprise factor since most people were at least vaguely aware that Varia Housekeeping was filled with 'retired' Varia assassins, apprentices who hadn't made Varia Quality yet and people who knew how to survive in that kind of environment. However nobody expected Vongola Housekeeping to be that dangerous. As they were recruited separately by Maria-Chiara Vongola, who was overall Head of Housekeeping, that was probably a severe oversight.

Nilla was happily discussing illusion theory with Federico's Mist, who was sitting on her right, which left Squalo to make small-talk with the very Lightning Guardian he'd been forced to listen to speculation and gossip about before the meal.

Ganauche III, so named because Nono had a cake theme going for his Guardians –Squalo used this as proof that Nono had no naming sense– and he was the third Lightning the old man had taken on, was eighteen and had actually been trained as a Sun up until his early teens, at which point he'd been tested properly and it had come out that he was as much a Lightning as he was a Sun. As smart, flexibly-minded Lightnings were rarer than hen's teeth he'd immediately been assigned a tutor and groomed to be Lightning Guardian for one of Nono's sons. He'd just been finishing his training when the not-a-coup happened, at which point Nono had found himself a Lightning short and had snapped up the seventeen-year-old personally.

Squalo had a feeling that the smiling man who had somehow managed to avoid wearing a tie was actually the most capable and competent Lightning the Vongola had seen in three generations and wished that Levi was even a quarter as good. Ganauche III could actually carry forward a discussion, cracked half-decent jokes and smiled at appropriate moments despite not really understanding all the snarky humour Squalo was funnelling into the conversation. He'd noticed it though, which was better than most people managed, even non-Lightning people!

No less interesting was how everyone down the table had calmed down and were all but ignoring his conversation with Nono's Lightning Guardian once it became clear that he wasn't about to stab the man with a fish knife if he said the wrong thing. Squalo despaired of people sometimes: he was _Varia Quality_, not some twitchy, insecure thug who didn't understand where his orders came from! Yes, the Varia was full of prissy drama queens but they acted like that on purpose, not because they didn't know when to shut up and keep their head down.

It was different in HQ of course; that was home territory so everyone was as ridiculous as they wanted to be, but elsewhere professionalism was expected and Squalo always got it. Even when the Varia moron in question was being a self-absorbed, egotistical jackass who refused to recognise that the world did _not_ revolve around his issues, Squalo still got professionalism in the field, because that was what it meant to be Varia Quality. Although sending somebody into the field in that kind of a mood meant watching your back in HQ for the next fortnight-to-six-months because revenge was very much something every last member of the Varia believed in and their methods were legion. Squalo wasn't Boss so the minions weren't scared shitless of him, which meant he had to keep his eyes open.

* * *

After dinner was over everybody was a whole lot drunker, or at least the airheads, the incautious and the alcoholics were. Nilla and her Harpies were not because drunk Mists were a big no-no to the point that people training young Mists went out of their way to either give them cast-iron livers or a categorical abhorrence of alcohol. There was no middle ground: a drunk Mist was a _nightmare_ and there were specific Vongola protocols in place for both dealing with them and dealing with the people who enabled them, because offering alcohol to a Mist without their Boss's permission was actually against explicit Vongola Law and counted as attempted sabotage against the Famiglia. Said protocols were fairly terminal and distinctly unforgiving; they were taught in the Mafia Academy at age eleven, so there was time to fully internalise them before teenage stupidity kicked in.

Most of Squalo's age-mates were currently in the throes of said teenage stupidity, but the swordsman hadn't contracted it yet. Hopefully that would last, as he would probably not be able to keep the Varia in check while so impaired and Tyrant would be deeply displeased by even a medically necessary temporary reinstatement. Not that teenage stupidity by itself would require that, so much as what Squalo might do while in the throes of it; far too many young hotheads believed they were immortal or infallible and Squalo had killed quite a few of those himself since deciding to follow Xanxus.

The older Harpies had succeeded in escaping the clutches of teenage stupid reasonably unscathed but Nilla, Michela and Teresa were infected, if he was reading the signs right. Nilla was doing pretty well considering, but she was still incomprehensibly _weird_ every now and then.

While Giulia, Teresa and Chiara were breaking into the Vongola Archives and Michela was running interference in the main public area, he and Nilla were supposed to be breaking into Nono's office to read his diaries. Breaking in had not been difficult –he was Varia Quality– and finding the right diaries had also been pretty simple. He'd quickly photographed all the relevant pages to read properly later, but then as they were leaving he'd heard someone coming and nudged Petronilla so she could do something, but rather than create a noise someplace else to distract the searcher she'd instead thrown a shoddy illusion over the both of them, yanked him down by his hair and kissed him.

?!

He wasn't quite sure what the point was. This was just going to get them caught.

"Ahem." Nilla finally let go of his hair and Squalo straightened up quickly, hoping he didn't look as baffled as he felt. Ganauche III raised an eyebrow at them both, most of his attention on Nilla.

"I'm sorry, Lightning Guardian," she gushed, face flushed and eyes glittering as her nails dug into Squalo's arm, "could you–"

"You do know that people with active Rain Flames experience the psychological effects of puberty later than usual, as opposed to earlier as with the other Flame types?" Ganauche interrupted her smoothly.

Nilla blinked. "Eh?"

"Your friend hasn't the faintest idea what you want or the slightest inclination to give it to you," the Lightning Guardian continued relentlessly, "so I suggest you be a good friend and give him a few years to work things out for himself."

Nilla let go of his arm as though Squalo's sleeve was on fire and blushed scarlet. Squalo wasn't sure what the fuss was about. Yes, he knew what sex was. Yes, he'd done no small number of missions that involved seduction of one kind or another as part of the Varia. No, he didn't feel anything one way or the other about them or indeed about anybody at all. Luss and the few Varia Medics all said that was normal so Squalo wasn't wasting time worrying about it. He had more urgent problems on his mind.

Boss or Omertá?

Squalo's eyebrow twitched; why couldn't he get away from that one?!

Nilla mumbled something incomprehensible and fled, leaving Squalo behind with the Lightning Guardian. The swordsman stared thoughtfully at the slightly older Mafioso then decided to ask the question that had surfaced in his mind during Ganauche's little lecture.

"Why would a fifteen-year-old, Flame-Active Rain get pregnant?" It was something Squalo had been gnawing on ever since he'd first met Erica. It seemed so radically out of character from what he knew of her.

Ganauche gave him a Look not entirely unlike the Look Visconti had given him right after the coup-that-wasn't. It was a Look that said the person doing the looking knew there was _way_ more to the situation than was immediately apparent and that they knew you knew what was going on and that you knew they knew you knew. But they weren't going to ask, because they also knew you would just lie. Being the current leader of the Varia simply meant he had an excess of lies and excuses to choose from because the Varia Ladies didn't advertise their existence and the Varia records were kept in code anyway.

"A female, fifteen-year-old Rain would be physically mature but look and be capable of acting both as though they were five or six years younger or up to a decade older," Ganauche said instead. "They would also be insufficiently emotionally mature to spontaneously instigate sexual contact. I'm guessing, if they weren't an assassin who got careless, that one reason could be that they were independently investigating a rumour of deviant behaviour and got a little more evidence than they bargained for."

That made far too much sense. At least Erica was well out of the way of that kind of thing now and the man who'd fathered her child was dead. Anybody who knocked up Nono's fifteen-year-old granddaughter was definitely _very_ dead and had probably died well before Erica even realised she was pregnant.

"I hope that whoever inspired your hypothetical inquiry is being well taken care of?" the Lightning asked, turning back the way he'd come. Squalo fell in step behind him.

"Her family is caring for the child," he said, "and she's keeping busy."

"Good to hear."


	68. Chapter 68

This is the last chapter I've got written up, so there'll be another long-ish wait for the next batch. So long (and thanks for all the reviews)!

Beta'd by the particular Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of regime changes and posthumous infamy **

Minerva McGonagall was not entirely sure how she felt about the Lady Black-Potter and her… associates. Dorea Black had been a magnificently gifted student, but her particular brand of unapologetically ruthless care had shaken the school's social order to the core and the aftershocks were still rippling outwards, bringing new and baffling changes in their wake. The entire disaster with Umbridge had brought many of the more subtle nuances closer to the surface, but what shook the new Headmistress the most was that Dorea had not even been in Hogwarts while that was happening. The new Lady Potter had been confined to the Black Estate and pregnant, yet had somehow orchestrated what Minerva's experienced eye could only call a highly effective and well-judged resistance movement from the comfort of her sitting room.

Most fifteen-year-olds cannot do that. Most fifteen-year-olds cannot even _consider_ it. Minerva knows people with twice times Dorea's age with six times her experience who could not do so well, some of whom are career Aurors. Then there is the issue of Albus Dumbledore, who despite being dead is still giving her headaches: she has read all the papers he left behind and still isn't sure if she should be horrified or simply feel resigned. Everybody always said Albus Dumbledore was a great man; perhaps they should have remembered that great men are rarely good or even kind. It's frequently considered to be part of the price of greatness.

The school board has also been shaken up: Lucius Malfoy has been replaced by his wife Narcissa, who has thrown her lot in with the rest of the Blacks, and the seat formerly belonging to Lord Nott is now occupied by Remus Lupin, who is acting on behalf of the currently underage Theodore Nott. Students are not allowed to sit on the Board, so Remus' tenure may well last beyond the young Slytherin's seventeenth birthday at the beginning of November.

What is most unnerving however is that for the first time in her entire career at Hogwarts Minerva McGonagall is facing a truly united Hogwarts School Board and it is utterly disconcerting. Knowing that Lady Black-Potter had considerable influence over her peers was one thing; that she was clearly capable of exerting equal sway over those over fifty years her senior was somewhat terrifying when the young lady in question had only recently turned sixteen. Minerva could see the late Cassiopeia Black's lingering influence there, clinging like cobwebs but a thousand times harder to dispel.

It is possible that she would not have minded that undue influence so much had the Board's 'requests' been unreasonable; she could then have dismissed them all as currying favour and let it go. But no, what they want is rational, sensible and will exponentially improve the quality of the education Hogwarts offers. Having two teachers per core subject, making the Head of House position a job in its own right rather than offering it to one of the alumni on the teaching staff, adding half-a-dozen new classes to teach basic skills like accounting, English language and literature, Wizarding culture and politics, foreign languages and literature and reinstating advanced classes like Enchanting and Alchemy.

That they wanted to replace Binns entirely was barely the tip of the iceberg; Severus had vanished at the end of term and it seems he knew this was coming, as the Board already have a list of Potions Masters lined up whom they would like to replace him with. One of those listed was Desmond Woodmore, a Slytherin alumnus and a Black to the bone despite being technically the halfblood son of a squib. He was also the elder brother to Dawn Woodmore, former Head Girl and current Potter representative on both the Hogwarts Board and in the Wizengamot.

Minerva wasn't ashamed to admit to herself that Dawn Woodmore was a very Black kind of terrifying, made worse by her evident sanity and prosaic practicality. It reminded her of the elder Dorea Black, James Potter's mother, who had been that uniquely female flavour of controlling, the kind which only looked hands-off until you noticed the vast social network and subtle personal manipulation through implying things just right to garner the desired response from her audience. It was that kind of thing that had made the Blacks so very powerful, though everyone nowadays had forgotten it what with how inbred and visibly unbalanced the following two generations had been. Bellatrix had likely done the most obvious damage to the reputation of the House of Black, but Walburga's gradual descent into bigoted insanity before her death had done its fair share as well.

She had no way of objecting to the proposed changes without losing her job; at least they already had a selection of teachers for her to choose from, alumni of every house and social level. This way she could at least pretend to herself that she retained a modicum of control over who would be hired.

* * *

It was almost hilariously ironic, Blaise felt, that he'd spent the past two months digging up dirt on Dumbledore's contribution to the Grindelwald War in order to discredit him, but had been beaten to the punch by a revelation into the Hogwarts budgeting system. It just went to show that money really was the best way to get under people's skin. Money was important to people, their own hard-earned galleons in particular.

The _Daily Prophet_ was going the 'shame and scandal' route, but _La Corriera Sabina_ had produced a much more thoughtful and detailed exposé and that was what the Italian was reading. It all came down to how the Founders had set up the Hogwarts accounts and how Albus Dumbledore had, knowingly or not, exploited the system for his own benefit.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was not simply an academic institution: the school owned the land it stood on and quite a lot of the surrounding land, including Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest and quite a lot of farmland. Magical farmland, that was; suitable for growing potion ingredients as well as foodstuffs. The villagers of Hogsmeade paid rent to the school, as did the farmers who tended the land and the apothecaries who had licences to gather specific and rare ingredients from the Forbidden Forest at certain times of year. The Forbidden Forest was after all the home of the only publicly acknowledged unicorn herd in Britain and unicorn hair and horn were expensive and necessary magical components.

In addition to this basic income, Hogwarts charged admittance fees to its students according to their means: how 'means' were determined was exceedingly dated, but what it came down to was that Muggleborns could access the basic curriculum free of charge while everyone who had at least one parent with a Gringotts account was charged a fixed rate per year for the same basic curriculum. Additional classes cost extra, the price varying depending on the perceived value of the teacher and the nature of the materials provided. Beyond that, it was fashionable to donate money, supplies or services to Hogwarts as a means of garnering political support or goodwill.

All this money went into a central account, from which the cost of feeding and housing the house-elves came first, as they were classed as 'basic upkeep'. The house-elves maintained the castle, so they were a necessary expense. After that came the costs of hiring teachers, feeding the students, general maintenance and keeping the building warm, followed by 'luxuries' like school brooms, additional school equipment and items for the various recreational clubs. Not that Hogwarts had many of those currently, but hopefully that would change now that there were more professors available to run things and more money available to fund them.

After all these expenses were taken care for, the Headmaster received the remaining money as a personal salary. It wasn't like he would go hungry if there wasn't anything left at the end of the year: as Headmaster he lived in the school and was afforded full board. Getting any extra galleons was just a matter of encouraging good budgeting and regularly revisiting the various expenses to make sure nothing was getting wasted. It wasn't a bad system.

However Dumbledore had not used the system in the appropriate manner. Blaise could see how it had happened too: the Old Goat had replaced Armando Dippet as Headmaster in 1956, after Dippet died while still incumbent; that had been back when student and teacher numbers were still incredibly low due to the aftermath of the Grindelwald War. With so few students attending, the budget had not been at all strained and Dumbledore would have found himself with a rather lavish salary. However as numbers gradually picked up again, Dumbledore had not simply let the money go back to where it was supposed to go; instead he had set his income as a fixed expense and squeezed the rest of the budget accordingly.

It hadn't been too noticeable to begin with –in Britain the Voldemort War had started barely a decade later and student numbers had not seriously recovered– but in the past decade the knut-pinching had become rather noticeable. The school's brooms were all over twenty years old at least, the teachers were overworked, the classes were understaffed, several classes had been outright cut and some of the people working on school grounds were ill-suited to the positions they held –like Filch– or just heavily underpaid –like Hagrid, who had never been upgraded from a groundskeeper's salary despite teaching for most of three years.

So while the school groaned beneath the weight of the recovering Wizarding population and the teachers and parents alike were under the impression that the institution was suffering, Dumbledore had been pocketing about ten percent of the entire budget to buy himself expensive tomes, tasteless robes and foreign holidays and to maintain his political career.

It really wasn't so surprising that the late Headmaster was being crucified by the Press. People could forgive a lot, but they nobody liked being conned out of their money. The sudden revelation of 'The Thieving Headmaster' would rather diminish the shock value of the series of articles he and Luna had put together to be published on the man's contributions to 'The Greater Good', but with Dumbledore already discredited there would at least be more people willing to read their work and react accordingly. The Headmaster's image had already been tarnished; soon his name would be mud.

Shaking his head in amusement, Blaise smiled slightly at the feel of the magpie feathers brushing against the backs of his ears. When he was older he would probably wind up wearing the feathers of the Egyptian vulture to mark him as a royal trouble-shooter, but for the time being a declaration of shamelessness was perfectly adequate. Poetic too: here Blaise was on the Hogwarts Express, returning to the scene of the crime and intent on continuing his lawless misbehaviour. Not that he was planning any more murders, but he _was_ going to be continuing to use Soulfire and the opportunity for homicide remained.

In the compartment with him were Hermione Black-Granger –who had finally agreed to get her name formally changed as was expected of a Ward of House–Theo, Ginny, Neville, Roger, Padma and Luna. Trey was off in another compartment with Susan and Hannah, trying to cheer up Fay Dunbar, while Millie and Draco had been dragged off by Leo Black and Parvarti Patil to talk with some of the other students who'd only got started on Soulfire recently.

Daphne hadn't come back; despite being only sixteen she didn't have to, as being Black Steward was legally equivalent to being married and rendered her adult by default. Blaise could have chosen not to return too, but had decided that he could not leave the Hogwarts contingent and the Constellations at the mercy of Hermione's workaholic tendencies. It would just be too cruel. So he was placing Rhea in Dee's capable hands and taking over the running of the Constellation in between studying for his NEWTs.

Everyone who had been in Rhea's original study group was taking their NEWTs this year, because why not? It wasn't like they weren't well ahead of the curriculum anyway and by the end of sixth year they'd all be adults and free to do whatever they liked, except for Luna who was actually a year younger than they were. Well, money permitting, but that wasn't really a constraint when Rhea considered you a friend. His sister –because calling her his aunt was _wrong _as she'd been his sworn sister long before she married his uncle– would never hesitate to throw money if she thought you would benefit from it. She generally preferred not to throw _actual_ money, because money was distracting, but books, gifts, opportunities and ideas? Those she was happy to chuck about like confetti.

Handing off the newspaper to Luna, who was learning Italian, Blaise pulled out a notebook and fountain pen and set about some preliminary organisation of the first meetings with the Study Constellation. Everybody would need re-testing so that they were all placed in a group with people on their level. Then the new firsties had to be given the opportunity to join after settling in –which would mean new contracts all around– and arranged in groups as well. Best to give the first-years until Halloween to settle in and get the hang of using magic and how classes were arranged; they could be tested on actual knowledge then and divided accordingly.

That would require co-opting the relevant Fifth-year prefects, whom Dee had already identified as they'd all owled her to share the news. They were all in the Constellation, so inducting the firsties wouldn't be all that hard provided they were interested. They might not be; the book list this year indicated that the line-up of teachers at Hogwarts had undergone a dramatic change and they might even all be –le gasp– _competent_; possibly even _interesting_.

Blaise wasn't taking History at NEWT level but Luna was and she'd happily shown off her three new history books –three! – while chattering happily about how interesting it was to cover pre-Roman Magical history. Personally, Blaise was more interested in the brand-new 'European Magical Culture' elective being offered, which he had signed up for by return owl. It was a new free elective offered at or after OWL level following on from the new 'Magical Society and Culture' elective, which was now compulsory for all first-and second-years unless they tested out. The Italian wasn't quite sure what he expected from the class, but it was bound to be interesting. The text book at least was of acceptable quality, which was a promising start.

* * *

It was a little disturbing really, Ginny felt, to be entering her OWL year. In part because she wasn't sure where the time had gone –she hadn't started at Hogwarts that long ago, surely– but mainly because where she was wasn't where she'd thought she'd be even eighteen months ago. Somehow, Ginny had found herself as the person the lower years got in touch with when they wanted to communicate something to the 'Command Team' –the younger students' words, not hers. Not her fellow fifth-years or even the forth-years –after last year they were all comfortably familiar with certain specific sixth-years– but the lower three years all wound up facing her when they had questions.

It wasn't the fault of the lower-years, really: Ginny had been with the Study Group since she was a firstie herself, and unlike Luna she had made close friends her own age rather than cut her losses. She'd also been a quick study, gravitating to the top of the secondary group, and frequently involved herself with the doings of the older students through her twin brothers. Fred and George really _were_ Prewetts now, which Mum wasn't at all happy about but couldn't do anything about because the twins were avoiding her. She couldn't send them a Howler because both Prewett House and Potter Manor had Wards against Howlers and couldn't visit because both houses were under heavy security due to the ongoing war. Mum could have arranged a meeting in public, but she was moping about the Burrow all the time and refused to leave unless it really couldn't be avoided.

Ginny was glad to be living with Bill, even though it meant pitching in with the cooking, laundry and cleaning due to him being busy at Gringotts all the time. She was free to come and go as she pleased, so long as she only went to Prewett House, Potter Manor or Weasley Hall and left him a note saying where she was. Shopping was fine, so long as she went with an adult from one of those three aforementioned locations. In fact, she could do anything she pleased so long as Bill knew who she was with and Ginny loved the freedom. She'd been thinking about swearing fealty to Dorea right after Dad's funeral just so as to get out from under Mum's eye but with Bill being so cool about things, she had decided to wait until she graduated. It wasn't like Rhea was going anywhere.

In the meantime though she really needed to introduce more of her year-mates and some of the fourth-years to those members of Rhea's inner circle still at Hogwarts; Ginny didn't have much free time as it was and she wasn't the kind of person to get a warm, fuzzy feeling about helping people network. Even the Slytherins in the Command Team were patient and approachable, for Merlin's sake! Her being called on to mediate was unnecessary!


	69. Chapter 69

So now we have... (drumroll please) two weeks' worth of chapters coming up! Enjoy!

Beta'd by the esteemed Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of intuition and intelligence **

Daniela Vongola, former Donna Ottava, was eighty-six years old and had been retired for over half her lifetime. She'd become Boss of the Vongola Famiglia at the age of twenty-three and retired just seventeen years later, aged forty. But she'd been Donna for the entirety of the Second World War and the subsequent recovery period, so she liked to think that despite her short tenure she'd done as much as most of her ancestors and more than some of them. Her father Fabio, Settimo of the Vongola, had been Boss through the First World War and it had aged him. Well, aged him further: her father had married rather late. Daniela had been one of seven though –the fourth child and second daughter– so it wasn't as though staying single into his forties had in any way compromised the succession. It was somewhat usual for those of Vongola heritage to marry in their thirties unless they fell madly in love at a young age, in which case they married sooner.

Daniela had married young and produced an heir shortly before her twenty-first birthday, which had probably had significant influence on her father's decision to allow her to inherit two years later. She would have liked to have given Timoteo a few siblings, so as to hone his negotiation skills from the nursery, but it hadn't been possible. The exact circumstances of her marriage and her husband's death were known only to her and her original Guardians, of whom now only one remained, but while a man could have gotten away with siring illegitimate children a women could not –that irritating double standard– so Timoteo had never experienced siblings, even though he had no shortage of cousins. Those cousins had however not been raised with him and had been more deferential than Daniela had liked. Maybe that was why he'd made such a mess of raising his own sons.

Though it wasn't all her son's fault: his wife Luisa had died giving birth to little Maria-Chiara and after that Timoteo had continued to follow his wife's clearly stated wishes in having the children raised in the nursery until they were ten, at which point their Mafia education had started in earnest. Ottava personally felt ten was far too late a start for a child to be able to take in all the important things before puberty drove them crazy, but she'd only been responsible for her granddaughter and so had only been given control of one child's education and upbringing. Maria-Chiara had started on her lessons aged four and had done admirably for herself, becoming Head of Housekeeping at the tender age of nineteen, shortly after marrying Silvio Lanza.

Daniela adored her great-grandchildren, all three of them, and it saddened her that they barely remembered their father: her grandson-in-law had died suddenly aged forty-three, leaving Maria-Chiara pregnant and widowed aged twenty-eight. Little Benvenuto had never known his father and even Erica and Ruggero remembered little, having been only seven and five respectively.

Her other grandchildren had sadly been something of a disappointment: none of Timoteo's three sons had married, though Daniela was almost certain Federico had at least one illegitimate child floating around somewhere; possibly more than one depending on how careless he had been and with whom. Enrico had recently gotten himself killed in a petty fight, Massimo had never grown out of being a sulky teenager and Federico… well, he probably would have made a good Decimo had Timoteo abdicated in his favour fifteen years ago. But her son had not, so her youngest grandson had looked elsewhere for entertainment and thrown himself into partying and seducing women like it was going out of fashion. Aged forty-one he was still at it, which suggested he wasn't going to change for anyone. Such a waste.

Then there was Xanxus, who had been truly wonderful and delightfully dedicated to the Famiglia, but had been so badly let down by her foolish son that he had felt the need to resort to drastic measures. Not simply to properly communicate his displeasure at being lied to, but to truly motivate her son into making all those hard but important decisions he'd been avoiding lately that had caused the Famiglia to suffer.

Daniela really had no idea why Timoteo hadn't told Xanxus right away that he wasn't the boy's father; with Timoteo having mouse brown hair before it went grey and Xanxus' mother being a blonde, there was no way they could have produced a brunette child! But no, her foolish son had raised Xanxus as though he could have become Decimo and there was no way it wasn't going to go wrong. Daniela had warned her son time and again, but he had refused to see it.

She would have told Xanxus herself, but her fool son had forbidden it and retired Ottava or not, she was still part of the Vongola and so had obeyed. She'd given her son Hell for being so rude to his elderly mother though; it was only proper. She'd then made sure Xanxus knew where to find her and tempted him with stories about her own time as Ottava, intellectual challenges –couldn't his tutors see how bored he was? – and additional practical training. By the time Xanxus was eight she had mostly taken over his education, not that Timoteo had noticed. Her fiery grandson was a credit to her regardless of the lack of blood between them and she would never let anyone suggest otherwise.

Daniela had tried to have her son defrost Xanxus, but every time she suggested it he changed the subject, even when she lectured him on how childish he was being. In fact he'd cut back on visiting her of late, sending his charming new Lightning or his polite young Mist if he needed to communicate something. She'd let it slide thus far because she really didn't have the mobility to chase him down and take him to task for his foolishness anymore, but she was getting a wheelchair so that obstacle would soon be overcome. Stairs would remain an issue, but she was certain her Mist would help her overcome that. Her son knew that ignoring a problem didn't make it go away, so why was he being so silly?

In the meantime Xanxus' birthday was coming up and she needed to set aside a suitable present for him. Last year she'd taken her Mist Guardian around the Vongola's gunsmiths in search of some specialised tools her grandson had mentioned wanting but this year she'd decided on several cases of really good wine. By 'good wine' Daniela did not mean they came from specific fancy vineyards or anything so pretentious; no, this was wine she had tried, really enjoyed and subsequently invested in. Xanxus would appreciate her stock more than her other grandsons, who all seemed to think that price was the only way to classify alcohol quality. It really wasn't and thinking so just meant getting conned out of money for something that was probably going to be substandard.

Which reminded her; she needed to go through the jewellery she'd been given over the years and pick out a few pieces for her grandson's lady-love. Daniela only had her Intuition to go by there, but she was positive that Xanxus had found love and it was only proper that a young lady of such quality be suitably adorned; he had visited her shortly before his plot and subsequent freezing and she knew him –and young men generally– well enough to recognise when one was in love and Xanxus clearly had been. A pair of elegantly sculpted gold bracelets would be just the thing, or perhaps a necklace. Even though she couldn't give the gifts in person they would all be set aside for when Xanxus was defrosted, whenever that was. Hopefully soon; Daniela didn't think she had much time left. That was the main reason why she hadn't attempted to defrost Xanxus herself: she simply lacked the Flames for it. At this point they were weaker than her father's had ever been!

* * *

Squalo lay sprawled across the sofa in his personal office in Varia Headquarters, staring blindly at the ceiling. It was an interesting ceiling, frescoed with a cloudy sky and a variety of birds. He could stare at it for hours, but right now it wasn't really holding his attention.

Boss or Omertá?

It was nearly six weeks since he'd broken into Nono's office with Petronilla and the other Harpies had raided the Vongola Private Library for him; six weeks that had dragged on interminably with every day weighing him down more heavily than the one before.

Boss or Omertá?

It wasn't _supposed_ to be a choice!

He'd personally developed the film he'd used to photograph Nono's diary, then carefully printed out the pictures in one of HQ's dark rooms all in one afternoon. He'd then read the fancy, copperplate handwriting, committed every word to memory and destroyed both prints and film; nobody else needed to see _that_. If Squalo had needed more evidence that Nono was losing it, that had been it: what on Earth had the old fart been _thinking_, keeping that kind of information on the down-low?! No wonder Boss went fucking crazy; Squalo was honestly surprised he hadn't gone _crazier_.

Don Vongola had known right from the outset that Xanxus wasn't his son –couldn't possibly be his son– but he'd lied to Xanxus' face, _repeatedly_, and let him strive towards the Boss position. Xanxus had never made a secret of wanting to inherit the Famiglia and _not once_ had Nono quietly taken him aside to explain that it wasn't actually possible for him to do so.

That was either pure sadism or undiluted idiocy and Squalo was leaning towards the latter; Nono's sheer short-sightedness and utter incomprehension of how Xanxus' mind worked was worse than criminal. In the Varia 'stupid' was a killing offense and Nono _definitely _qualified after this stunt. It had been all Squalo could do not to storm up to the Vongola Mansion and take a swing at the old fool! Such stupidity more than merited it!

Finding that out had been a big black mark in favour of Boss in the 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma. Nono _deserved_ to have a family of Wrath Flame users descend on him and rip him apart for suicidal stupidity. Unfortunately however the Mafia was bigger than Nono, bigger even than the Vongola so even though Squalo wanted to throw Omertá by the wayside, he couldn't. Partly because Boss belonged to the Varia, to the Vongola and to the Mafia, so throwing Omertá aside meant destroying Xanxus' vision.

Squalo could not do that. Could not. But picking Omertá meant betraying Boss, because one thing Squalo _knew_ mattered to Boss was family. Boss _wanted_ family and not getting in touch with Zabini meant not following Boss's wishes.

Boss or Omertá?

Between the dozen or so contracts taken from the Vongola Archives and the slightly more detailed documentation from the Vongola Private Library, Squalo had managed to put together a very limited and blurry snapshot of the Famiglia's interactions with the Zabini line over the past three hundred years or so. Secondo's mother had been a Zabini, but Ricardo had left his home and family behind at the age of twelve to join the by-then reasonably well-established Vongola; that had been in seventeen fifteen, when Primo was thirty-three.

Squalo hadn't realised that Primo and Secondo were half-siblings; he'd thought Ricardo was Primo's nephew or something. Reading between the lines and considering the time period, the swordsman suspected that their father had raped Primo's mother and then married Secondo's mother a decade or so later. The records indicated that Giotto had actually been raised by Talbot –wasn't that a shock– and his mother's name wasn't written anywhere. Neither was his father's, come to that; not even Ricardo ever mentioned his parents by name. Squalo didn't exactly need a degree in psychology to see that both Primo and Secondo had issues with their biological father; add in Primo's decision to go out of his way to help people by becoming a vigilante, which could easily have been Primo deciding he 'wanted to be a better man than his father' or something like that. Or it could have been his mother's influence; who knew.

As Costanzo Zabini's accent suggested, the Zabini were based in Lazio, east and slightly south of Rome among the Sabine hills. That was where Ricardo had come from and was where all the Zabinis the Vongola had been in contact with since had been. The list included a number of vintners –Squalo knew quite a bit about wine from having Xanxus as his Boss and some of those labels were ones he'd seen on bottles being chucked at his head– a few suppliers of exotic toxins and a distinct succession of utterly magnificent swordsmiths.

Squalo hadn't realised that _those_ swords had anything to do with the Zabini Clan –because they were definitely a Clan– and his new aim in life was to get his hands on one. The Vongola, being a highly eccentric Famiglia by Mafia standards, used a great deal of old-fashioned and non-conventional weaponry. Swords, much to Squalo's displeasure, counted as both: they'd gone out of fashion around the time of the First World War and good-quality sword-smiths were now abominably rare. Despite this handicap however, every three years or so the Vongola Supply Division brought up for auction one or two high-quality, brand-new blades for the sword-users of the Famiglia to buy –provided they could afford it. Squalo had wanted one of those blades ever since attending the auction for the first time aged seven; he'd been saving ever since and might possibly be able to afford one within the decade if he got enough missions and didn't have to buy anything else he couldn't write off as a Varia expense. Killers made a killing on professional jobs, but that didn't mean Squalo would be able to afford a sword any time soon; it was an auction after all and a lot of snobby Mafiosi richer than him did stupid things like hang swords on walls when they had been made to be used.

That every single one of those swords brought in by Vongola Supply over the past three-hundred years had been made by a Zabini living in one tiny rural village suggested that the Zabini, whoever they were and whatever else they were capable of, were just about the only people in Europe who hadn't lost their traditional weaponsmithing skills when guns had put all the other professionals out of business. That suggested the Zabini had a market for high-quality blades beyond the Vongola, a market reliable and profitable enough for a swordsmith to not only keep himself in business but train apprentices as well. Apprentices who could tell that swordsmithing, despite the effort involved, was a Sure Thing.

And yet, despite locating a few Zabini here and there, Squalo _still_ didn't know where that damn Principality was. Bel wasn't talking and Squalo currently didn't want to put pressure on the young royal because he wasn't even sure he _wanted_ to know right now. He had enough on his plate.

Boss or Omertá?

The swordsman blinked mutely at the ceiling; it always came back to that question. It was Boss's birthday today, would have been his eighteenth birthday, and three months since Squalo's encounter with Costanzo Zabini. He still didn't know what to choose.

* * *

"Squalo-sweetie, you missed lunch."

The swordsman ignored Lussuria; maybe the Sun Officer would go away by himself?

"Considering you weren't at breakfast either I thought I should come and find you."

He'd not eaten yet today? Squalo honestly hadn't noticed. Damn; Luss probably wasn't going to just leave him alone then. There was a pause, in which the sofa shifted slightly as the okama sat down at the far end.

"Superbi." The nineteen-year-old's voice was unusually quiet and serious, none of his usual peppy flamboyance in evidence as he spoke in polite and deferential Japanese. "You are currently the boss of the Varia, so it is not this one's place to ask what is bothering you. However it is clear that something has been on your mind for several weeks now, something that has not been resolved. Is there anything this one can do to assist you?"

Squalo blinked at the ceiling. Okay, this was a mood he'd never seen before; uncharted territory was never a good thing when dealing with assassins, so he sat up and actually looked at the Sun Officer. Lussuria was watching him back, sunglasses held in his lap and visibly unfocused eyes gazing worriedly at the Rain Officer.

Lussuria looked _lost_. It was just, just _wrong_.

"I…" Squalo hesitated. He needed time. Time to think. Time away from the madhouse that was Varia HQ and all the other duties and responsibilities involved with running the Independent Assassination Squad so he could focus on the 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma and work through it methodically.

He always thought best after a good fight, so he needed to get out there and battle other swordsmen, push himself to the limit; then and only then would the answers come.

"I need to get away from Headquarters for a while; work on my sword style," was what Squalo actually said. "I think a tour across Asia would work best: plenty of swordsmen there for me to challenge and I could take a team to look for potential recruits as well. We've got plenty of Europeans and Africans in the Varia, but nobody from anywhere further East than Palestine other than you. We're supposed to be the best in the world; how can we know that for sure when we don't have a proper range of skills at our disposal? I should check out South America too; there're bound to be interesting people there we haven't found yet." He was pretty much making it up as he went along by the end, but it felt right and he knew it would work.

Lussuria's face lit up. "A recruitment drive! What a wonderful idea, Squalo-darling! Numbers have been down since the mess last year and getting new people in is always so delightful! New ideas are so important for keeping ahead of the competition! You'll have to take a Squad with you; it would probably be best to rotate through several different Squads, so everybody gets to have a go. Don't worry about the paperwork; I'll do the basics for you and send the important stuff to wherever you are by courier. It will be good training for the men! Oh, you really _must_ go and tell Nono so we can get started!" The Sun Officer positively _bounced_ to his feet and danced out of the room, burbling happily about schedules and arrangements.

Squalo snorted, amused despite himself. Okay, his training trip was definitely going to happen if Luss was _that_ enthusiastic about the idea; nothing and no-one got in the way of a focused Sun. All Squalo had to do now was come up with some official bullshit to placate Nono while he was out of the country, arrange what paperwork could be delegated to Luss and set up a rota of courier runs for the confidential stuff and ask Tyrant nicely to have Housekeeping cooperate with the Sun Officer.

Oh, and he needed to negotiate with Petronilla, because if he was on the other side of the planet for the next however-many-months it took for him to sort out the 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma then he was going to miss a _lot_ of tea time get-togethers.


	70. Chapter 70

Beta'd by the determined InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of pressure and possibly evil plots **

Dorea had known that taking the pressure off Voldemort by pulling back the Black War would inevitably lead to the Ministry of Magic collapsing. It was too unwieldy, too bureaucratic, too conservative and too full of people who had reached their positions through politics and connections rather than personal competence. It could not adapt quickly or respond swiftly, nor did those in charge of it have any idea how to go about defeating a terrorist force. Worse still, the current Ministry was actively _resisting_ change and clearly suffering for it.

The Aurors were crippled by the sheer weight of laws bearing down on them and Magical Britain lacked a professionally trained military authorised and equipped to respond with deadly force. There were plenty of people with the skills and inclination to fight, but they weren't organised and lacked leadership. Well, they _currently_ lacked leadership because Dorea had deliberately stepped aside and politely requested that all the people willing to follow _her_ lead keep their heads down and wait for the right moment. Most of the Blacks, along with the Family's other allies and acquaintances, were on stand-by until then.

So the news of the Ministry being taken over by Voldemort and his forces in late October was entirely expected; Dorea hadn't expected Tom Riddle to dawdle quite this much though. Surely he could have achieved victory by the second week of September if he had put his mind to it? Even with so few Marked supporters, needing an additional six weeks to take over the Ministry was a bit of a let-down. It made Dorea wonder if the degree of damage to Tom Riddle Jr's soul was so severe that he didn't have enough Will left to use the third Unforgivable –the Imperius Curse– anymore. That would rather slow down a hostile take-over, even of an organisation as systematically incompetent as the British Ministry of Magic.

Jerry Prewett had won the betting pool, as he had claimed that Voldemort was so diminished it would take him half as long again to achieve anything compared to a truly competent Dark Lord or Lady. Frank had added 'Like our Rhea' onto that sentence, making Dorea wonder if she really _was_ setting some kind of evil standard with her behaviour. Seriously though, the Ministry was _rotten_. This way at least they'd have an excuse to burn the system to the ground and start over…

It was well over a year since Dorea had spoken to Cedric Diggory about designing a model government that was streamlined enough to work yet cynical enough to withstand the jockeying for position of future generations of Slytherins and Gryffindors –not to mention the compulsive nit-picking of future Ravenclaws– and he'd finally got back to her a week previously with half-a-dozen other Hufflepuff alumni, three Ravenclaws, a Slytherin and a plan that all eleven agreed would actually work.

Considering that the Slytherin in question was Maximus Deverill, a rising star in the International Magical Office of Law, Dorea was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt when the time came. That one of the Ravenclaws was currently employed by the Central Archives reassured the Lady Potter and Lady Black Regent that her plan to improve the government of Magical Britain would not come into conflict with the oaths sworn by the Detached Departments. Indeed, if the plans Diggory and Gabriel Truman –Sally-Anne's new husband– had pitched to her came to fruition, the British Ministry would see a whole lot more 'Truth, Accuracy and Confidentiality'.

Unfortunately, replacing the government meant allowing the current government to utterly destroy itself, which was why Dorea's only response to the urgent owl informing her of the fall of the Ministry into the hands of Tom Riddle was to pick up her mirror and call Susan Bones. Hopefully her aunt Amelia had managed to get out in time.

Dorea did not bother to call Hildegard Lestrange; the slim, sharp-eyed Slytherin alumnus had probably slipped out quietly long before the take-over was complete. She could always ask Dee to owl the Lestrange twins if she was really concerned.

* * *

Dorea did, in fact, have some idea of where her husband was and of his current condition. Had she not, well her search would have been considerably more frantic. Her wedding ring told her that he was alive, in complete stasis and cold. Her own skill in water scrying told her that he was behind Wards designed to seriously hinder far-seeing; they also told her he was somewhere completely dark and without windows. Beyond that, he hadn't been moved or even visited since being placed in stasis, so Dorea suspected he'd either been forgotten about or his captor intended to keep him like that for so long that her husband wouldn't have anything to come back to when he was finally freed.

Neither option was acceptable to Dorea, which was why the search for him was still ongoing and why she had authorised a number of cadet squib Zabinis –who lacked the distinctive family features– to enter the lower ranks of the Sicilian Mafia in search of relevant background information.

As to her husband's precise location… that she didn't know.

Scrying had limitations; Xanxus being behind Wards designed to prevent long-distance observation meant that, while she could use their connection as spouses to get a close-up view of him, she couldn't see anything of his wider surroundings and it was the latter limitation that was really frustrating. Her husband being under a Stasis Ward meant that it was impossible to track his magical signature; magic was only detectable when it was in motion, which was why poorly-tuned Defensive Wards did not respond to incursions by Squibs. Normally finding Xanxus would be easy, because he was both the Zabini Heir and completely untrained in magic so didn't know the first thing about managing his magical signature. However his being in stasis meant that everything about him was entirely motionless and inert, so he essentially did not exist to Magical tracking methods. The fact that he was being held in a place with that specific kind of Ward also meant that attempting to blindly access it via any kind of Magical transportation was so unwise it was stupid; if his prison was old and paranoid enough to have and maintain Far-Seeing Wards it would most likely have Wards against Apparition and Portkeys as well.

If the Zabini family tree in Palazzo Sabina had worked on magical signatures rather than Blood Magic, Xanxus would have been presumed dead the moment he went into stasis. As it was, to the Principalities' scrying and tracking specialists Dorea was currently registering to their spells as 'Alexandro Zabini' as well as herself, due to the nature of their marriage and the fact she currently held his Flames as well as her own. It meant that, to the Zabinis, Dorea currently _was_ their Heir –their _male_ Heir– and they responded accordingly to her requests and orders. They had a precedent for this kind of thing and nobody had a problem with what she wanted done, so Graziano Zabini, Steward of the Principality, was cheerfully ensuring her wishes were being carried out. Dorea was thankful that there _was_ a precedent –no matter how inconvenient she found it personally– or else everything would have been so much more stressful. Not that it wasn't stressful, but it really could have been so much worse.

Blood-based tracking, using a sample of little Cassie's blood and some of the Principe Zabini's as well, was also rendered less reliable by the Stasis Ward her husband was under, if less severely. Xanxus' location had been narrowed down to 'probably mainland Sicily' but beyond that the spells responded erratically and unreliably, so the Zabini were being forced to investigate slowly and patiently, gradually infiltrating various Mafia circles in search of new and pertinent information about their Heir's identity, background, condition and likely location.

It was going to take time, but Dorea was positive they would succeed in getting her husband back even if Costanzo's lead didn't pan out the way he was hoping it would. He had said it would take time, so Dorea was prepared to be patient.

* * *

The Ministry having been taken over by Tom Riddle Jr. necessitated certain changes to Potter Manor's security. The Floo had to be completely disconnected, for instance, and Omen Owls had to be sent out to all of Dorea's various correspondents and business contacts to let them know that any and all communication had to be carried out through 'unofficial channels' until the current crisis was resolved. As she had recently realised that a good third of her late Great-Aunt's contacts in France and Germany were criminal in nature, this was less of a restriction than it might have been; Muggle PO boxes were not something Wizards were really aware of. Those _particular_ social connections –among others– sometimes made Dorea wonder exactly what else her Great-Aunt had been up to while fighting Gellert Grindelwald's 'Greater Good' on the continent.

Of course, Dorea was not seriously restricted by the closure of the Floo: she still had her house-elves, after all. She also had no shortage of things she really needed to be getting on with that were not in any way related to the collapse of the British Magical government as they knew it, most of them connected to her new responsibilities as Lady Black Regent.

Even with Dawn as the official Black Wizengamot Representative –though the Blacks would no longer be attending the Wizengamot due to the Declaration of Enmity and Feud– and Dee as Black Steward, Dorea still had far too many responsibilities to deal with personally on top of being a mother of twins. Her Potter responsibilities did not help, as even with Fleur doing absolutely everything she possibly could there were still things the French part-Veela could not do on Dorea's behalf, due to the very lovely older girl not having sworn the right oaths. Not that Dorea _wanted_ Fleur to swear those oaths, but it was still problematic. Were Rence there it would have been a non-issue, but as Uncle Nick had taken her Knight on as his apprentice he was currently in Sicily, working himself into the ground learning Alchemy.

Which Dorea was all in favour of, really –she had in fact _ordered_ Rence to dedicate himself wholly to Alchemy and Jewel-Smithing until he was at journeyman level– but it did leave her slightly short-handed. Even with various bright-eyed and determined Zabinis all itching to assist her in any way they could. The Zabini were her husband's family and were acting in order to serve _him_ with her as his proxy while he was otherwise detained. They were not vassals or stewards to the Potter Family.

The Zabini Family had as one turned away from supporting their Principe and placed themselves entirely at Dorea's disposal, in her capacity as Heiress-by-Marriage. Graziano was of course still running the Principality, but Xanxus' father Timoteo had been cut out of the proceedings entirely due to his betrayal of the succession and was only still Principe due to Xanxus not having yet been able to pass judgement on him. It was a kind of legal limbo, Timoteo Zabini having been judged and found guilty but his sentence not yet determined or carried out. As the wife of the wronged Heir –and magically the Heir's designated representative as evidenced by her being able to wield his inner Fire– Dorea was currently the proxy ruler of Sabina. Practically, all she had to do was let Graziano get on with it and sign whatever needed signing as and when necessary.

Graziano was far more knowledgeable about how Sabina needed to run that Dorea was ever going to become considering her other responsibilities, but as Steward he needed the authorisation of the ruling family to act above a certain level. Since Timoteo was languishing in legal limbo until Xanxus got back and said husband was unlikely to show up any time soon, that meant it was Dorea who had to grant permission as representative and proxy.

Of course, being proxy-Heir of Sabina and mother to the next generation of Zabini royalty meant having a constant stream of relatives-by-marriage stopping by to get to know her children, make sure she was in good health, share gossip and help out any way they considered appropriate, but Dorea didn't mind that. She'd been lonely at home after so many years surrounded by people at Hogwarts, so playing host to an ever-changing selection of Stormy and clannish Italians was actually rather pleasant once she got used to the way they perceived the world. She knew the Blacks had their own way of looking at the world that wasn't quite in line with everyone else's, but the Zabini were just as different in their own way. Possibly even odder, as in Blacks the differences were trained into them from birth but among Zabini it was apparently almost entirely instinctual.

However she inevitably went through moments of being so strongly reminded of her husband that her heart hurt; especially when a Zabini moved or reacted exactly as she remembered her husband doing.

* * *

Costanzo Zabini, mid-ranking Financial Inspector for the Magical Principality of Sabina, knew considerably more about the mess the Family Heir was tangled up in than he had shared with anyone. Ranks were a tricky business in any of Sabina's martial, legal and financial institutions: technical rank was determined in a generally meritocratic fashion with additional deference granted to those with seniority, but actual rank also took into account how closely related a person was to the Principe. People within a few degrees of the ruling family were more respected because they had connections. This was a fact of life; getting in with the people who had the power was the best way to get ahead.

Being a third cousin once removed to the current Heir of the Principality –who was also the technical ruler-by-proxy– and having been drafted to act as a body-double to conceal said Heir's absence, Costanzo was very highly placed indeed despite having only been working in the enforcement arm of Sabina's Ministry of Finance for slightly over six years. This recent advancement on top of his own excellent record of service had placed him in charge of compiling and safeguarding the information being brought in by the inter-departmental task force that was responsible for investigating their Heir's current situation and keeping their new Principessa up to date on the situation.

Due to this 'promotion' Costanzo was now only allowed out in the field in exceptional circumstances, which was irritating but understandable. He could deal with the restriction placed upon his movements; it was keeping information back from the Heir's wife –who was technically his Principe right now due to the legal limbo Timoteo III was in– that bothered him, even though he knew it was necessary. He had not told Dorea about Squalo Superbi, Second Sword Emperor and de-facto leader of the Varia, because doing so would not get either of them anywhere; the ball was firmly in Superbi's court and all they could do was wait until he cracked.

Costanzo was positive that Superbi _would_ crack; genius swordsman and assassin or not, he was fifteen years old and a follower not a leader. His leader, the man he'd sworn himself to, was one and the same with the missing Zabini Heir and Costanzo _knew_ from his brief encounter with the young Mafioso that Superbi was not the kind of person to bother with more than the absolute minimum of self-deception. The teenager wanted his boss back and the Zabini had made it clear that he had the resources to make it so; all he had to do was wait and Superbi would come to him. It might take a year or two, but probably no longer than that.

In the meantime Costanzo was doing what he could to acquire the background and detail regarding both the Vongola and the wider mafia that would be necessary to add context to any decisions made once Superbi cracked and provided them with the information they needed. It was going to be a long, slow business and very likely never reach quite the level that Costanzo would prefer, but a wide range of information from the lower levels of mafia society was all they were likely to get. There would be a whole lot of both accidental and deliberate misinformation generously seeded in there, but there would also be enough truth for the seers borrowed from Intelligence Acquisition to independently verify what was actually going on.

Trite as it sounded, all he _needed_ to do now was wait.

* * *

The exact size of the Principality of Sabina depended on how you defined the term 'principality'. If you meant the Magical city-state itself, Walled and Warded since the end of the Roman period against Muggle incursions and the interference of the Roman Catholic Church, then Sabina covered about eighty square miles, including the extensive grounds containing Palazzo Sabina, which was the home of the Princes of Sabina and the seat of the government.

However if you were including all the territory that Sabina held governance over in matters Magical, then Sabina was much, much larger. In fact, by International Magical Law the Principality of Sabina ruled all wizards, witches, beings and any others subject to the Statute of Secrecy in all of Lazio, Umbria, Marche and half of Emilia-Romagna. This amounted to about two hundred thousand souled beings, almost half of whom were actually witches and wizards. Most of the rest were squibs and Muggles in the know, with the remaining fraction being made up of Magical non-humans.

Thus, in matters Magical Sabina ruled about a quarter of the modern Italian state, its dominance of the region contested only by the Magical Confederacy of Naples and Sicily, which occupied a larger territory but was less influential elsewhere; partly because even after nearly two centuries of shared governance the ruling councils of Naples and Sicily still didn't get along at all well.

Blaise of course knew all this already; however it was still interesting to hear the professor's slant on the whole affair.

_La Confederazione di Napoli e Sicilia_ was unique in that it restricted access to education depending on what background a Muggleborn came from; in all of the rest of Europe, if a child had magic, they qualified for an education. They would probably only get into a Trade School, but they still got a full magical education and all the associated opportunities regardless of the behaviour of their parents or the potential existence of a Muggle criminal record. However the Confederation, in response to the Muggle crime dynasties that had infested their territory since the seventeenth century, refused admittance to the Magical World to any child who, upon reaching their eleventh birthday, belonged to a Mafia Family in any way, shape or form unless said child had already demonstrated a willingness to completely cut themselves off from their Muggle heritage.

This was how Alexandro Zabini had not received the education his innate talent and heritage should have entitled him to; if he hadn't been chosen by Magic as the perfect spouse for Rhea then he would never have discovered what he had been deprived of. Neither would the wider Zabini Family have learned of him, or at least not until Blaise had eventually inherited and discovered for himself his grandfather's deception. Eventually Blaise knew he would have gone looking for the reasons behind why he couldn't do more than the absolute basics with the Family Magic, but by then Alexandro Zabini would probably have been on ice for some time and the Family would have had even less of an idea of where to start looking.

Due to this restrictive educational policy, Sicily had the lowest intake of Muggleborns per capita of any European region and Naples wasn't much better. Rather than a single, comprehensive school the Confederation offered half-a-dozen specialist colleges, each of which provided their students with the necessary education to thrive in a particular area of study. A student's parents could also choose to apprentice their child to a specific witch or wizard, in which case that witch or wizard would have complete control over the student's education until said student's majority.

There was some government oversight on apprenticeships to ensure a certain standard was maintained, but people still slipped through the cracks. Sometimes deliberately; there was a certain level of Magical organised crime despite the efforts of the Confederation and the members preferred to educate their offspring privately. Nothing quite so established as the various Muggle organised crime families, but the potential was there.

The last bit was something Blaise knew from listening to his zio Graziano; Hogwarts' new Professor of European Magical Culture made no mention of it. Probably didn't even realise it was an issue. It was something that people didn't really talk about in Magical circles, as it was seen as an embarrassment and there wasn't enough evidence of wrongdoing available to actually act against it coherently.

As Blaise had suspected might happen, the abrupt increase in the quality of the education offered by Hogwarts and the wider range of classes available had severely reduced the number of first-years interested in joining an after-hours study group. About half the first-year Hufflepuffs joined, along with a third of the Ravenclaws and a quarter of the Slytherins, but there were only three Gryffindors who had shown an interest and it was unlikely that all thirty newcomers would last the entire year. The Constellation was after all a study group first and foremost: a group with which to learn new things. While they didn't assign homework, most members became conspicuously ahead of their year group and _stayed_ ahead, which was quite a lot of work on top of the required core classes and the new subjects recently added to the curriculum.

Since there was no pressing need for secrecy this year, Hermione had drawn up a more basic and liberal contract for the eleven-year-olds to sign, stating only that they had to adhere to certain explicit standards of behaviour in the group and not use the skills they learned to attack other students. Self-defence was of course permitted, but that was not mentioned in the contract at all so would probably take the firsties a while to realise. These newbies did not get specially keyed bracelets either, although Hermione did make a note of their affinities and level of focus for the records. It was useful information to have.

Teaching the kiddies had been delegated to the fifth- and fourth-years, much to Blaise's glee. He had been assigned –after Hermione had crunched the numbers from the tests– to the upper quartile of the third-years –last year's second-years that he remembered not-so-fondly– and they were exactly as challenging to wrangle as he remembered them being. Getting worse too, as most of them were now getting stuck into puberty with all the insanity that implied.

Blaise had so far managed to avoid misplacing his brain in the manner of his peers –even Dorea had gone a bit odd from time to time between the ages of twelve and fifteen– but he was not so blindly optimistic as to assume that would last forever. He'd noticed that people with a Rain Affinity seemed to hold onto their minds for longer than those with any other affinity, but Dawn Woodmore –who would soon be turning twenty– had recently started showing signs of having a completely ridiculous crush on Remus Lupin, so Blaise knew his days were numbered.

At least he would have good friends around him to drag him out of trouble, just as he was currently making the effort to be voice of reason and protect them from their own stupidity. Friendship was all about reciprocation after all.


	71. Chapter 71

Beta'd by the spectacular Insane Scriptist

* * *

**Of compromise and collusion **

It only took Squalo a few days to throw together a coherent enough proposal to send to Nono through official channels requesting a change in current Varia policy, and the eight days between his submission and the scheduled meeting were plenty enough to pull together a rough itinerary, various plausible motives for both increasing recruitment and venturing into new territory and a brief note on how current policy was affecting Varia morale. Because a serious part of why everyone was being so difficult was that there'd been a drop in jobs since the not-a-coup, the only people trying to get themselves recruited into the Varia had been pathetic scum and there was a general feeling that they were being hung out to dry for the crime of being loyal to their Boss. Not that their loyalties had changed at all over the past year, but being treated like scum was not conductive to encouraging good behaviour in most of them.

The only way to counter that was to get Nono to make a big public gesture and authorising a long-term recruitment and expansion drive would go a way to help the Varia shed their 'traitor' image. Not that they were anything less that totally loyal to their Boss in all things, but the rest of the mafia was full of cowardly trash and despite not caring what they thought, the Varia still needed those morons to pay them for jobs. Nobody in the Varia was as money-obsessed as Mammon, but that didn't mean they _liked_ being idle and at loose ends for months on end, or only being hired for Vongola milk runs; the post house-clearing period had been dangerously quiet in terms of missions, which had led some to think a little too deeply and others to act out. Squalo had a castle full of bored assassins and he couldn't re-use the Tyrant threat for another three years minimum, so he really needed something to distract them all with.

These were all real reasons of course, just not his own pressing personal reason. That he would keep quiet and deal with on his own terms, eventually. Nobody needed to know about his 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma.

He also took tea with Petronilla two days before his meeting with Nono, to let her know what he was planning and ask her to adjust their bimonthly tea arrangement to allow for it.

Nilla had eyeballed him narrowly over the top of her teacup for a full minute before answering:

"I expect presents, Squalo-dear. Tasteful, attractive presents I can display or use, dispatched at least monthly. None of that tacky tourist crap, understood?"

"Is that all?" Squalo asked warily. It seemed a bit… minimal, considering.

"Of course that's not _all_, Superbi! That's just the sweetener, so I don't feel neglected while you're away. I have a few _particular_ things I'd like achieved that fall within your skill set and I'd like one or more of them done; a major one would give you a year, a minor one a few months. I'll bring you the details for a selection and you can pick what you're willing to do for me out of them."

Squalo suspected that Nilla wanted people dead or disgraced, or access to blackmail she'd been unable to find herself; she knew what he did, which made this kind of situation a hazard of their ongoing friendship. But he'd previously asked her to do stuff for him that might get her into trouble with her Boss –whoever that was even if Squalo had certain plausible suspicions– so it was only fair to let her reciprocate when she wanted something.

"Fine; I'll come by on the afternoon of the day following the meeting with Nono," the swordsman said.

"I'll have the files ready; Valentina will be there too, as she is implicated in some of it," Nilla said briskly.

"What do I get for directing you towards people willing to do the ones I won't or can't?" Squalo demanded shrewdly.

His friend smiled. "Oh, you're such a _considerate_ toy, darling; I'd happily give you more time, even if I have to pay for the work. Good quality craftsmanship is all about who you know, after all, and the reason these commissions have been piling up is that I'm not sure where to take them."

In other words, Nilla had been waiting for an opportunity _not_ to owe him for helping her out there, damn her twisty Mist mind. She was still less irritating than Mammon though.

"Thursday then," Squalo said shortly, finishing his tea. "And I'm _nobody's_ toy, Nilla."

Nilla shrugged elegantly. "So you say, my dear, but consider how it looks from my end…"

Squalo left, recognising that he had no comeback that would not be stupid and pathetic. By Mist standards he _was_ her 'toy', as he catered to her whims and made an effort to keep her entertained, but he was no less his own person for that. The only person Squalo would ever be prepared to consider himself as belonging to was Boss, as his Rain Guardian. Mists however lived in alternate realities with different rules and there was no point arguing with them.

The meeting with Nono was… well, it went. It wasn't entirely private, but the only Guardians present were Visconti and Coyote, which wasn't so bad. Coyote was an uptight, sanctimonious bastard but he _was_ Nono's right-hand man and Visconti was the best Guardian the old man had. Nono had graciously listened to Squalo's entire pitch, his bluntly stated reasons and almost painfully honest estimate of how badly the Varia would implode if he wasn't allowed to get on with running it properly; that meant getting a proper mission flow instead of just being tossed milk-runs and scraps. It _hurt_ to say even that much, but Squalo recognised the necessity of doing so and, aging moron or not, the swordsman _knew_ that Nono knew he needed the Varia. Squalo making the situation this blatantly clear meant Nono couldn't make excuses or put the situation off any further; the old man would have to commit to a course of action and _immediately_. The house-clearing had been direly needed, but the not-a-coup had taught Squalo that Nono needed to be given incentive to act and the prospect of the Varia going crazier was one hell of a kick in the pants.

Squalo knew this, which was part of why he was toeing the line between honesty and rudeness. Visconti clearly knew he knew, as the Cloud Guardian was giving him that Look again. Nono also clearly knew, but he was looking benevolent and thoughtful rather than suspicious and accusing. That was no guarantee that Squalo would like the Don Vongola's decision though, so the fifteen-year-old waited patiently for Nono to make up his mind. Coyote seemed to have already made up his own: he looked like he'd bitten something sour.

"I will host a gathering for all the subordinate and allied Families in two weeks time," Nono said eventually, "to announce that the Varia will be recruiting again and that they have my full confidence. You may bring one of your Officers with you if you wish, Superbi."

Squalo bowed politely, not protesting that they were Xanxus' Officers; he knew how to be diplomatic. "Thank-you, Don Nono," he said shortly. "Might I be excused?"

Nono smiled and waved a hand. "Feel free."

Squalo left as quickly as he could get away with.

* * *

Xanxus' office in Varia Headquarters hadn't been touched since he left, beyond Squalo collecting paperwork and Housekeeping doing the dusting, and that wasn't about to change; Xanxus was still Boss, frozen or not. Which meant it was Squalo's office that looked like a tornado had gone through it, papers and files scattered over every available surface and stacked precariously on chairs as the swordsman went over the details of specialties and temperament of every last Varia member and apprentice still among the living, the various active Squads and the latest updates on the wider Mafia as provided by the Mist Squad, trying to put together a schedule for the first two months of his trip. He wanted to leave enough competent, semi-balanced Varia behind with Lussuria so that the expected upswing in missions would go smoothly, but also needed to take a capable, practical and versatile Squad with him as backup. He was essentially blazing a trail into the unknown with his plan and so needed to take the best the Varia had.

This was a recruitment trip, so he needed someone with a good grasp of psychology who had recruited successfully before; it was a training trip for him so he needed back-up in case his opponents had friends who took offense to their guy losing. He also wanted to take along video cameras to film his bouts for later study, so he could rotate through newbies and mooks there to give them a bit of seasoning. Squalo's latest prosthetic hand was not entirely reliable as a few of the springs liked to jam, so he'd probably have to drag along Vezzini, the prosthetics and robotics specialist from R&amp;D who had created it, so that maintenance could be carried out promptly; Vezzini wouldn't mind –he loved a challenge and wouldn't mind working out of a hotel room or tent depending on how they were staying at any given location– but Squalo would need a patient Varia to act as the absent-minded scientist's bodyguard and babysitter so he didn't wander off and get himself killed. That meant taking along three Varia; four would be better as that way they had additional rotating back-up since nameless mooks didn't really count.

Five to a Squad was about average, so that would work pretty well and be easy to arrange. The last Varia could be a scout and long-range back-up; a Squad with a recruiter, a tank, a scientist-wrangler, a scout and a mook would be his basic standard then. Minor adjustments could be made according to the specialties of the Varia involved, provided they were sensible and justifiable. Having a template meant that if a Varia member wanted to come and join the fun they had to put together their own Squad and sell it to Lussuria, who would either allow it or send them back to the drawing board.

In addition to support Squads there would be courier Squads, which would include a pilot, Lussuria –since he was the only Officer Squalo trusted with the paperwork– and one or two more at Lussuria's discretion. Coming up with those was the Sun Officer's problem though, so Squalo wasn't too bothered about them even though he'd probably be sending Nilla's 'sweeteners' back with Luss. More important was to decide on a Squad to take with him for the first step of his trip, which would be taking him though the Middle East on his way towards Western China. He'd be passing through three current war-zones –Iraq, Afghanistan and Tajikistan– as well as vast stretches of wilderness, tribal zones and at least a dozen languages.

Which reminded him: he needed his Squad to speak relevant languages and have a Mist with him to pick up and teach them new ones. That would probably be the limiting factor on this trip; at least it would provide an incentive to learn new languages among those left behind.

His best bet would probably be to start with one of the established 'Immortal Squads', as they already worked well together and were highly versatile. That would also give everyone else time to sort themselves out according to languages and specialties, so that by the time the first Squad rotated out their replacement already knew how to work as a unit. The main problem he had right now was that the Varia was short-handed: the only Sky still in the building was Tyrant –who was _retired_ thank-you-very-much– then there were thirty-five Clouds under Ottabio, thirty-three Rains under Squalo himself, twenty-eight Storms under Bel, twenty-eight Suns under Lussuria, twenty-five Mists under Mammon and a measly twenty-two Lightnings under Levi.

The not-a-coup had been rather expensive on the personnel front, with quite a few of those not killed in action having to retire due to injuries. Most of the dead had been Lightnings and Suns, with Storms coming in next. Most of the crippled had been Rains or Mists, though the Mist Division had been the one most heavily cut down by Xanxus' shake-up despite most Mists having next-to-zero difficulty meeting the language standard. Squalo suspected it was an attitude thing; the kind of Mists who had thrived under Tyr were not the sort that Xanxus had wanted working under him so they'd either retired or moved on. Boss had got quite a few new people of Varia Quality joining once what he was doing trickled out into the Mafia Grapevine, but since the Cradle Affair there had been no new recruits worth bothering with and the Varia had stagnated.

Not for any longer though, not if Squalo had any say in the matter. But before he sprung the change on the Varia he had to go visit Nilla about the 'little jobs' she wanted doing.

* * *

Squalo arrived promptly at Petronilla's slightly before four in the afternoon, was let inside the building and upon getting inside the apartment paused at the sight of the tea table. Rather than the usual tea accessories –teapot, fancy teacups and saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl, biscuit plate– there was a tea urn beside the table on its own little trolley with a milk carton, biscuit packet and a selection of mugs. The table itself had files and notebooks piled on it in neat stacks; clearly this was a _working_ tea rather than the normal afternoon tea. Nilla and Valentina were nowhere to be seen, but they had to be in the apartment somewhere so Squalo shed his jacket, closed the front door and served himself a drink.

The tea was still Earl Grey, which showed that not even having to work at tea-time could persuade Nilla to serve anything stronger at this time of day. Squalo was about to investigate the files when his hostess arrived loudly from the door leading to the private areas of the apartment:

"Right on time; I'm sorry I wasn't ready to greet you. Do sit down and start looking at the documents; smaller tasks are on the left-hand side when you face the windows." Squalo always sat with his back to the wall, half-facing the windows with the apartment's front door within sight on his right; that chair had the best lines of sight and Nilla only ever sat in it when she was pissed off at him about something and wanted him to _twitch_.

Squalo guessed that Valentina was having second thoughts about letting him in on whatever-it-was and obligingly picked up the left-most wad of paper and flicked through the contents.

Hm. Somebody was taking pot-shots at the homes of bosses allied to the Vongola, the Cavallone Boss included? That was… odd. Each Boss had individually dismissed the matter, since no real damage had been done, but putting all the incidents together Squalo could see why Nilla thought it was worth looking into. The situation could easily escalate. He'd pass that one on to Changeling; such things were the CEDEF's problem after all.

That got him a month free.

Next was a petty, chauvinistic Vongola bureaucrat who was impeding Petronilla's inheritance for shitty legalistic reasons. Nilla could in theory sort that one out on her own, but Vongola Legal were vicious little bastards despite not a one of them being Flame-capable and were protected by Vongola Law so as to prevent interference in their duties. That meant using Flames on them wasn't allowed and grounds for heavy fines at the very least. Nilla, being a Mist and an Intelligencer, could not convincingly threaten bodily harm or social ruin to a Mafia Lawyer who would have goons protecting him. Her being underage was technically grounds for withholding her money, but it was a shit reason as they were _Mafia_ and she had tested out of the Mafia Academy last year. Her mother had supported her independence and arranged her apartment, but the woman had died six months back in the crossfire of a shoot-out and Nilla had apparently been struggling with Legal ever since. Squalo hadn't noticed; he'd been too busy with his own Varia problems and then the 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma. Then again, Nilla probably hadn't wanted him to notice.

He'd make it a Varia mission and assign Lacruma to slaughter the petty bureaucrat's mook patrol. Lacruma was one of Squalo's Rains, the Varia's unofficial dentist and had been a thug himself before dragging himself up to Varia Quality and getting recruited under Tyr's predecessor, so he'd enjoy the irony. There'd be no proof it was a Varia hit, but Nilla could show up the next day and be saccharine and subtly threatening, which would get the lawyer moving out of abject terror. The mysterious and messy demise of a mook patrol was about as blatant an 'or else' as could be contrived.

Two months on that one; much less than it was worth but Petronilla was his friend and Squalo did _not_ like it when people messed with those under his protection. She'd have to pay for the hit though, so it all worked out.

Footsteps to his right signalled the return of Nilla, this time with Valentina. Valentina was a niece of the Molinaro Boss, whose Famiglia had come into being under the Vongola's protection and would never have existed without their patronage. Her mother was the Boss's oldest daughter, making Valentina a catch to ambitious lower-ranking Mafiosi but nothing special to anybody with actual power. Her uncle was next in line for the Molinaro Boss title and he was married with a son. There was little chance she or her eventual offspring would inherit the Famiglia.

Valentina was the second-oldest Harpy after Giulia and her dark golden hair showed Nordic blood in the family; even though it was nearly a thousand years since the Normans had invaded Sicily, the genetics persisted. She also had large, dark blue eyes and fair skin, but was as almost as short and curvy as Nilla was. She looked like a pretty doll with barely enough brain cells to rub together, but she was cunning, vicious and remarkably inventive with a good head for strategy. She was also a crack shot with the tiny handgun she kept in her equally tiny handbag, but blood made her queasy so she only owned the weapon as a last resort and had never actually shot anybody with it.

The older Mist seated herself opposite him with the air on a woman determined to see an unpleasant task done; Squalo poured her a mug of tea. She accepted it, inclined her head in silent thanks and sipped it silently for several seconds.

"I have a cousin," Valentina said eventually. "She's fourteen and last year she manifested Flames when some thugs attempted to murder her baby brother in the garden of her father's estate. She shot the first three with her holdout gun, got shot herself then Multiplied weed killer from a mostly-empty bottle the gardener had left behind to wipe out the rest. Her brother survived; their father Don Scarlatti immediately put the seven-year-old boy into a self-defence program so it wouldn't happen again. Alessia on the other hand didn't get anything, not even basic training. Her father refuses to recognise that she has any worth beyond what a suitable marriage will get him in a few years' time."

"What's this got to do with me, voi?" Squalo asked suspiciously. A baby civilian Cloud, even one who had killed so deliberately, was not something he could do anything about.

"Alessia speaks Italian, Spanish, French, German, English, Russian and Greek, can read Latin, Ancient Greek and Arabic and distils her own pharmaceuticals from the plants in her garden," Valentina said calmly. "Most of her mixes are highly toxic; she originally used them to poison vermin but since the assassination attempt on her brother has taken to carrying some of them around. She's _dying_ Squalo; she's trapped in a cage she can't escape, forced into the mould of a society wife when it's the last thing she wants for herself." Unlike Valentina, who was perfectly happy to marry some twit and lead him around by the nose for the rest of his life.

"And you think the Varia will be _better_?" Squalo demanded incredulously. This was absurd!

"Look, read her Flame Affinity Test and the mental health reports," Valentina said, handing them across the table, "then tell me I'm wrong."

Squalo read them. Cloud-primary, Mist-secondary and Rain-tertiary, with a Classic Cloud personality buried under a shit-ton of early childhood indoctrination to turn her into a perfect trophy wife. Intimately aware of how dangerous the Vongola was and angry about not being permitted to do more to defend herself and those she cared for. Lacking a coherent goal to strive for; deliberately dumbing herself down so as not to get stomped on by her father for actually _having_ a personality. A smart enough choice as it enabled her to make _some_ decisions on her own behalf, but it wasn't anywhere near enough for an Active Cloud.

Valentina was right; the girl _was_ dying. She might snap first though and then they'd probably be most of a Famiglia down, considering the chick's propensity for poisons. Fuck.

"I'll get her into Housekeeping as an apprentice; she's got what it take for that much," Squalo conceded grudgingly; "getting further than that is on her though." He wasn't going to baby anyone.

"That's all I ask," Valentina said quietly, finishing her tea and sweeping out of the room.

"A year for that one," Nilla said from where she'd been sitting quietly on Squalo's left and sipping her own tea.

"You know this chick?"

Nilla waggled a hand and tilted her head. "So-so: the uproar over her brother's near-demise was hot gossip for nearly two weeks. She's so messed up inside her Flames are probably Multiplying her emotions half the time."

One more sign that most Mafiosi were total morons; Flames needed _training_, regardless of who the person who had activated them was! Not doing so was an especially suicidal kind of stupid. Yes, sealing then was a possibility, but it was essentially torture as it locked away the manifestation of a person's primary character traits, which was not unlike lobotomising them on a spiritual level. You had to be a very special kind of sadist to do that to somebody, even an enemy you hated.

"D'you have more information on her Family?" Squalo asked; he would need it to get the chick away from her father.

Nilla smiled that particular Mist smile that said the world had just bent itself in a shape she liked seeing. "Of course I do, Squalo-dear. Right here," she handed him an inch-thick file folder.

"I'll take this and these two," Squalo tapped the other two 'missions' he'd decided upon, "and get back to you once they're in motion. You'll have to pay for the lawyer one though; Varia Quality doesn't come cheap."

"I'll pay once my inheritance comes through," Nilla retorted. "That is the aim of that mission after all."

Squalo shrugged, indifferent; it wouldn't be the first time a Varia client chose to pay after the mission rather than before. The Mist Squad took obscene enjoyment in shaking down people who attempted to default on their debts, but he doubted Petronilla would be that dumb. She wasn't trash.

"See you when I see you," he said, kissing her cheek goodbye.

"Remember to send me presents!" She called after him as he walked out her front door.

* * *

The party at Vongola Headquarters was exactly as dire as Squalo was expecting it to be, but at least he had been allowed to bring Lussuria along to draw attention away from him. The Sun Officer had taken seconds to notice that Squalo wasn't enjoying the attention and had instantly stepped into the fray, his flirtatious flamboyance confusing and offending the gathered bosses in ways they could not politely object to in the presence of the Vongola Nono. Homophobia was very much a big deal in the Mafia, but Lussuria being Varia and Nono having greeted the two of them personally when they came through the door meant the other bosses had to swallow their prejudice and smile.

It was so much fun to watch; the official part of the evening had been over and done with as soon as he and Luss arrived and Nono made his announcement, so all that was left was the drinking and some of the bosses present were hitting the bottle pretty hard.

It was getting to the point that Squalo suspected the Zanasi Boss was going to give himself an aneurysm when Ganauche entered the room, 'noticed' Lussuria and started a lively conversation referencing their time in Vongola Guardian training together. Don Zanasi was then swallowed up by his fellow dons, given another glass of wine and afforded time to calm down so he wouldn't mortally offend any of the professional killers in the room. 'Guardian' might be Ganauche's official title, but that just meant he was authorised to kill anyone he perceived as threatening the Vongola, which the Varia belonged to.

Squalo hadn't actually put together before the likelihood of Lussuria and Ganauche knowing each-other, but he really should have; Luss had after all been picked up as a potential Sun Guardian for Massimo and spent two years getting intensive Flame-training before being allowed to meet his prospective boss. Massimo, being a total homophobe, had rejected the then-eighteen-year-old instantly and filed a complaint, but Xanxus had recruited the Sun three days later so the reprimand hadn't really stuck: Lussuria had become an Officer less than four months into his Varia career. Ganauche had been made Nono's Lightning Guardian less than a year after Luss joined the Varia, so the two men knowing each-other was only logical.

Now the various bosses were no longer being forced to interact with Lussuria the tension level in the room went down a bit, but remained noticeable due to Luss being himself and Nono's Lightning Guardian obviously considering the Sun Officer a respected colleague. That would likely be hot gossip by tomorrow, if they weren't making out that Ganauche and Luss were lovers or something ridiculous like that.

Luss liked his bed partners young and dead; Ganauche was slightly too old for the Sun Officer's tastes and very much alive. Besides, Luss wasn't flirting with him which suggested that the okama liked the Lightning as a person.

It being a boss party rather than a mixed dinner, the only food available was nibbles and there was a lot of alcohol being handed out by the discreet and ever-efficient housekeeping staff. Squalo, being fifteen, was careful about not drinking too many glasses of wine too quickly and repeatedly used illusions to make it look like he was drinking more than was really the case. As guest of honour Squalo had to look like he was participating, but as a teen and interim Varia boss, getting drunk would be a disastrous move on his part. It would make the swordsman –and by extension the Varia– look immature and ineffective.

Not a good move, especially right after Nono had announced that the Varia would be recruiting again and had his full confidence.

By that point all the bosses present were at least somewhat buzzed, so Squalo wandered over to stand by Lussuria so the Sun Guardian knew to dial it back a bit. They could leave now if they wanted –Squalo wasn't actually a boss as these people counted such things despite running the Varia– but the swordsman had his promise to Petronilla and Valentina to keep and he'd noticed Don Scarlatti among the guests present. This was the best opportunity he was ever going to get and Nilla's information had indicated the Scarlatti Boss was inclined towards ill-advised drunken wagers. How to bring the man's daughter into the conversation though…

As it turned out, Squalo didn't need to: half an hour later Don Scarlatti was drunkenly extolling the virtues of his 'beautiful, biddable little girl'. Squalo took the opportunity offered and snorted loudly and rudely.

"Something to contribute, Superbi?" Don Cavallone asked dryly. Dino's old man wasn't half as drunk as many of those present and was Sky enough to be able to tell when something was going down. He wasn't interfering though; good.

"Considering Scarlatti's kid murdered eight assassins in cold blood when they went after her little brother, I _seriously_ doubt she's biddable," Squalo said clearly, letting his voice fill the brief lull in conversation. "She manifested as a Cloud too; Clouds are everything _except_ biddable."

It was hilarious to see everybody in the room take this into account, as well as take into account the fact that the current captain of the Varia had _heard_ of Scarlatti's daughter, likely in conjunction with her kill count. Some of them appeared to consider Squalo's correction as a plus in the girl's favour –smart men– but most of them seemed vehemently opposed to the idea of a trophy wife with self-defence skills. Morons; then again most of these men were contemporaries and 'friends' –read sycophants– of the late Enrico Vongola and his influence on them was rather obvious. Enrico had always said that, while Flame Affinity was important for inheritance, it wasn't the only thing that mattered in a boss. He was right of course, but the fool had used it as an excuse not to train when he could avoid it.

As a result of wanting to cosy up to the Vongola Heir, a lot of the current generation of allied and subordinate bosses didn't know much about Flames and vaguely disapproved of them as 'pointless'. That wasn't what Enrico had been getting at, but that was life for you. Don Cavallone was the most notable exception to this rule, but that was because he was rather older than Enrico and had hero-worshipped Nono as a kid; in recognition of that stalwart support Nono had lent Don Cavallone his personal hitman, the Arcobaleno Reborn, to tutor his son in using Flames. Squalo had been caught around the edges of the subsequent insanity several times before leaving school and was glad to have escaped. Dino was _bronco_ but the tiny hitman was an absolute menace.

"Arr, are you sug-sugeshting that my daughter is _wild_, Superbi?" Don Scarlatti slurred, ignoring his comrades' attempts to distract him.

Squalo raised a sardonic eyebrow and sipped his wine insolently. "I think she would make a fine subordinate with just a little extra polish," he stated in the sudden hush. "Any girl who kills five men with a newly-manifested Flame certainly has Varia Quality."

"How dare you!" Don Scarlatti bellowed, spittle flying as his face purpled. "My daughter ish no crazy sky-pyco-pycosath!"

"Now, now gentlemen, let's keep it friendly," Ganauche said, stepping in with a steely smile.

"He inshulted my daughter!" Don Scarlatti shouted, waving a fist.

"How about a traditional solution then?" Ganauche replied easily, catching the fist and holding it firmly in place. "A Vongola drinking contest."

"I'm up for it if he is," Squalo yawned, feigning boredom.

"A drinking contesht it ish then!" Scarlatti agreed.

Vongola Drinking Contests were a Vongola tradition that dated back to Primo's time, when meeting at the bargaining table had included alcoholic drinks and Giotto Vongola had absent-mindedly drunk his would-be-allies under the table, thus enabling him to get them to agree to everything and sign their names to it. Later generations had wisely removed the alcohol from the bargaining process between Families, but it was still a Vongola Tradition for two disagreeing parties to drink it out before witnesses, with the one who fell over first automatically agreeing to the winner's previously stated desires.

As with all Vongola Traditions, the only rules that applied were the ones expressly stated before the contest started. Squalo fully intended to take advantage of that in order to cheat, just as Primo always had: Skies and Suns metabolised alcohol much, much faster than anybody else could ever hope to match, even when they weren't doing it deliberately.

"If I win then I get full control over your daughter's education until her legal majority," Squalo stated baldly, sitting down and setting his wineglass aside as one of the waiters brought over a small table and a selection of shot glasses.

"When _I_ win you will apologize and keep your rabble away from my little girl until after she'sh married," Don Scarlatti said darkly, sitting opposite him. Squalo stared at him blandly.

"Are the terms agreed?" Ganauche asked as Lussuria moved to stand behind Squalo and placed a hand on the teenage swordsman's shoulder.

"Agreed," Squalo said flatly.

"Agreed," Don Scarlatti echoed him grumpily, his own bodyguard hovering behind him nervously.

"Further terms?" The Lightning Guardian asked. Squalo smirked at his opponent, daring him to add handicaps.

"No more termsh; I can beat this puppy!" Don Scarlatti declared.

"What he said," Squalo agreed; just like he'd wanted, no terms meant it wasn't cheating to have Luss keep him awake and vaguely sober with Sun Flames.

"Very well," Ganauche said in a conciliatory manner, opening the bottle the waiter had brought and pouring out the shots. "Heard and witnessed; drink up." It was vodka; crap tasting and designed to get those involved drunk as quickly as possible. At some point after Primo's time it had become Traditional to save your strongest, most disgusting alcohol for this kind of Challenge, possibly because it was the only way to get rid of the stuff.

Squalo threw the shot back and slammed the glass down on the table, feeling the burn in his throat being subtly countered by Luss's Flames. Luss had excellent control; it was not possible to see whether he was using his Flames on whatever he was in contact with unless he was deliberately being sloppy. Squalo threw back another shot.

Don Scarlatti keeled over nine shots later, by which point Squalo's eyes were starting to cross and he was feeling distinctly giddy. "I win!" The swordsman declared brightly. "C'mon Luss, let's go get _Csibe_ and take her home."

"It's half-past two in the morning, Squalo-sweetie," the Sun Officer pointed out.

Squalo frowned. "Does it matter? Better to get her now before moron over there wakes up and decides I cheated or something." He had a vague feeling he'd swapped languages in there somewhere, but couldn't quite put his finger on the change.

Luss shrugged. "Your decision, boss."

"C'mon then," Squalo set out towards the door, dragging Lussuria after him. "You're driving Luss; I can't even walk straight. _Merde_."

The Sun Officer chucked. "It's a wise boss who recognises his limitations, Squalo-dear; don't worry about the girl, I'll take care of everything."

Serene in the knowledge that the Sun Officer would take care of everything, Squalo let himself be loaded into the back of the car and fell asleep shortly after hazily informing Lussuria that the address of the Scarlatti family home was in the papers in the glove pouch. Varia Quality meant being prepared for any opportunity and the party meant they had Nono's approval to start recruiting immediately.

He woke up late the next morning with a thumping headache to find water and painkillers on his bedside table, alongside a brief note in Lussuria's curly handwriting that let him know that 'Csibe' was fully inducted as a Varia apprentice and had already been scooped up by Magharibi. Squalo didn't rightly care; his head hurt too much.

* * *

Translations

_Bronco _= obtuse (Portuguese); Squalo is basically calling Dino an idiot while using the same word that will later become his 'wild horse' nickname, which is Spanish-American.

_Csibe _= chick, as in 'baby chicken' (Hungarian);


	72. Chapter 72

Beta'd by the sensational Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of thralldom and ambiguous allegiance **

Severus Snape had not been aware of the mechanics and indicators of Magical Thralldom until receiving a startlingly frank yet impeccably polite letter from Lily's daughter in the autumn after her leaving Hogwarts and getting married. Honestly, he hadn't even realised Thralldom was, as his students would put it, 'a thing'. After cautious investigation however the Potions Master had seethed with fury and betrayal: Dumbledore _knew_ about this, he had to! He knew and had done _nothing_, not to inform and thereby dissuade others from joining the Dark Lord's cause or even to privately warn Severus of how his mind had been restricted and compromised. Even if many of his past students had been firm believers in Blood Purity, they would never have joined the Dark Lord had they known what they would be forced to give up.

Dumbledore could not help him, had _known_ there was no help that could be offered yet had still agreed to 'protect' Severus. Ha! It had been a lie; there was no safety to be had anywhere.

Except, it seemed, in the shadow of the teenage but nonetheless eminently capable Dorea Rosamund Black. Severus had been aware that most of his house believed Dorea to be the epitome of what a Slytherin should be; he had not expected to be told that she had somehow become the Dark Lord's heir following the events at Godric's Hollow that Halloween night. His former student's concise and respectful explanation of Thralldom and a reference to various books that detailed past ways it had been resisted and subverted had sent him on a feverish research spree, one that had distracted him quite successfully from the detestable Madam Umbridge's campaign against education and independent thought. Being busy with research allowed him to selectively blind himself to the chaos that Dorea's cohort had concocted against Madam Umbridge; not that he had been short on suspicions as to who was doing what, but he had been too preoccupied with teaching and reading to seriously investigate the minor disruption to the school routine.

Simply being _aware_ that he was bound by a Thrall mark had dramatically changed Severus' priorities. Firstly and most importantly, he could no longer entertain the vain hope that spying for Dumbledore would enable him to stay alive and out of Azkaban; it wouldn't. He would go on spying for the Headmaster, of course, but only so as not to arouse suspicion. Secondly, the Dark Mark bound him to the Heir of Slytherin rather than to the Dark Lord personally and while Voldemort could still use and access the Thrall marks he had created, he was _not_ the Heir of Slytherin. His new body was formed from the bone of his Muggle father and the blood of the Galet family, neither of whom had any connection to Slytherin's line. If Voldemort had modified the ritual to use his maternal grandfather's remains… that would have been a different story. The Dark Lord had not, so he was no longer Heir of Slytherin.

Unlike Dorea Black, daughter of Lily Evans, daughter of Iris Gaunt who was descended from a firstborn squib son of Slytherin's direct line; that his lovely Lily had been the true Heiress Slytherin had made Severus both laugh and cry. It was so hilariously, perfectly accurate, so _Lily_ that how could it not be true? Slytherins used any means necessary to achieve their ends and Lily had certainly done that, though she had been more fearless than cunning as a child. As she had grown older her appreciation and implementation of subterfuge had improved, as had her determination; so very Slytherin, his lovely Lily.

Because Severus _knew_ that the Lady Potter and Lady Black Regent was the true Slytherin Heir rather than the Dark Lord, the Thrall mark bound him to serve _her_ rather than the resurrected Voldemort. He had already considered himself to owe Lily's child a debt, so that additional layer of binding was tolerable at least. Besides, Dorea's requests had thus far been minor and easily achieved: she wanted him to continue teaching at Hogwarts until the end of the year and do exactly as he pleased in the matter of spying on the Dark Lord. That freedom had been completely liberating and Severus had taken to writing missives to the Blacks concerning planned raids and various Death Eater safe-houses simply because he _didn't_ have to do so.

He'd also taken to lying to the Headmaster about everything, simply because he was no longer wholly dependent on the man. Having a choice of options allowed him the choice of honesty.

Dumbledore's death took Severus entirely by surprise. In fact, the old man's passing peacefully in his sleep immediately after the Department of Mysteries fiasco took _everyone_ by surprise, the Dark Lord included. It was just so anticlimactic and mundane a death for the man hailed as 'the Defeater of Grindelwald' and 'the only man You-Know-Who ever feared'. Severus personally doubted the Headmaster's demise had been entirely natural, no matter what the Healers said. He had an instinct for foul play honed by fifteen years of teaching misbehaving teens and something about the situation was definitely fishy. However there was no proof, he had no suspects and speaking up would only instigate mindless scapegoating, so Severus kept his peace. He would not return to Hogwarts in the autumn anyway.

He joined the Dark Lord after leaving Hogwarts, as it happened, but not out of necessity. Unlike either of his former masters, Lily's daughter had actually _asked_ him what he wanted to do. It had taken him a while to answer the question –simply because he'd not really considered it since childhood– and had written to her that what he _wanted_ was to have a potions' laboratory and be sponsored in creating new potions. The Lady Potter had replied with an official job offer that included accommodation and full board, for the price of a share in any patents and royalties.

It was an outrageously generous proposal and gave him tremendous latitude; Severus would have been suspicious had he not known that Dorea Black was quite possibly the most pragmatically and ruthlessly kind individual alive. Her offering this got her his almost-undying goodwill, which she clearly valued enough to be willing to pay lavishly for. He would probably be called upon at a later date to tutor some of her friends towards their Masteries –possibly one of her Prewetts– but that was a small price to pay for the freedom being offered him. Being a Thrall was a form of slavery, but legally it also gave him tremendous latitude as it was assumed that everything he did was the responsibility of his 'master'. Severus still chafed under that assumption, but it was useful enough for the time being and Lily's girl had sworn him an Oath that she would free him once the current war was over.

However in order to secure that future the Dark Lord needed to die, something Severus was perfectly happy to assist in even if it did mean putting up with that lunatic Barty Crouch in the meantime.

* * *

It was late November, slightly over a month after the fall of the Ministry to the Dark Lord, that Severus found a parcel from Lily's daughter waiting for him in his quarters; it looked to have been delivered by owl. The Dark Lord had turned over the day-to-day running of the Ministry to Barty Crouch, who had managed to keep his continued existence a secret by Imperiusing Pius Thicknesse and making him puppet-Minister. Barty then co-opted Lucius Malfoy, newly released from Azkaban, to help with the paperwork and finesse the Ministry workers into submission.

It was clear to Severus that the Dark Lord was utterly obsessed with taking Hogwarts, which was somewhat problematic since Headmistress McGonagall had recently renewed the School Wards and had re-activated all the more subtle ones that Dumbledore had been forced to take down when he offered Severus the position of Potions Professor. Not that Severus had realised the late Headmaster had done that; there had been an exposé in the _Prophet_ on the subject shortly before the Ministry fell, one more thing that Dumbledore was being vilified for and that the Dark Lord had found highly entertaining. The _Prophet_ was not the only news source doing so, but it was not the most accurate or entertaining once the shame and scandal headlines had become repetitive. The most entertaining pieces currently being published belonged to the Quibbler.

So much so, in fact, that the Quibbler was being permitted to go on operating just so Voldemort could read the next instalment in Xenophilus Lovegood's series on 'The Greater Good: How Dumbledore Shaped Europe'. Severus was enjoying those articles too, though as a former teacher he could see a lot of Blaise Zabini in the incisive and darkly deadpan prose. Not that the potions master had mentioned any such thing and the byline meant the articles were written by somebody else.

The parcel was clear of any spells and Wards and contained only a single sheet of paper and a vial Charmed to be unbreakable; according to the letter, the vial contained Basilisk venom and Severus was being asked to poison Nagini with it. He was advised to take the opportunity to fake his death; the Dark Lord would doubtless be furious at losing his familiar, so Severus would probably be better off making it look like he had died. Well, if he did the deed _personally _that was.

The easiest way to kill the snake would involve the Imperius Curse. He would also need a disposable minion –one who could feasibly wander off and get himself killed– to enspell and orchestrate an accidental run-in with Nagini for. Severus then needed to be close enough to Switch the poison with some of the victim's blood while Nagini was savaging him and then the snake would be dead as well.

Severus also needed to make sure he was officially elsewhere, so as not to get caught in the blast radius when the Dark Lord threw a tantrum over his familiar's demise. He wasn't sure why Dorea had chosen Basilisk venom, but as that was the only thing she'd insisted on –even the timing had been left at his discretion– he would comply. He would most certainly be asking where she'd got it from and seeing if he could get hold of more at a later date though; it was a rare and exceedingly expensive ingredient, used in all manner of extremely nasty potions of the sort he had never gotten a chance to brew before.

The most effective way to vanish would be a time-turner, but the Department of Mysteries had none left intact after Rodolphus Lestrange had collided with the shelves they were being stored on. Severus suspected that someone had quietly made off with some of the time-turners; it wasn't like a violent impact would necessarily have destroyed _all_ of them. Who the culprits in such a theft might have been however Severus had no idea, so he had no way of getting hold of one.

Actually, the best scapegoat for this little scheme was actually Rabastan Lestrange, who had miraculously survived his encounter with the Pensivores but had been reduced to a stumbling, hollow-eyed shell that barely had enough self-awareness to wash and dress every morning. He was being kept alive by his house-elf, but Severus could see how distressing Kreep was finding his master's catatonia. Death would be a mercy and would also place the Lestrange Vaults outside of the Dark Lord's reach which was a secondary bonus.

* * *

When Barty Crouch had been at school, what he'd wanted more than anything else was to have friends and make his father proud of him. Of course his father was in the Ministry, so Barty had tried to please him by working hard in his studies and befriending his fellow Slytherins, particularly those from good families and with advantageous connections. He was a good listener, which got him a long way with his fellow purebloods as they all had something to say. Barty preferred to keep his own opinions closer to his chest, wary of upsetting his friends or saying something they would laugh at.

He earned twelve OWLs and eight NEWTs, but his father barely seemed to notice. It hurt. After getting his OWLs Barty had turned his attention to the Crouch Family specialty, which wasn't quite Family Magic because the Crouches weren't that old a family but was still something that came easier to those of the Crouch line.

Crouches had an affinity for magical languages, such as Mermish and Gobbledegook, and could learn Muggle languages with speed and ease via magical means. Barty's father knew over two hundred languages, most of which he had learned around the time of his marriage to further his career. Barty had only managed to learn forty-three languages before getting thrown in Azkaban and was now too old for learning more to be easy. It would take him more than half as long again, even with his family affinity and access to the Ministry's International Magical Language Repository. Still, it passed the time and since the Dark Lord had taken over the Ministry Barty had learned two new languages; each had taken slightly over ten days to properly settle in his mind, which was a sad come-down from when he was sixteen and could learn a language a week and nine languages in two months.

Barty liked languages, always had: language enabled communication. When he was a kid he'd liked languages because they improved his ability to befriend people. His skill in talking and listening to people had been why the Dark Lord recruited him: Barty had access to the Ministry and as the son of the Head of Magical Law Enforcement nobody ever questioned his right to be there. People talked to him, shared their views and woes and Barty passed the information on to his Master so that the Dark Lord would know who was sympathetic to the Cause and who didn't care one way or the other. Of course, some people had opposed his Lord for various idiotic reasons and Barty had passed those names on too. Change was inevitable and standing in the way got people killed.

Getting thrown in Azkaban had been all his father's fault: Barty had woken up in the morning of the first of November and seen the headlines proclaiming the Dark Lord dead and not believed a word of it. His Dark Mark had faded, yes, but it was still _there_. That meant his Master was not gone. Besides, had the Dark Lord not said he had achieved immortality? So Barty had been cautious and used the abruptly relaxed security to visit people and listen to gossip. He'd been in the Ministry when news of Sirius Black's arrest came through and had been a bit confused –Bella had always been so adamant that her cousin was a blood-traitor of the worst sort– so the next morning he'd gone to visit the Lestranges to find out what was going on.

The house-elves had just shown him into the parlour when Aurors had broken in through both the front door and the Floo and Barty had found himself in a cell under the Ministry barely half an hour later. He'd been terrified; he hadn't _done_ anything! He didn't want to go to Azkaban! Who would look after his mother then? She was so sickly and father was never at home when she needed him!

Barty had hoped that an actual trial would get him let off but there _was_ no trial; no chance to testify or present evidence to prove his innocence of torturing the Longbottoms. Instead he got dragged into a courtroom with Bella, Rabastan and Rodolphus and his Merlin-dammed _father_ sentenced them all to life in Azkaban without even letting them _speak_! Not that Bella cared, but Barty did! He broke then, desperately trying to get his father's attention but his father had repudiated him. All through his time in Azkaban Barty had heard his father's words echoing in his ears:

"…_I have no son!_"

Azkaban and its Dementors had stolen his mother away; Barty no longer remembered her, not really. Couldn't recall her smiles, the warmth of her hugs or the sweetness of her voice; barely remembered the things they'd talked about and even then it was only the words that remained. All that Azkaban had left to him was his father's betrayal, his own desperation for acknowledgement and appreciation and an abiding bitterness towards his so-called friends.

According to the papers Barty had been in prison a year, but it had felt interminable. It still felt interminable now, over a decade later. It didn't help that after being smuggled out of Azkaban Barty's father had enslaved his will and forced him into another kind of imprisonment; this time trapped within his mind.

If Barty had resented his father before, being Imperiused had turned that anger and grief into a bottomless well of roiling hatred. He _loathed_ his father, who had publically repudiated him then dragged him out of jail to enslave him in the home he had been brought up in. All his happiest memories had been made there with his mother and his father had tainted them all, never mind that after a year with the Dementors Barty barely remembered his childhood.

His hatred had given him purpose: Barty had wanted more than anything else for his father to be _forced_ to acknowledge him, to have to fight to keep him imprisoned. It took years, but his father's mind finally collapsed beneath the strain and Barty had been free.

He had honestly been at a loss then; what to do? He'd decided to go looking for his Master, as the Dark Lord's cause was the only purpose he'd ever really enjoyed. He'd felt valued and appreciated in his Lord's service.

Then he had met Dorea while teaching in the guise of Alastor Moody. Barty liked Dorea; she saw things clearly, didn't mess about and took good care of her friends. She also had a fantastic sense of humour and a proper backbone. She'd been genuinely magnificent in the graveyard and seeing her kill Macnair and Goyle then fearlessly declare war on his master had strengthened that initial fondness into genuine admiration. You _had_ to admire a girl like that.

Barty suspected that his Lord admired Dorea's backbone as well, but in the Dark Lord that admiration translated into a determination to see her dead. Of course, that had to be put on hold when the owls had descended and slaughtered over half those present but that was life for you. That the Blacks had then gone on a campaign to isolate and destroy the Dark Lord's power base had been tremendously irritating, but no less admirable: a challenge! Barty had rather enjoyed the subterfuge involved in keeping the cause alive while not giving away who he really was, but he seemed to be the only one. Some were idiots, the rest were cowards and all were ill-trained. Wimps, the lot of them; his Lord needed better followers.

Unfortunately for his Lord however, Dorea had already got to the best people first. Maybe the Dark Lord should have tried recruiting her rather than going straight for the kill? She was a Black after all, and nobody had ever gotten anywhere in Magical Society without the support –overt or tacit– of the Black Family. Antagonising them like his Lord had done was either an act of incredible confidence in his capabilities or of completely thoughtless idiocy. Barty wasn't thinking about it too hard; it was too late for second thoughts.

Or at least so Barty had thought, right up until the fantastically entertaining trap in the Department of Mysteries where he got to test his former students' grasp of his subject –Millie was quite delightfully enthusiastic in her expression of the importance of a good offense– and discovered that Dorea was his Lord's Heir. That… Barty wasn't very happy about that. Why was his Lord doing his level best to murder his own Heir? Heirs were the future of the Family!

A massive part of why he'd killed his own father was that the man had abandoned Barty and then enslaved him, spitting on the family connection. Family was _supposed_ to be all that mattered and his Lord had said that the Death Eaters were his family, but if so why hadn't Dorea been given the opportunity to join? She would have been _amazing_ as a Death Eater and that way the whole graveyard mess and all those losses wouldn't have happened. If the Dark Lord had recognised the connection there would be more than four of the original Death Eaters still alive… if Rabastan really counted as 'alive', considering his current state. He wasn't much better off than a Dementor victim. Augustus Rookwood _had_ been alive up until he got out of Azkaban, at which point the idiot wizard told the Dark Lord that his best bet for making it alive to the end of the year was to flee the country and Lord Voldemort had killed him. The Dark Lord had no room for wishy-washy defeatism in his forces.

Barty wandered down the hall of Lestrange House, the wand he'd won off Dorea twirling between his fingers. It didn't like him very much, that elm wand; it had taken Barty a while to place where he'd seen it before and he had eventually realised it had once belonged to Arcturus Black, the late Lord Black and his grandmother's cousin. No wonder it didn't like him much; Black wands were as stubborn and wilful as the Blacks themselves. It said a lot about Dorea's character that she could work so well with her great-grandfather's wand though. Not that she apparently _needed_ a wand, which was even more impressive and something that Barty had never seen before now. Not even his Lord could cast so powerfully or so well. Why Dorea was his Lord's Heir was abundantly obvious: she was the most powerful witch of her generation. Why his Lord was so determined to murder her was still a mystery though; maybe he was testing her worth?

The floppy-haired, blond thirty-four-year-old was pondering the likelihood of this when he heard a roar of fury from the upper floors and decided it was in his best interests to make himself scarce. His Lord was having a snit –likely one of the new recruits had botched something up– and it was better to be busy elsewhere. He could go and teach himself a new language; maybe Quechua this time?


	73. Chapter 73

Beta'd by the beguiling Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of negotiation and inheritance **

"I am not going to swear any Oaths of Service."

Dorea nodded understandingly, not taking her eyes off the eighteen-year-old witch standing a few feet back from the Ward boundary surrounding Potter Manor, four massive chests piled up behind her.

"I am not your vassal, nor am I am employee of House Potter. I am a guest seeking asylum from my parents' abject stupidity."

"Fair enough," Dorea agreed mildly; it wasn't like she _wanted_ to subjugate everybody in Magical Britain to her whims anyway. She had enough to be getting on with already without having to manage everybody she knew, their assets and their education. "Swear to abide by the Laws of Hospitality and we'll be golden."

"I, Odile Lorelei Wilkes, do swear to abide by the Laws of Hospitality for as long as I am a guest in the home of Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, Lady Potter and present Regent Black," the tall, slender woman said firmly.

"And I, Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, Lady Potter and present Regent Black, do swear to uphold Hospitality for my guest Odile Lorelei Wilkes for as long as she remains in my home," Dorea responded. "Loppy, please take Miss Wilkes' trunks up to a suitable guest room and inform Dilly that we will have one more for meals for the foreseeable future."

"Yes Lady Potter," said the house-elf that had approached her half an hour previously to timidly inform her that there was a witch was standing just outside the Wards at the end of the Manor's service road. Loppy vanished from her side, reappeared by the trunks and vanished again, this time taking the luggage with him.

Odile Wilkes, still known to her former fellow Hogwarts students as 'Croc' or 'the Crocodile', marched briskly across the Ward boundary and past Dorea up towards the manor itself. Dorea followed along behind, slightly bemused by this unexpected turn of events. Odile was the last person she had expected to show up asking for asylum. In fact, Dorea was hard pressed to name _anything_ that could prompt the Crocodile to demand asylum in the first place; the witch was more than capable of taking care of herself.

* * *

It took Dorea a week to discover that the 'abject stupidity' Croc wanted asylum from was her parents deciding that she should marry and settle down with a nice boy; the Lady Potter had to wonder if Mr and Mrs Wilkes understood their daughter at all. Odile was very strongly Cloud-aligned and didn't respect anybody who couldn't personally back up their opinions with a significant show of force; the only way she was ever going to marry was after being repeatedly challenged by a man whom she approved of, which would probably lead to her proposing to him rather than the other way around. There was no way she would ever allow her parents to set her up with anybody; the older witch clearly felt that any man who relied on an arrangement to find a wife was too pathetic to even meet, let alone consider for marriage. Clouds liked people who were proactive and confident; anything less and they were disgusted by the 'weakness' they saw.

It took a comment from one of the older Potter portraits and a brief stint in the genealogy section of the library to work out why, after settling in, Croc had asked for a basement-level workroom to practice her Family Magic in. Dorea had of course given her a room at once –providing workspace for long-term guests was part of Hospitality– but it had taken Harold Potter mentioning that Odile 'had the Dippel cheekbones' for Dorea to place her guest's exact heritage and likely activities.

Odile Wilkes was the granddaughter of Lorelei Marie, who was descended through her maternal line from the Dippels of Castle Frankenstein. The Dippel Family Magic lay in creating Simulacra, specifically golems made of formerly-living tissue such as wood… or flesh.

Dorea suspected that Odile's parents didn't want their daughter practicing their Family Magic, which Croc would of course perceive as unforgivable weakness. Never mind that any kind of Magic involving human remains had been classified as Dark nearly two centuries ago…

Of course, Crocodile probably wasn't using human remains for her studies; animal remains were less complicated to work with both practically and legally. The only laws a person had to take care to abide by were the hunting and ingredient harvesting laws, which were not particularly stringent provided you avoided those magical species that were considered endangered. However reanimation of any kind had been classified as Dark during the Grindelwald War, so Odile probably hadn't got very far in her studies yet.

Simulacra had nothing to do with Necromancy, even though both had the effect of reanimating dead tissue: Simulacra were essentially golems made of flesh, powered by runes, rituals and enchantments. Necromancy animated dead things by binding a spirit into a dead body and forcing its obedience. They were completely different branches of magic but the similarity in the effects had led to Simulacra being heavily restricted when there was nothing inherently Dark about them. Banning them was ignorance really.

Dorea found it more interesting that Odile's magical inheritance had reached her through pure primogeniture, which was completely different to the Black Family Magic which went from eldest son to eldest son. Even the Potter Magic favoured sons, though an eldest daughter could use it with equal ease if they lacked brothers, as Dorea herself did. She supposed it had to do with the origins and nature of the different kinds of Family Magic; it was a highly diverse field after all.

Black Family Lore held that the Blacks were descended from Nyx, an Ancient Greek witch later worshipped as a goddess, through her daughter Nemesis: the old, delicate scrolls proclaimed that, "Bright Nemesis a thousand slew; holding their strength in her heart; that her unborn son would have the strength of a thousand; the will to overcome a thousand; the ferocity and battle-lust of a thousand men."

The name of Nemesis' son was not recorded, but the Blacks had certainly slaughtered, terrified and dominated their way through history, even long before the beginning of the Christian Era. Not usually as warlords or kings, but certainly as generals and battle commanders. The Will of the Storm was closely bound to the Family Line and Family Magic, which probably played a part in how very dangerous the Black Family Magic was; Storm Flames held the power of Disintegration in their own right and Dark Magic had a tendency to eat away at the mind if not stringently controlled.

Dorea had a feeling that, even though Magic was of the body and Flames were of the soul, Family Magic fell somewhere in-between. The Potter Family Magic certainly had a strong connection to Sky Flames just as the Black Magic did with Storm Flames and she suspected that the Slytherin Magic she had inherited from her mother held a Sun Flame connection; not that Dorea would be able to prove that unless one of her own eventual children inherited both the Family Magic and the Flame. Poisons and healing would both come easier to someone with a Sun Affinity, regardless of whether it was active or latent.

Of course, Family Magic didn't have to be specifically created like Nemesis had supposedly managed and as many of the wizards of Rome and ancient Greece were documented for having done; most Magical Families acquired a Magical Affinity of some kind after a handful of generations and that Affinity would eventually blossom into a strong, heritable Family Magic a few centuries down the line, provided they didn't marry into a more powerful Family in the meantime or dilute the Affinity by marrying Muggles. Her Knight-Vassal's parents didn't have a Family Affinity, but Rence's ability to hear what Uncle Nick had called 'the Song of the Earth' might count as a newly-manifested Affinity.

Most of Dorea's friends were from Pureblood lines, so their families had Family Magic which they were either the inheritors of or not. Theo had not inherited his Family's Magic because somewhere a few generations back a Nott firstborn had been a squib and survived to have children, so the Heir to the Nott Family Magic was out there somewhere, either a squib or thinking themselves Muggleborn. That was what had happened with Dorea's mother, who had been Heiress Slytherin following her mother's death and had probably never realised it.

Millicent was a Bulstrode but not of her family's main line of inheritance, so lacked the Bulstrode Family Magic. She had inherited more from her mother, who had been a Belby: the Belby's had a strong Affinity for 'resilience in adversity', so they withstood things most other witches and wizards could not. Susan Bones on the other hand probably _did_ have the Bones Family Magic, but had never used it or even knew how to access it since the Bones' Family had 'set aside' their Magic shortly after the Statute of Secrecy came into play. This had 'demoted' their family standing in the eyes of the Ancient and Noble Families, but it had probably ensured their survival because everybody in the seventeenth century had known that the Bones Family Magic was Necromantic in nature: the Bones Family talked to dead people. Generally murdered dead people for whom they then sought justice. Still, in the eyes of the overly-judgemental Necromancy was Necromancy, no matter how good your intentions.

If Susan revived her Family Magic she'd have to do so secretly, unless the ongoing Hufflepuff Plot managed to change those laws to allow for non-damaging necromantic practices in the pursuit of justice for the dead. Dorea was hopeful, though the real challenge would be getting hold of the right books so Susan could learn enough of her family's specialty to be able to access her Family Library. Most Family Libraries could only be accessed by those who had both the bloodline and a degree of training, so as to prevent accidents. Black Manor had one, not that anybody with the appropriate qualifications other than Dorea was still alive to know where it was. Potter Manor had one too, which Dorea had to place additional security on because being Soulfire-capable overrode the Potter Library Wards entirely and she knew far too many people who could use their inner Flames. She was adjusting the Wards to be more specific, but it would take time. It seemed the original Potters had considered being Flame-capable to be something rare and unusual, a sign of the mastery of Alchemy.

Both little Marius and Cassie were Blacks in terms of Flame and Family Magic: Marius was Heir and Cassie had sufficient Affinity to be just as proficient and terrifying as her namesake should she be so inclined. Considering both her children were also half Zabini –Zabinis of the royal line tended to be as Storm-aligned as Blacks were– Dorea thought it highly likely that Cassie would choose to immerse herself in the Family Magic. She was already a highly independent and wilful little madam at eight months old and Dorea doubted that would change.

* * *

It was five o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday the nineteenth of December when Dorea's mirror chimed as she was just finishing feeding Marius. Handing off her son to Nanny Sofia Dorea picked it up and answered it, revealing the dishevelled face of Colin Creevey.

"Lady Rhea! Death Eaters in Hogwarts! They came through a funny-looking cupboard on the first floor as everyone was heading into the Great Hall for dinner! The Constellation members in the Great Hall barricaded the doors shut, but everyone else is in the corridors either trying to hustle the younger students into the Hufflepuff dorms or take down the intruders!" Colin paused to snatch a breath before babbling on: "Zee's in the Great Hall co-ordinating by mirror, Hermione's leading the assault force and Sue's heading up the Hufflepuff retreat." By 'Sue' Colin meant Susan Bones.

"Where are you?" Dorea demanded.

"About a dozen yards back from the front line; Hermione shoved her mirror at me and ordered me to call you," Colin said quickly. Now that he mentioned it, Dorea _could_ hear background Spellfire… and was that a war cry she heard?

"Who's with you?"

"Ethan, Trinity and Rachel from my year and eight of Zee's Hellions from third, including both Carrows," Colin said quickly. "Hermione's got Leo and Theo backing her up and she's gone _crazy_ oh Merlin–"

"Colin, what's Hermione doing?" Dorea demanded. Hermione Black-Granger was a Cloud first and foremost, but she was a Storm second and it was quite a strong second. Having Hogwarts, her current established Territory, invaded and those under her protection threatened would have set off all her violently protective Cloud urges, augmented by her Stormy determination to utterly obliterate anyone who got in the way. Dorea suspected that those in Hermione's way would not survive to learn better.

"She just stabbed Greyback in the _eye_ with a _potions knife_!" That sounded... tame, considering. "His face is _dissolving_!" Ah, _that_ was more like what Dorea had been expecting; good on Hermione for managing to access her secondary Affinity. Dorea would have to get in touch with the International Wizarding Police after this, to make sure Hermione got paid the bounty on Greyback's head. Provided she had actually managed to kill the werewolf, of course.

"Colin, listen to me," Dorea said firmly and clearly. "Establish a line of defence: start trapping the hallway, moving backwards away from the fight, and don't forget the side-corridors and secret passages. Go as lethal as you like; make it a competition, just keep everyone with you busy and productive. Remember to tag the start of the field so Hermione and company know it's there though!"

"Trap the hallway, mark the outer edges, be creative and nasty," Colin parroted back, probably for the benefit of his audience. "On it milady!" The mirror died.

Dorea set it aside then paused thoughtfully. If there were Death Eaters at Hogwarts, then where was Voldemort? Going by established precedent, he was probably somewhere nearby so he could swoop in and claim the glory once the school was taken. Which wasn't going to happen with an enraged Hermione on the case, especially if Padma wasn't anywhere nearby to help the Ward of House Black keep a cool head, but it _did_ mean that if Dorea had an elf take her to Hogsmeade she could probably catch the Dark Fool alone. Alone and entirely without Horcruxes since Snape had arranged the snake's demise the previous month…

Kissing her children goodbye, Dorea collected the guns her husband had given her and quietly cornered Parser, one of the more senior Potter elves. She had a feud to end… and property to claim, should any Marked Death Eaters survive the ill-judged attack on Hogwarts.


	74. Chapter 74

Can I just say how much I love all my kind reviewers? You're all wonderful!

Beta'd by the clinical Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of subjugation and conquest **

As it happened, Dorea did not succeed in getting out of the house unnoticed: Yano –short for Emiliano– Zabini-Bonomi might have been older, greyer and somewhat less spry than his fellow footman Pietro Baldassare-Zabini, but he was far more experienced and observant. The short, wrinkled man had caught her speaking to Parser and politely reminded her that she had told Blaise that she wouldn't go off on her own. Dorea felt like scowling at the reminder, even though she knew she had sort-of promised such. Feeling slightly irritated at the incessant mother-henning, Dorea had informed the man that he was going with her and had Parser remove them both to Hogsmeade immediately.

Upon landing Yano gave her a Look rather reminiscent of the kind her Grandpa Arcturus had favoured, but said nothing else, silently shadowing her through the wintry landscape as she followed the gentle itch of the Ward in her forehead towards the undead Tom Riddle. Her Ward was focusing on the undead wizard with a magnetic focus. Remembering that once past this hill the trees thinned out enough to render cover nonexistent, even in the dark, Dorea looked for a tree to climb. Her Ward would keep her safe from Riddle's spells but Yano would be unprotected. Yano boosted her up into a convenient tree, so she could get a clear shot at the focus of the Feud she had declared eighteen months previously.

Thankfully her target was well within her shooting range and wasn't even looking her way. She had been a little concerned that her target would be moving about but no, he was just watching Hogwarts intently. It was intensely therapeutic to see the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort obliterated by an intense burst of magic-augmented Soulfire; not even dust was left behind. Finally, proof that Soulfire would be very effective against the fool who had shredded his own soul.

"I, by right of blood and conquest, claim all Slytherin goods, thralls, lands and duties as my own," Dorea said conversationally in the hush that firing the guns her husband had given her had created. Then she dropped out of the tree, holstered the weapons under her cloak and set off at a brisk walk towards Hogwarts. She had the second half of her Declaration of Enmity and Feud to fulfil: being merciless towards those who had served; striking down his supporters; and ensuring that the cowardice of those who had stood aside would not be forgotten.

Oh, and taking responsibility for the Ministry, since it had, at the time of Tom Riddle's final demise, belonged to said Dark Lord. The Hufflepuffs would be delighted to take over the nitty-gritty details there, but it would still be her call, ultimately. Unfortunately. She had enough to do already, with two families, twin babies and a small Magical nation already looking to her, but leaving the Ministry to its own devices would just make the situation worse in the future. It had been best for the long term to have Tom Riddle take it over, as it had given her the opportunity to do likewise and an excuse to tear it down and rebuilt it to suit her wishes. Even though she would be leaving all the actual decisions to the Hufflepuffs she still had to approve all of it, which would require work, paperwork and endless meetings. It would be more of what she did for Sabina but even more finicky and intensive because Sabina had a smooth working government and somebody running it already.

The things she did to keep her loved ones safe…

* * *

Barty knew exactly when the Dark Lord died: a twinge in his Dark Mark followed by a rush of magic as it twisted itself into an ouroboros shaped like an infinity symbol. So Lord Voldemort was dead but the mark remained; this meant that Lady Potter had won the war and completed her feud. Seeing as he was _her_ servant now, he should really stop attacking her other vassals.

Most of the werewolves involved in the assault on Hogwarts were already dead, as were about half the other Death Eaters he'd been put in charge of –which was pathetic but they weren't his problem anymore– and most of them had been done in by his former students. Hannah Abbot had shown an unexpected talent for conjuring and shaping silver that had taken down three werewolves at once, while Millie was even more magnificent with her axe than Barty had remembered her being at the Department of Mysteries. However getting caught, even by such competent little fighters, would be a bit of a let-down for someone of his skills –unlike some he had _earned_ his school marks– so Barty blasted the door to the nearest classroom, fled through it and threw himself out of the window, using the Parachute Charm to slow his descent enough that he didn't break his legs on landing. The Parachute Charm was an obscure bit of French Magic that had gone out of favour as broom safety charms improved, but Barty had always enjoyed learning odd spells.

He'd have to steal a broom out of the school broom shed to get away clean, but once he was past the Hogwarts Wards he could Apparate and that would make hiding easier. He _was_ going to turn himself in to Dorea, really he was, but first he wanted to tie up loose ends at the Ministry and make sure he had enough of a peace offering ready for her that she wouldn't be too cross with him about, well, everything he'd done in the past two-and-a-half years.

Barty did like Dorea, but he wasn't dumb enough to think that she'd got to where she was now by being overly permissive. The Dark Lord was dead after all.

* * *

Lucius hadn't been permitted to join in the assault on Hogwarts; the Dark Lord had decided that the Lord Malfoy was still too attached to his misguided son and had 'excused' him. Thus, when everybody else with a Dark Mark headed through the Vanishing Cabinet Severus had bought in Borgin and Burkes, Lucius had been left behind to finish the paperwork. Severus had been left behind because the Dark Lord wanted a few highly restricted potions ready to dose certain teachers and students with and there had been a few unexpected delays in the brewing process, including some idiot werewolf mistaking part-brewed Essence of Insanity with an Invigoration Draught and drinking it right out of the cauldron.

The Lord Malfoy suspected that had not been entirely the werewolf's own fault, but had not said anything. If Severus was indulging in a little discreet sabotage on the side then maybe he wasn't the only one who could see that the Dark Lord's schemes could only end badly.

He was irritably editing a law proposal to force Mudbloods to pay a tithe on their income to the government –seriously, was he the _only_ person in the Dark Lord's service who could spell properly when it came to drafting legislation? – when his Dark Mark twinged. Glancing down at it, Lucius' eyes widened as the skull incorporated in the design vanished and the snake twisted around in a figure-of-eight to bite down on its own tail.

The ouroboros was the symbol of the eternal unity of all things, the endless cycle of birth and death; the very thing the Dark Lord had been attempting to escape when he made Horcruxes. It seemed that Inevitability and Death had caught up with him after all. Lucius set his quill aside and stated at the Mark for a few minutes more, but it did not fade.

That wasn't a good sign. That suggested that somebody –probably whoever had killed Lord Voldemort– had usurped control of the Dark Marks and all the Death Eaters were now enslaved to somebody else, whether that person knew it or not; somebody who embodied the concept of the ouroboros, the all-encompassing cycle of the universe. That last was as puzzling as it was disturbing.

Seeing as there was little the Lord Malfoy could do about having been repossessed like a stray piece of furniture, he pushed the paperwork aside and went to get himself a cup of coffee. He could at least send all the other Ministry Employees home, so as to reduce the inevitable confusion that was bound to erupt when the news got out that the Dark Lord was dead.

* * *

Processing the surviving Death Eaters and their werewolf associates took hours, or at least it did once Dorea had reached the castle and informed everybody that Tom Riddle was fully and comprehensively dead. All dead, as opposed to mostly-dead like last time, although Justin Finch-Fletchley had put his face in his hands and groaned about inappropriate Princess Bride references when she said that. He had groaned again when Terry Boot pointed out that storming the castle had gone very badly for the Death Eaters. Dorea had tuned out several more quotes when the idea of looking through the very-dead Tom Riddle's pockets for loose change started being bandied about.

None of the students had died, thank God, although several were probably traumatised by the reality of having killed somebody or having seen their friends kill somebody. That would be bad enough, but could eventually be overcome. Then there were the ones who had seen Hermione take down Greyback, which had apparently been very messy. As the only identifiable bits left of the feared werewolf were his robes and his skin, the latter caught halfway through the transformation from man to wolf, Dorea could believe that had been a nasty, nasty thing to watch. The puddle of pinkish gloop that stunk of cooked meat surrounding Greyback's remains was just confirmation her imagination could have done without, especially when put together with Leo's complaints about having werewolf on his boots.

Today's lesson on Sun Flames had been that Sun Flames could Activate the lycanthropy curse despite it not being a full moon, which Leo had done initially by accident –while distracting Greyback from Hermione– and then on purpose to distract and sow chaos among the enemy ranks. Werewolves, for all their horrendous reputation, were still easier to kill than wizards so long as the person doing the killing knew how and had a wand –or a Soulfire focus. Wizards had wands and teamwork on their side; werewolves attacked each-other as much as anybody else and lacked the opposable thumbs required to wield a wand.

Once only werewolves had been left out of the party opposing the team led by Hermione and Leo, Hermione had drawn on her Flames more obviously and wiped them all out with Multiplied silver knives. Then she had marched off in search of more victims, Leo cheerfully enabling her. She hadn't found more Death Eaters by the time Dorea reached Hogwarts, but she had located the cupboard they came in through and managed to identify it as a Vanishing Cabinet.

Hermione knew about Vanishing Cabinets due to their having come up several times in a variety of different legal proceedings she was reading records of, particularly those concerning Wards and security. Nobody other than the man who had invented them truly understood _how_ they worked, but the Rune schematics for tuning and mending them were not lost even though as yet no-one had succeeded in building new ones. They featured prominently in Magical Law because Vanishing Cabinets somehow circumvented any and all Wards: a person who entered a property through a Vanishing Cabinet did not pass through the Wards of the building they were entering. There were even a number of steamy romance novels that featured Vanishing Cabinets as a way for lovers to meet surreptitiously. Quite a few enterprising thieves had broken into poorly-Warded minor properties to use a Vanishing Cabinet to access a family's primary residence. The Cabinets had rather gone out of fashion after that, but they obviously hadn't all been destroyed or dumped in obscure storage. That they worked instantaneously and no matter the distance probably aided this, as they were cheaper, easier to use and safer than portkeys or the Floo, which explained why some families still had and used them.

When and how one had got into Hogwarts and why the staff hadn't recognised it as an unacceptable security risk was, however, a problem. Thankfully it wasn't Dorea's problem: Headmistress McGonagall would be the one cleaning up after that mess. Dorea only had to deal with the two werewolves and five Death Eaters who had miraculously survived their Lord's ill-judged attack on the school.

Dorea dealt with the Death Eaters by using the Thrall Marks to compel honesty and asking them questions about past crimes and personal beliefs, with Padma on hand taking notes and a Dicta-quill transcribing the entire conversation. All five were discovered to have tortured, raped and murdered a range of Muggles and Muggleborns even before being recruited and would have been handed off to the DMLE had it still existed as anything more than a cover for Voldemort's enforcers. Most of those who had invaded Hogwarts technically _were_ Aurors.

So instead Dorea had Susan Bones advise her on historical precedent, determined that as they were her Thralls she had full rights to both their lives and deaths and then asked Millie, as the only adult Bulstrode present, if she would be willing to briefly take up her Family's former traditional role as Executioner, but just on behalf of the Black Family rather than for the entire Ministry. Millie had been grimly satisfied by the opportunity and had set about the task in a properly traditional manner, scrounging up a hood, armour and dragonhide gloves before taking off the men's' heads in a clean and businesslike fashion.

Millie had then excused herself to be sick; Dorea couldn't blame her as executing slaves, even when it was the legally required thing to do under the circumstances, felt wrong. Unlike the other Death Eaters Dorea had killed at the graveyard these wizards were clearly beaten and helpless against the axe; even putting down Tom Riddle had been less upsetting. However keeping those men alive after what they'd done would have been worse. They had the dicta-quill records, so the victims' families could have a degree of closure, and justice had been served. Both she and Millie would have to live with the form justice had taken though.

The werewolves were more problematic, as Dorea could not force honesty on them without Veritaserum and she didn't have any. She doubted any would be found in the dungeons however; no doubt the new Potions Professor could brew it, but even with a war going on there was little reason to keep some on hand when using it on students was deeply illegal. Offering them Lycan's Ease didn't get her anywhere, so she was forced to label them as 'unrepentant' –as Ministry Law had decided following her potion becoming public– and process them accordingly. By Ministry Law, unrepentant werewolves were rogue Creatures and to be executed.

Millie, on returning from the bathroom, grimly took up her axe and armour again and did the honours, this time in front of a panel of teachers and adult students since executing rogue Creatures was a Ministry matter rather than a private Black matter. It was all over very quickly after that.

By that point all the younger students had been hustled off to bed, the bodies lying around the place had been transferred to one of the upper dungeons and the house-elves had already started cleaning up the mess. The older students were either making sure the younger ones _stayed_ in their dormitories or –if they were Constellation members– meticulously taking apart all the traps that had been laid down during the fight. It was a long, nasty job and Ginny was doing admirably in organising it coherently. Most of Hogwarts' Storms were in Gryffindor anyway, so Ginny running herd on them as they Disintegrated trap spells and Flame booby-traps was really for the best as she knew how to keep them in line.

It was midnight before the school was cleared, so Dorea decided to go home –her twins would need another feed shortly– and deal with the Ministry in the morning.

* * *

The next morning dawned unpleasantly early for Dorea, considering the night she'd had. However she still had a duty to fulfil and a Feud to complete, so she got up, dressed, fed her children and grabbed her new –to her– wand before leaving Potter Manor with Dawn, Fleur and Carla. Gaetano was currently standing in for her husband and in the process of helping the Prewetts test their new 'Eye-Dye', so he would not be going out in public until his irises were no longer purple with little dancing gold sparks. Fred had supposedly been trying for blood-red, but Dorea suspected otherwise, if only due to her own experience of some of the potion's known ingredients. Oh well, at least they were enjoying themselves.

Arriving at one of the many Wizarding entrances to the ministry building, Dorea paused at the sight of the milling crowd of bureaucrats filling the street. The Ministry of Magic was apparently closed for the day, but none of those present had the courage to either investigate or just go home. It didn't surprise Dorea that the masses had not yet learned that Tom Riddle was dead; Headmistress McGonagall had likely closed the Owlery as soon as she realised the school had been invaded, as a security precaution. The stern Scotswoman was practical like that.

However it was vanishingly unlikely that the Thralls within the building –either of them– had missed the change in ownership, so they had clearly barricaded themselves in. Dorea wasn't sure if either of them was Lucius Malfoy or Severus Snape, but both men were in theory still alive. As was Barty Crouch the younger, but that was an entirely different kettle of fish. She had got to know the man reasonably well during his time posing as Moody, but he had been keeping to a specific role then so she didn't know what he'd be like while being himself. Severus however _had_ experienced Barty's natural state; from what Severus' occasional letters had mentioned of Barty, Dorea was expecting the unbalanced Rainy Lightning –or would 'Rain with Lightning tendencies' be more appropriate, considering that was most likely what he'd originally been before Azkaban? – to show up on her doorstep someday soon, dragging a few dead bodies and looking all hopeful for her approval like a stray cat.

Dorea knew the Flame Affinity of all her teachers and associates, even when most of them couldn't, probably shouldn't and might never consciously draw on their inner fire. Lucius Malfoy was a Mist with Sunny tendencies, which made him deceptive and unexpectedly persuasive. Severus Snape was a Cloud with Misty tendencies, which he embodied perfectly. Albus Dumbledore had been a Classic Mist according to the book she'd inherited from Abraxas, delusional controlling tendencies and all. Filius Flitwick was a Rain, Minerva McGonagall a Storm and Pomona Sprout was a Forest.

Remus Lupin was also a Rain, though until recently he had been so helplessly mired in self-hatred that he'd been unable to exercise a calming influence on anybody without considerable personal effort. Considering her Da had been a Sky, her Papa a Storm and her mother a Sun, Dorea suspected that Pettigrew had been a Lightning and that Dumbledore had done something to prevent James Potter from acquiring a full, balanced set of Guardians; probably by manipulating the rivalry between the Hogwarts Houses. Had her fathers managed to befriend Severus then there was no _way_ Dumbledore would have managed to manipulate her mother and Da to their deaths: the Slytherin would have seen it coming a mile off.

Voldemort had been too diminished to even _have_ an Affinity, but the diary-Horcrux had been a Cloud when she examined it; a damaged, tattered and barely-perceptible Cloud, but still a Cloud. Not that she'd _realised_ that at the time, but the Diadem had been an even more tattered and dying Cloud and by then she'd understood what she was sensing.

Practically, Dorea judged the Thralls most likely to still be in the Ministry to be Lucius and Severus, as they each knew she would be coming even if they hadn't been communicating with each-other. Severus would be expecting her because she had her promise of freeing him to keep, but Lucius would because he'd been there when she declared Enmity and Feud and understood the implications.

Striding up to the closed door, Dorea knocked politely on it while declaring herself:

"Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, Lady Potter and Regent Black." She paused; "and attendants." Had she brought Dee then the older teen would have had to announce Dorea, as that was part of a Steward's duties, but Dawn, Fleur and Carla had sworn no oaths to her so do not 'count' when it came to formal announcements such as were required to open this particular set of doors.

The door melted away, revealing an open threshold and a wide hallway leading towards the Main Atrium.

"I'll see what I can do to get the Ministry opened again," Dorea said to her gaping audience, then walked briskly over the threshold before any of them can think to stop her. Dawn followed right after her, Fleur and Carla barely half a step further behind. As soon as they were inside the door closed again, materialising out of thin air to bar the way back outside. Dorea ignored it, striding purposefully forward. There was a Thrall inside the Atrium, waiting for her.

"My Lady."

It was Lucius Malfoy.

"Hello Lucius," Dorea said flatly, pausing a few yards back from him with her attendants flanking her.

"I had all the workers go home once I realised the Dark Lord was dead," Lucius Malfoy explained reasonably, looking considerably older and more haggard that he had been in the Department of Mysteries, even after Luna and Leo had finished with him. "As far as I know Severus is still in the brewing laboratories, but he has locked the doors and refuses to answer so I cannot be certain. I think Barty was here briefly because those more dedicated to the Dark Lord's cause who did not return home with the others were dead when I woke this morning, but I have no proof since he slew them with a blade rather than a wand."

"That was highly organised of you," Dorea said quietly. She was being guided by her instincts here –they had a good plan– and they suggested that the best thing to do with Lucius Malfoy was to 'allow' him to retire to somewhere remote but pleasant then settle the Malfoy Estate on Draco. As Lucius was still Lord Malfoy that made the Malfoy Estate hers in its entirety, but keeping it would just mean more work and ill-will from both her cousin and Aunt Narcissa. Better to force Draco to deal with it all; it would keep him busy after he graduated. Draco always did best when he had plenty to do as it kept him focused on the important things.

"Thank-you, my Lady."

"I will not be releasing you, as you would have to return to Azkaban; instead I will hand over the Malfoy Estate to your son," Dorea said carefully. "But leaving you unemployed would be foolish and wasteful, hmm… perhaps you would be willing to relocate to India, to manage the Black Plantation for me? With Narcissa, of course." That would enable her to cut down her visits to the plantation to once a year and the Thrall Mark would prevent Lucius from being able to act against her best interests, or lie to her about what he'd been up to.

Lucius smiled wryly. "Community service, my Lady?"

"I may let you off early for good behaviour," Dorea responded lightly, "but for now I think leaving the country is in your best interests."

"Very well, Lady Potter; now?"

"Dawn, please take Lucius to Potter Manor and hand him over to Dee; she can sort him out. Lucius, you are to obey Daphne Greengrass as you would myself, as she is the Black Steward."

"Yes, my Lady."

Dawn stepped forward, gripped Lucius' arm and Apparated away; she would probably land somewhere in the countryside then summon an elf to take them to the Manor.

"So, let's go see if I can find Severus," Dorea said out loud. "I have my promise to keep after all." Then, with the Ministry cleared of Death Eaters, she could call the Hufflepuffs in to take over. A lot of the wizards and witches currently waiting outside the Ministry were going to have to go; they weren't marked supporters but they'd participated in and supported his government. She had said she'd reopen the Ministry and she would, but she had _not_ said that she'd simply re-hire them all without comment or question. Their cowardice had to be remembered after all.


	75. Chapter 75

Beta'd by the resilient Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of recruitment and misbehaviour**

Squalo yawned, rolling off the mattress that was all the locals in this part of Afghanistan could offer. Not that he minded; the locals had all been very helpful following Aethon's run-in with the local Taliban cell, which had led to a demonstration of why Aethon's pre-Dark Horse nickname had been Blindé: the bulletproof Lightning had taken offense to his Squad Leader being shot at and retaliated with lethal force. Minutes later there was nothing left of the gang of thugs but cooling meat and bloody spatter and Aethon was apologising contritely to Dis Pater for the mess.

As the Taliban forces had not exactly been popular with the locals, this show of brutality had actually got them free meals and beds for the night, though their host had apologised repeatedly for the poor quality of both. Oversight –going by 'Persephone' for the duration of the mission– had spent the previous evening chatting to the locals about the roads going north and east, as well as stepping in to deflect the various offers of daughters' hands in marriage being offered to the usually quiet and easy-going Lightning. Aethon didn't speak a word of Pashto, which was what the Afghanis in this particular area preferred to speak, although he'd managed to pick up basic Arabic and Farsi –which the locals here called 'Dari'– during their travels across Syria, Iraq and Iran.

In traditional Mafia Lightning style Aethon was very biddable and somewhat obsessed with improving himself, but unlike many his personality had somehow survived the childhood indoctrination process –probably because Aethon was a natural introvert unlike the usual extroverted Lightnings– and the teenager was capable of a certain degree of independent thought. What he was _not_ capable of however was independent action: Aethon needed clear guidelines within which to operate, otherwise the sheer volume of choices overwhelmed him and he went into emotional shutdown. This didn't matter so much on an assassination mission, as in his zombified state Aethon was still perfectly capable of killing people discreetly and efficiently, but in missions that involved social interaction and espionage it was a major liability. Aethon therefore wasn't allowed to run solo missions and had spent his entire Varia career so far under the authority of Dis Pater, as a member of Dark Horse. He'd been picked specially by his Squad Leader for his easy-going willingness and unusual skill set and groomed for the role he now held.

Squalo suspected Aethon would be part of Dark Horse until he died or retired, the latter of which was a good decade off at least as the Lightning was currently the youngest member of Dark Horse. Next youngest was Nycteus, the Squad's Rain and current scientist-wrangler, who was a year older at eighteen. Orphnaeus was twenty-one, Dis Pater was twenty-five and Alastor was the oldest at twenty-six. A gruff German sniper, Alastor spoke neither Italian nor Japanese yet had managed to make himself understood just fine since joining the Varia five years previously. Alastor was one of those Varia who was likely to last beyond his thirtieth birthday before retiring, since having come to Dying Will Flames rather late he hadn't worn his body down to the extent that most of the rest in his Squad had managed, despite being ex-military.

Nobody had asked Alastor which military he'd been in or why he'd left, since he certainly hadn't invalided out as he managed the Varia's physically demanding aspects just fine. It wasn't their business and nobody cared anyway. Alastor was a brilliant sniper, highly skilled in moving silently through both urban and rural landscapes and possessed a twisted sense of humour that let him fit right in at Varia HQ. He also possessed an excellent head for numbers, so managed Dark Horse's funds on missions regardless of currency.

Quickly washing with the bucket of water that had been left outside his door, Squalo brushed his shaggy hair into some semblance of order –it still wasn't quite long enough to stay tied back, dammit– pulled on the climate-appropriate clothing Dis Pater had bought back in Syria, cautiously flexed his prosthetic hand to see if it needed tuning again then put on his sword belt and left in search of breakfast. He'd had six good fights in the past seven weeks and hoped Dis Pater's chitchat last night had found rumours of another swordsman they could hunt down for him to challenge. If not then they'd just have to head north-east, towards the territory held by the United Front. Squalo's plan was to head into Tajikistan next, where Dark Horse's run with him would be over and he'd get a new Squad for his trip into western China, Mongolia and the various Russian republics and oblasts of south-eastern Siberia.

It was entirely possible he wouldn't even get that far in two months, which would mean changing Squads part-way through; that would probably be challenging, considering how few and far between roads were in that part of the world, let alone airports. Transport and such was Luss' problem though and so far the Sun Officer has been over every three weeks with the paperwork, supplies and money they needed, taking off their hands the souvenirs they'd bought, any evidence that needed disposing of and the occasional recruit. They'd picked up eight prospective Varia recruits so far, although only five of them had actually managed to keep up and get along for long enough to be handed off to Lussuria. One of those five was a woman who was probably never going to leave Housekeeping, but she was skilled enough and desperate enough to stick out over a week of constant travel, camping and occasional fire-fights alongside seven assassins, a nutty scientist and a half-feral teenage boy packing stolen explosives who also wanted to be Varia, so Squalo was pretty sure Tyrant would be glad to have her. Though the swordsman was also pretty sure she was pregnant and likely unmarried, which was more than enough to get her killed by the locals.

The woman was also the only one who got a name; Alastor was calling her 'Psêphos' by the end of the second day and it stuck. As more than half the party spoke Greek –even though Alastor only spoke Classical Greek– everybody knew what it meant too, which may have been part of it. Her ability to roll with the changes and refusal to complain about anything was very pebble-like, really.

* * *

Breakfast was rice, beans and onions with flat breads the locals called 'doday', over which Squalo had a quiet chat with Dis Pater in Italian, because that was the only language they had in common that Squalo was fluent in. The tall, serious Turk looked completely at home in his robes and headscarf, but Squalo knew he'd rather be back at HQ; Dis Pater liked his suits and silk ties. The swordsman also knew that Italian was Dis Pater's least favourite language to speak, but the Sun was fluent and accepted that Squalo's Greek and Russian were anything but, so the conversation continued. There were rumours of a swordsman in southern Herat, which was on their way and in the lowlands, so not blocked by winter snows. Most of central Afghanistan was mountains and the snows made most of it impassable between November and April, so it was good to hear that there was someone worth fighting along the route they were going to have to take anyway. It was the end of December and they were headed for more mountains, so snow was going to happen to them sooner or later but Squalo preferred it be later.

It was two weeks until Luss's next check-in and the Squad rotation, by which point Squalo intended to be in north-eastern Afghanistan at the very least, preferably in Tajikistan which had no shortage of airports. It was quite a hike for two weeks, but they had armoured jeeps which the awful roads and occasional lack of roads hadn't killed yet, a decent supply of fuel and money to buy more. One good thing that could be said about this part of the world was that the petrol was cheap; plus both of Dark Horse's Suns could distil it out of crude in a pinch, which they'd done twice already. Pipeline security was pretty minimal, especially compared to what the Varia were used to on missions.

According to Dis Pater, the locals had twigged that they were recruiting and had offered up a range of sons and daughters for perusal; seeing as the next lot of Taliban to breeze through here were probably going to be just as bad as the last lot, Squalo could see where they were coming from. They honestly might be worse if they ever found out that the previous lot were killed. He couldn't see why the locals didn't arm themselves and shoot the bastards, but maybe they thought it was more trouble than it was worth. Meh. Civvies.

"Any of them worth bothering with?" the swordsman asked.

"Three of the boys are fluent in five languages, including Tajik," the Squad Leader told him, "and one of the girls is teetering on the edge of Activation; she's an orphan, a Storm and just turned sixteen, so she's being pressured to marry." A pause. "I think Aethon actually likes that one."

Squalo considered the logistics of setting up the quiet, emotionally inept Lightning with a Storm-girl who was probably intelligent, driven and somewhat low on conventional morals; teetering on Activation like that was not a good sign for conventional living or fitting in with the rest of society but the Varia might benefit her as much as she'd benefit them. Even if they didn't actually get intimately involved, having her around would probably be good for Aethon's ability to interact socially. "How many languages does she speak?"

"Three fluently; knows her way around a gun too."

"You like her."

Dis Pater smiled. "I think she'll appeal to the Prince. There's a temper hiding under that burqa and she's not short of either spine or wit."

"So four?" Squalo asked sceptically. Four recruits from one place was something of a statistical anomaly. Varia Quality or the ability to become so wasn't so easily found even within the mafia.

"Three: one of the boys is an idiot," Dis Pater said calmly. "Two weeks of cross-country and seeing how we do things should be enough to make sure they have the Quality we're looking for."

The girl would probably stick it out regardless; the women out here were either total doormats or quietly indomitable and as a near-Active Storm this girl was definitely the latter. The boys on the other hand ran the whole spectrum, being less oppressed and therefore less likely to show their true colours as a matter of course.

"Fine; whatever. You're telling Aethon that you've arranged a marriage for him though," the swordsman replied flatly before getting up and heading outside to train before they leave. Dis Pater's laughter followed him out the door.

* * *

It turned out that, at seventeen, Aethon was still too young to marry by Afghani standards. Squalo reminded himself that most civvies had eighteen as the age of legal adulthood and marriage generally required at least one adult to be legal. This was a bit of a complication really, since her uncle, –cousin, whatever– wasn't really keen on letting the girl go off with a bunch of strange men if she wasn't married to one of them. Squalo was nominally ignoring the conversation going on in the street a dozen yards away, but he could practice and listen at the same time and despite being technically in charge, his being only fifteen years old meant marriage was outside his purview, much less arranging one for two people older than he was. Besides, the swordsman was rather interested in what Dis Pater would come up with to make things go his way.

The wily Sun solved the problem by bringing Oversight into the conversation. Except Dis Pater didn't call him Oversight; he called her Persephone. The Persephone thing was one of Dark Horse's Immortal Traditions: any Mist attached to Dark Horse Squad for a mission was called Persephone –and designated female– for the duration of said mission. As most of the Varia's Mists were male, getting ordered to work with Dark Horse was a not uncommon punishment for Mists who were being difficult.

Dis Pater would have done this even if the Mist currently working with them _was_ male, out of practicality due to all Mists being perfectly capable of fooling people about their gender and a very Varia sense of humour, but Oversight happened to be a chronic sufferer of femininity and billed the Varia monthly for appropriate medical supplies and chocolate, so even though he was dressed as –and acting like– a man this was probably going to work. Dis Pater was going to get revenge-pranked though.

All the other men seemed deeply sceptical of Persephone's supposed femininity, but Dis Pater managed to talk them around, explaining that she was their linguist and translator, that it was safer for her to appear male, that she was married –to Orphnaeus apparently– and that she would be a perfectly respectable chaperon. Dis Pater was lucky Oversight really _would_ be as responsible a chaperon as he claimed; not all the Varia's Mists were as put-together as Oversight.

It was as big a load of bullshit as Squalo had ever heard, but the men were buying it. Oversight would of course go along with it –Dis Pater was Squad Leader and therefore God so far as the recruitment part of this mission was concerned– and he would probably take good care of the girl since Oversight was conscientious and thorough about responsibilities, even ones he didn't want. The likelihood of the Sun who dumped the girl on him getting dive-bombed by pigeons, snuggled by rats and stalked by various other local wildlife for the next week or so was however very high. It was going to be hilarious and as good a test as any to see if the three brats were really Varia Quality or just trash. Oversight wouldn't kill Dis Pater for this, but he could make the Squad Leader a very miserable Sun for a good length of time while testing the brats' nerves and observation skills.

Grinning somewhat malevolently, Squalo went looking for Vezzini and Nycteus. The scientist wanted to check the hand over before they got moving again, to make sure any sand was cleaned out of the moving parts. Now that the marriage discussion was winding down they'd probably be leaving soon.

* * *

A little over two weeks after picking up Sturz, Tremble and Hikka, Squalo had had another two decent fights, killed a whole lot of idiot roadside bandits and over-ambitious Taliban, illegally crossed the Afghan-Tajik border and gotten a chance to try out his Russian on somebody other than the members of his Squad. He'd also picked up enough Farsi and Dari to be able to understand Tajik, even though he was not going to try speaking it. Not worth it.

They avoided the capital city entirely, since that was where most of the conflict with the Russians was happening, and headed to the Kulyab airport for the scheduled meet with Lussuria and the replacement Squad. Squalo had managed to find a phone and place an international call from Sar-e Pol so Luss knew where they were going to be, but the Sun Officer hadn't told him who was going to be replacing Oversight and Dark Horse, claiming it was 'a surprise, darling!'

Squalo didn't like surprises as a rule, but he trusted Luss not to saddle him with anybody who would make trouble and he had some nice presents for Nilla picked out –Hikka seemed to think he was courting Nilla which was ridiculous– so hopefully the swap would go smoothly. He also wanted to catch up on what everybody back at HQ had gotten up to over Christmas and New Year, because it was bound to have been hysterical; Squalo had learned that the Varia liked to have a distinctly Varia flavour to their holiday spirit last year. His Christmas had taken place as they were moving through the Taliban militarised zone on the edge of United Front territory, where they'd all celebrated by singing Christmas carols and slaughtering the local fanatics. They'd also named the three baby hangers-on, since none of them had run away screaming when faced with Varia-style festivities, and followed up with a snowball fight, since they were in the mountains now and there was plenty of snow to be had. Vezzini had even taken pictures. The scientist had also produced a panettone out of somewhere for them to eat after dinner, which had been the cherry on top of a really excellent day.

That had been a while ago now though, as today was the second of January and Squalo and Dark Horse plus hangers-on were headed towards Kulyab airport under the cover of one of Oversight's illusions. It was a subtle illusion of the 'ignore us- we're unimportant' variety, which was good but also not-so-good as the valley the airport was slap-bang in the middle of was ridiculously wide and flat as a pancake. It was so damn open it was making Squalo's neck itch. It was clearly making Alastor's neck itch too, as the German was grumbling in Polish.

Squalo had learned that Alastor only did that when he was upset about something sniper-related he had no control over, like poor cover, crappy sightlines and unreliable visibility. In fact, Squalo had learned a lot about Dark Horse from them all living in each-other's pockets for the past two months and change. He knew: they covered twenty-two languages between them –not counting the new ones they were learning from this mission– and didn't have one language all in common; Dis Pater was a secret gourmand; Nycteus could mend a car with spanner, wire, duct tape and swearwords when it broke down in the middle of nowhere; Aethon had a good eye for colours and painted in his free time; Orphnaeus had a very good singing voice and a hilariously mixed musical repertoire; and Alastor could shoot a man's trigger finger off from over a mile away.

He'd also learned that Oversight turned into a perception-scrambling, paranoia-inducing nightmare-monster when chocolate-deprived and that his disdain for the flashier kinds of Mist-trick did not mean he couldn't fuck you up just as badly as Mammon could. However, when he was sane and healthy, his more subtle style was the perfect thing for teaching new languages a little more quickly and smoothly than normal and never induced migraines.

Squalo had known Vezzini slightly better than he had those of Dark Horse, since he saw the man regularly anyway and was currently on his eighth prosthetic hand, but there'd been surprises there too, such as the man's tendency to watch the sunrise whenever possible and his cheerful immunity to the scorching yet chilly sunshine of continental Asia. The scientist was the only one to have completely avoided sunburn, sunstroke or mild exposure and all the Varia had silently agreed that it just wasn't _fair_. Squalo hated sunburn.

And they were still ten miles out from the airport but he could already see the Varia plane parked at one end of the strip; how could _anybody_ live somewhere this exposed? It would drive him crazy within days! The kind of crazy that made burrowing underground with nothing but bare hands and a sword seem reasonable.

By the time they reached the plane Squalo was just relieved to get _inside_ and away from the open sky overhead that was boxed in from both sides of the valley by steep mountains which were just perfect for hiding an entire army of snipers on. Luss was waiting for him at the door and ushered him into the Lounge, which had a tiny attached bathroom –with a _shower_, genuine modern miracle– a desk loaded with paperwork and a very comfy sofa. Squalo made use of the shower first –his hair hadn't been properly clean in a _month_– then wandered back out again as he dried his hair, wearing a clean Varia uniform rather than local clothing for the first time in months. He yielded the towel to Luss as the Sun hurried over to cluck over him.

"Sit down on the couch, Squalo dear," Luss said firmly, "and I'll sort your hair out. Dear me, what a mess!"

Squalo grabbed a three-inch-thick wedge of paperwork off the top of the desk and obligingly sat, ignoring what the other Officer was doing to his hair in favour of the paperwork; Luss just had a comb and some kind of hair-care product, not scissors. He was on a schedule here and there was much more to do than he had anticipated; Changeling's reports weren't usually this lengthy.

Oh. That supposedly-casual little bit of info Nilla had given him had somehow escalated into the mass-murder of CEDEF agents shortly before Christmas –what kind of tacky amateur shoved twelve bodies in an elevator anyway– and Iemitsu had gone missing for three days then come back thinking no time had passed at all. Changeling's tone indicated she was _very_ stressed and Squalo had to agree that Iemitsu's refusal to permit an investigation into the matter was downright negligent; moron or not Iemitsu was still a strong and Sunny Sky and to take him out for several days without him even _noticing_ would take considerable power and skill. It would also take a Mist, and one strong enough to take out the leader of the CEDEF for a few days was easily strong enough to plant some nasty and detrimental suggestions in Iemitsu's mind. However the Sawada-fucktard just wanted to sweep it under the carpet, like it had been a minor personal problem.

Ooh, but he hadn't been allowed to; Squalo's frown melted away and was replaced by an evil, toothy grin as he read onwards. It seemed Bel had decided to take it upon himself to chastise Iemitsu for his unscheduled vacation and refusal to face the music…

* * *

Bel hated Iemitsu Sawada, the overly-familiar peasant. Really, who did the man think he was, patronising a prince! His vanishing on Bel's birthday –as well as the delightfully gory slaughter of his underlings– really made the prince's tenth birthday a special occasion. How could he not love an event called 'the flood of blood'? So much lovely red everywhere…

But then Iemitsu had to come _back_, which was a let-down. Worst Christmas present _ever_, even though the moron had apparently thought it was still the twenty-first and been shocked to discover he'd lost three days. Prince the Ripper had been anticipating an investigation into Iemitsu's whereabouts, possibly with Mammon getting called in to get a good look at Sawada's pea-sized brain since there _had_ to be a Mist involved, but Nono hadn't made it happen. Iemitsu got called to Vongola HQ for a private chat with Don Vongola then went back to work on Boxing Day like nothing had happened. Maybe Nono needed his head checked too, but not nearly as much as Iemitsu Sawada who had been so blatantly compromised.

Well, Bel couldn't let that slide; it was a prince's duty to ensure the peasants obeyed the rules and Iemitsu seemed to think he was above the law. Only royalty was above the law and Sawada certainly _wasn't_ royalty. He was far too crass and careless. So the prince demanded a packed lunch from Housekeeping, had his manservant drive him over to the CEDEF building and snuck inside, making a beeline for the upper floors where Iemitsu's office was. He managed to get as far as the open space outside said office before being challenged, which was pathetic considering this was the headquarters of the Consulenza Esterna, but said good things about the secretary.

"I don't believe you have an appointment, mister…"

Bel grinned. "Belphegor of the Varia, Storm Officer and prince," he said cheerfully. The blondish woman behind the desk did not gasp, pale or flinch, which was interesting. Instead she checked her computer screen then glanced back up to meet his eyes.

"Well, Mr Sawada isn't seeing anyone else right now; purpose of your visit, your highness?"

Bel's grin widened; oh, this peasant he _liked_. She had _spine_ yet balanced it with suitable respect for his royal person. "The importance of following procedure after being personally compromised," he chirped.

The secretary's eyes narrowed and she flashed a glance towards the door to Iemitsu's office. "That sounds both urgent and likely to take some time; my boss is free until lunch, as it happens; I'll make sure you aren't disturbed."

Bel _cackled_. "See that you do, peasant," he carolled, bouncing over to the door and yanking it open. Inside Iemitsu jerked upright from his half-doze as Bel allowed the door to slam behind him, making the prince pout at this further evidence of blatant incompetence and lack of professionalism. Oh well, Iemitsu Sawada had _plenty_ of time in which to experience the Prince's displeasure, and that was just today! His entire _week_ was free so he could come back tomorrow _and_ the day after, for starters…

"Peasant, I was so sad to hear you'd actually come back," Bel started, "but what's this I hear about not having your absence investigated properly? What were you doing that you don't want anybody to find out about? Cheating on your wife?"

Seeing Iemistu flush, then pale was the beginning of a truly wonderful day for Belphegor.

* * *

Translations 

Blindé = reinforced, armoured; armoured vehicle (French); also drunk (French);

Psêphos = pebble (Ancient Greek);

Sturz = tumble (German);

Hikka = hiccup (Finnish).


	76. Chapter 76

Beta'd by the best Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of progress and the shackles of bureaucracy **

Dorea was in the large, north-facing study at Potter Manor going over reports from the various Black properties when Parser announced 'Costanzo Zabini-sir and co-workers'. Setting aside the paperwork for the time being, the sixteen-year-old stood so her cousin could greet her properly. Months of close contact with Costanzo while he was impersonating her husband had helped her build a sturdy friendship with him and he had gravitated into an elder brother kind of role. As he actually _was_ an older brother to a couple of siblings, it had come pretty easily to him. He never patronised her though, possibly due to his also having an older sister and being justifiably wary of female vengefulness.

"_Dearest princess!_" Costanzo exclaimed cheerfully in Italian, hugging her and planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. "_We come with good news!_"

"_You've found my husband?_" Dorea asked hopefully.

"_I'm sorry, not yet,_" Costanzo admitted, "_and if I had I wouldn't have waited to be announced. But we have managed to find out which towns fall under Vongola jurisdiction and where the various allied Families are._" He waved an impatient hand at his colleagues, who hurried forward and unfolded a very large map of Sicily over the table. Dorea looked down at the brightly coloured blobs curiously. There was a lot of orange, but that wasn't all there was. There was red, green, purple, blue and more in stripes, spots and outlines.

"_Tell me what I'm seeing, Stanzo,_" she demanded.

"_Of course princess; see the orange bit here? That's Vongola territory, falling directly under the rule of the Ninth Boss. Most of it is delegated out to underbosses, but it's still all under the Family's direct rule. The bits with orange stripes and another colour are still Vongola territory, but subordinate Families. Vassals, if you like. They fall under Vongola rule but are run by an actual Family succession rather than the Ninth picking out an underboss to run them. Clear?_"

"_Yes._"

"_Good. These territories here, here and here, with the orange outlines, are Vongola allies. Some of them are very long-standing allies, but they are still independent Families. Understood?_"

"_The orange outlines show the full extent of Vongola influence, but this bit here,_" Dorea gestured over the rather large area which was both orange and orange striped, "_is what the Vongola Family actually rules. Why does this matter?_"

"_It matters because our prince is part of the Varia, which is technically one of the parts of the Vongola under direct Family rule. The Varia have their own traditions and ways of doing things despite being a rather new division, one of which is that they get to pick their own boss like a subordinate Family does. However our prince __**was**__ the Varia boss when he got put in stasis, which seriously limits the places he might be being kept. He's right up there in terms of power and influence, only answering to the Ninth Boss of the Vongola himself, so he has to be somewhere secure and private in territory directly under the Ninth's rule. Otherwise the Ninth wouldn't have managed to suppress what had happened to him._"

"_What do you mean by suppress?_" Dorea queried.

Costanzo waved a hand. "_There're all kinds of rumours floating about regarding Xanxus Vongola. Most of them have him being held at a remote Vongola estate, under guard, to meditate on his misdeeds until he apologises to the Ninth and changes his ways. Only thing that's certain is that he's not currently running the Varia._"

"_Since he's in stasis rather than imprisoned, it's more likely he's being held in a locked room somewhere underground,_" Dorea grumbled. She wasn't going to mention that she knew that as a fact because she didn't. The limitations on Scrying meant she could barely see anything around her husband after all.

"_I know that, which is why we're going to be looking for the Vongola Family home and the headquarters of the Vongola underbosses next,_" Costanzo said calmly. "_We've already found one, masquerading as a Palermo office building. It's barely secure and not Warded, so it's probably a new division or a recent relocation; we've got a few people on the janitorial staff keeping their ears open. Don't worry princess; we'll find your husband._"

"_I believe you,_" Dorea sighed, leaning into him, "_but I would have liked it to happen more quickly._" It was the twins' first birthday in less than a month and she still didn't have Xanxus back.

"_We're doing our best, princess._"

"_I know you are; ignore me, I'm just missing my husband._"

Costanzo hugged her gently. "_We all know you are. We're doing our best, the whole Family is._"

"_That's all I ask_."

* * *

Three months on from Dorea seizing control of the British Ministry of Magic, the nation's magical population was still under martial law; Black martial law, which had kept crime at a minimum and efficiency high. The Auror force had been completely dismantled and all those still employed under Voldemort were being individually questioned and charged for their various crimes by a tribunal. Dorea refused to send anybody to Azkaban, so those who had not committed crimes sufficient for a death sentence were collared as temporary Thralls of the Ministry until they had completed their allotted hours of community service. Thralls got food and board for themselves and their families, so nobody was starving, and the collars kept them honest and obedient. It was something the previous government would have classed as 'Cruel and Unusual' but under martial law –as defined by laws laid down long before the Statute of Secrecy– it was permissible and indeed humane. Dorea could have castrated, lobotomised or otherwise maimed them for life and have it be legal, if not exactly humane.

Any needed executions were being carried out by Millie's uncle Fredrick Bulstrode, who was pleased as punch to have his family's traditional role reinstated. He knew it was temporary, but the respect it got his family from the other purebloods was considerable. The Bulstrodes had lost influence once the Ministry stopped handing out the death sentence, no longer having been so very necessary to the government since Azkaban had much the same effect when the sentence was long enough. Dorea suspected there was Family Magic involved that enabled the Bulstrodes to escape Dying Curses and somehow strengthen themselves from the deaths of their victims, but hadn't asked. It would have been breathtakingly rude to even think of doing so.

The first thing Dorea had done on taking over the Ministry was set up the tribunal, ensuring that all those standing were elders of good repute and from a range of different magical backgrounds. Then she requested Amelia Bones act as prosecutor, authorised the use of Veritaserum, Truth Oaths and Pensives and called in her Uncle Jimmy to act as legal advisor to the tribunal. James Oatley was a lawyer and the inheritor of her Great-Uncle Marius' legal practice; it was about time Britain's Magical population realised that they were subject to the Muggle legal system in addition to the Magical one. They were all Her Majesty's subjects after all. The Blacks may not have bowed their heads to Britain's royalty since the fifteenth century, but they still obeyed the laws of the Realm.

The next thing she had done was get in touch with all those Constellation members who were of legal age and asked them if they would please give up some of their time over the Christmas period to join the Black Militia, which would be keeping order until the Auror force had been shaken down and new people could be hired. Odile had been very keen and had actually taken over management of the Militia entirely, including the matter of recruiting new members who might later be integrated back into the Ministry's Hit Wizard forces, so Dorea had left it in her capable hands and moved on to other matters. Matters such as securing the Legal Archives and swearing in a force of Archivists, squib legal practitioners and Magical lawyers under the supervision of Percy Weasley –who had shown up at Prewett Manor shortly after Voldemort took over the Ministry to apologise to the twins and seek sanctuary– to instate order, bring clarity and weed out all the contradictory legislation. It was a mammoth task, but Dorea had noticed that Percy thrived when asked to do the impossible so left him to it.

Three months on there was definite progress being made, but it was fractional and therefore not visible to the general public; Dorea however knew exactly what was going on because she was one of the people who had to agree to strike down various contradictory laws and sign off on what was being kept. Dorea had been forced to assign a Ministry elf to Percy to make sure he ate regularly and got enough sleep, but the man genuinely loved his new job and despite still being a bit of a prat, he was thorough, effective and efficient. The Lady Potter had a feeling that once the Ministry was fully rehabilitated Percy would get a job somewhere in the Archives and be happy as a clam for the rest of his life.

Assured that the legal and enforcement side of things were progressing appropriately, Dorea had sworn in a small taskforce of young, keen Hufflepuffs to get the Department of Magical Transportation going –they needed the Floo back on line– and a mixed group of formerly retired wizards and witches with relevant experience to populate the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, authorising them to hire younger witches and wizards to learn the ropes so long as said apprentices swore the new Ministry Oath; Dorea was rather pleased with that Oath.

'Truth, Accuracy and Transparency' was the perfect Oath for anybody entering government service; it would keep them honest. It was also the perfect counterpoint to the Oath sworn by those working for the Central Archives, which was 'Truth, Accuracy and Confidentiality' and had been for centuries.

The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures did not urgently require reinstatement so Dorea had left it closed, likewise with the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Quidditch stopped for no wizard and the games were planned months in advance, so it was not strictly necessary to reopen it just yet; eventually, but not immediately. The Department of Mysteries would also be staying closed, as if the Unspeakables wanted to get back in they'd have to pass the tribunal and prove they had not been collaborating with the Dark Lord. Dorea was looking forward to seeing how they managed _that,_ considering their previous oaths. Possibly cruel of her, but if they'd had better security in the first place her Papa would still be alive. That reminded her: St. Mungo's security measures and Ward systems also needed investigating, seeing as the Longbottoms had been abducted from there before their deaths.

The Department of Magical Education would need opening in time for OWL and NEWT season but could wait a while longer, the Maintenance Department needed a thorough overhaul and the Department of International Magical Cooperation was the only one where Dorea had a half-decent complement of employees who had both gotten past the tribunal and been willing to swear the Oaths, even though Max Deverill had complained to her that it was a cruel, evil woman who made a Slytherin swear to be transparent. He'd done it with a smile though, a very Slytherin sort of smile that said he was planning on using the compulsory transparency as flag, weapon and shield.

Three months on the tribunal was still crunching cases, several Departments had former employees serving out their Thrall sentence training up their replacements, a great many positions had been cut entirely –they didn't _need_ a Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee! – and public opinion was actually firmly in Dorea's favour, largely because everything was working despite the current limitations on personal freedoms, including the Floo even though it was restricted after nine in the evening. It turned out the Magical public could cope with martial law when it came with reliable wages, freedom of movement and justice for wrongdoing that involved actual reparation for misdeeds committed rather than just punishment. The Thrall system might actually be retained, which was a scary thought and not just because Hermione and the other Muggleborns would have a fit; Dorea would have to make sure there were laws in place about who was permitted to create and program Thrall collars, as well as the oaths a person had to swear before being permitted to handle them. The collars were nowhere near as restrictive as a brand would be, but they still limited personal freedom. It could easily be abused and Dorea did not want that to happen.

What really struck Dorea was how many younger people were in the government now; largely those whose level of influence had not been enough to get them into a Ministry job they were otherwise qualified for. As Dorea's system was thoroughly meritocratic and mostly run by Hufflepuffs, there were a lot of young, keen and hardworking people in very important positions. One such was the new Minister, Gabriel Truman, who was only twenty-one and technically running the country. The only reason he wasn't _actually_ running the country was because the Ministry of Magic was still under martial law, so Dorea had to sign her name to everything she approved of alongside his signature.

The one thing Dorea really wasn't looking forward to was reinstating the Wizengamot. She would have to do it eventually, as martial law needed to end as soon as the Ministry was capable of standing on its own power, but when she _did_ allow democracy to take over then the Wizarding Public would get to see how many representatives of the voting families were still alive and how young some of them were. It was going to come as a horrible shock to most of said Wizarding Public.

Most of the old Dark Traditionalists were dead, some of them replaced by school-age children, others by siblings or nephews depending on who was left. A considerable chunk of the Grey Traditionalists had been driven out of the country for supporting the Dark Lord financially and more had been charged with crimes that banned them from ever serving the government in any capacity after the end of their sentence. Quite a few of the so-called Light Traditionalists had been charged with 'subversion' as well, although that was more on Dumbledore's behalf than Tom Riddle's; the tribunal really wasn't pulling any punches.

When it came to light quite how severely society had been gutted Dorea would probably have all manner of people screaming for her head, but she had been thorough: everything she had done, both during the feud and after its completion, was entirely legal and in fact the best possible course of action under the circumstances. However she still fully intended to be out of the country when the axe fell, so as to avoid accidents.

Her actions had overall benefitted the public, but quite a few of them were dubious and less ethical than they might have been, even by Wizarding standards; those decisions had not yet reached the public notice because most of the citizenry didn't realise what was going on behind the scenes, let alone understand the long-term impact. Her abolishment of the Being Division in the Department of the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which meant all those magical creatures it had served now had the same status under law as wizards, was definitely going to create waves. Still, she was making history and refashioning the Ministry as she saw fit –even though it was technically the members of the Hufflepuff Plot doing most of the legwork– which had and would most certainly earn her a large number of enemies who would then be motivated to act against her, especially once the devastation in the Wizengamot was revealed. Getting out of the county would only be sensible. Time and distance would cool most tempers, and hopefully the future writers of history would provide appropriate justification for her actions. Well, the traceable ones anyway.

* * *

The one thing Dorea had done that definitely _would_ earn her censure from the Hufflepuff Plotters she was currently assisting in government reform was the decision she had made when Barty Crouch, unrepentant Death Eater, showed up at the bottom of her garden in early January; it turned out the Thrall brand enabled him to walk through her Wards without being tagged as an intruder and violently repelled. He'd brought with him a trunk full of illegal artefacts, several bank books full of juicy financial details and the wand he had taken from her in the graveyard, all of which he handed over with a hopeful smile and complete obedience.

Staring at wide, mad cornflower blue eyes, Dorea had abruptly realised that she was a sucker for strays, the more damaged and dangerous the better. Barty had latched onto her with all of his fanaticism and devotion, but to be perfectly honest she had no intention of letting go of him either. He was _hers_ now; her instincts demanded it, much as they had with Baz.

It was probably somewhat wrong that she was mentally comparing Barty, who was a highly intelligent grown man if nuttier than a fruitcake, with the sweet-but-dumb-as-a-post basilisk currently sleeping under Black Manor, but Dorea was enough of an Occlumens to be brutally honest with herself and her instincts were what they were. As her Thrall Barty was closer in status to a family pet than an actual Vassal like Rence, and considering the older man's mental state removing the brand would do more harm than good. Azkaban had broken him, a decade of imprisonment under the Imperius had shattered what remained and the person Barty had rebuilt himself as from the fragments was not one who could cope without externally imposed boundaries.

Yes, Barty felt no remorse for his actions under Voldemort's command, but that was because Barty was zealously devoted to The Cause, said Cause being the preservation of Wizarding Culture and Ministerial reform. The killing Muggleborns and Muggles he'd not had any opinions on either way, being willing to kill _anybody_ if his Master required it. Dorea was herself a supporter of the preservation of Wizarding Culture and she was in the progress of reforming the Ministry, so to Barty's way of seeing things nothing had changed except the identity of the person he was answering to. That the wild-eyed blond felt no remorse for the deaths he had caused was something Dorea refused to pass judgement on; she was herself an almost-unrepentant killer, was married to a definitely-unrepentant killer –the Varia was the Vongola's _assassination_ division– and therefore had no ground to stand on.

Besides, Barty turned out to make an excellent substitute for Rence in matters domestic and managerial after a short adjustment period in which he proved to her that his intellectual genius was intact, though he was significantly more militant and terrifying in both manner and methods. Her babies loved him though and he doted on them in a somewhat bemused manner, so Dorea didn't actually have a problem with him. A few intellectual concerns about her own mental state yes, but no issues with Barty even though logically she knew she probably should considering he couldn't see the difference between serving her and serving the late Tom Riddle. However her instincts liked him, her babies liked him, her Zabini relatives approved of her having a zealously-devoted bodyguard orbiting her and she knew intellectually that the Thrall brand wouldn't let him hurt anybody she considered precious to her. Scare them maybe, but not harm them. All of which was good, because what little Costanzo was telling her about the Vongola and her husband indicated that he might possibly have more enemies than she did, which was impressive. Most of them were personal enemies too, as opposed to Family enemies like she had. Personal enemies had to be earned.

However Barty being 'Bartemius Crouch the Younger' would have been problematic in the long run, so shortly after his turning up on her doorstep Dorea had discreetly taken him into Gringotts to have his name changed. His being her Thrall gave her rights over his identity as well as his inheritance, so it was all legal.

* * *

She entered the bank at the stupidly early hour of five, Barty right behind her in a deeply hooded cloak. Gringotts never closed, so there were goblin tellers at the counters and a few other heavily-robed figures depositing or withdrawing money. Dorea had a feeling the one in the far corner was a Hag, and that the two on her near left were vampires. Not that she cared as she had actual business to attend to.

The teller at the desk she approached looked up as she rapped her fingers on the counter, her Potter ring, Black Regent's ring and the ring that had once been a Horcrux all at eye level with the goblin. As soon as he looked at her the teller's face broke out in a wide, toothy grin.

"Greetings, Conqueror Potter and Black," the goblin said conversationally. "How may I be of assistance?"

Dorea realised that she should have known that the goblins would both appreciate her tactical acumen in taking over the Ministry and be willing to call it what it was to her face. Her not having attempted to interfere in bank matters had probably won her a little slack too. "I have vaults to claim and my associate needs his name changed," she said briskly; goblins appreciated wizards who understood that time was money. "I also have a proposition for the bank concerning the disposal of Muggle currency, should the bank be interested in such a thing."

"Gornuk!" The teller barked. A goblin appeared behind him. "Take Conqueror Potter and Black to one of the inheritance offices."

"This way," the goblin Gornuk said shortly, leading the way out of the main hall and around a corner, a completely different direction to the usual path to the vaults. Dorea followed, Barty drifting along at her heels until the goblin opened one of the many doors and waved them inside.

"Sit," Gornuk said, waving them into the seats facing the monumental desk. Dorea sat; Barty hovered behind her protectively.

"This is Bartemius Crouch, heir of the Crouch Family," Dorea said as soon as the goblin was seated behind the desk. "As his Master I want all Crouch accounts consolidated into a single vault, audited and added to the greater Black Holdings. We will also be changing his name, so the consolidated vault will be under his new name."

Gornuk didn't react to any of her words with anything beyond slightly bored professionalism. "I need to see the Thrall brand and take a blood sample."

Barty pulled back his sleeve to show the deep green ouroboros coiled just below the inside of his left elbow, then accepted the knife from the goblin and cut a fingertip, the blood dripping into the silver bowl on the desk. Gornuk grunted, scribbled something with a quill then moved the bowl to a stand to his right, where a quill stood up by itself and started scribbling.

"I have confirmed that this is indeed your Thrall, and that he is the rightful heir to the Crouch vaults," Gornuk said a moment later. "What is his name being changed to?"

"Bartholomew Asterion Black," Dorea said shortly; Barty had rather liked the idea of honouring his grandmother this way and had been very pleased to get a new first name that was all his own yet allowed him to go on answering to 'Barty'. The full name was also a subtle reference to his maternal grandmother, whose name had been Pasiphae, and to his mother Regina. Barty was a fan of the classics and the tale of the Minotaur, imprisoned by his own supposed father for something beyond his control, was one he now felt a deep affinity for.

The goblin grunted, scribbling on the parchment. "Audit fees will be taken from the wider Black accounts," Gornuk added, setting the quill aside. "Will that be all?"

"No: I also have a Master's claim to the Malfoy accounts and want them audited and annexed also, in the name of the son of Narcissa Black to be accessible to him and him only upon his majority," Dorea said briskly. That cut Lucius out of the inheritance as though he had never been and technically made the Mafoy Family a cadet branch of the Blacks, but it was what was expected of her and the only way to ensure Draco was the undisputed inheritor.

The goblin nodded, not demanding she produce the former Lord Malfoy from thin air. Likely the goblins had known about Lucius' Dark Mark for quite some time and her having Barty there was proof enough of her having acquired all the late Tom Riddle's Thralls. Or maybe the goblins just didn't like Lucius much. Lucius did like the sound of his own voice and goblins found that kind of person annoying.

"I would also like to offer Gringotts a deal for the Muggle money exchanged for Galleons by the parents of Muggleborns," Dorea went on once Gornuk had stopped writing. "The Ministry will buy it off the bank for a flat rate of one Galleon per annum." Dorea had discovered that Gringotts usually destroyed all Muggle currency and was determined to put it to good use; the current system was utterly wasteful. The new Ministry would have to keep abreast of Muggle technology, so having Muggle money to buy it with would be a good start.

"I will refer your offer to the Manager; should it be accepted Gringotts will get in touch," Gornuk said, standing. Dorea also stood and allowed herself to be led back to the entrance hall, Barty right behind her. Once outside and past the goblin guards Barty took hold of her arm and Apparated them both back to Potter Manor, where upon landing he ripped off the cloak and whooped in glee.

"Yes! Take that, father! The Crouch Line is no more!" He crowed, grabbing hold of Dorea and spinning her around in the air. Dorea laughed along with him, delighted that he was so very pleased by the change. Hopefully this would stabilise him a bit. All she had to do now was send an elf to the Department of Magical Births, Deaths and Marriages so the 'addition' to the Black Family could be processed and get Barty 'adopted' onto the Black tapestry, where he would register simply as a distant descendant of Arcturus Pollux Black, his great-grandfather and nearest male Black relative. Barty's great-grandfather had been the uncle of Dorea's Grandpa Arcturus, the former Lord Black; Dorea wondered sometimes if her family had deliberately reused names every generation to confuse people. But once that went through they'd be away clean, with no way left for any suspicious minds to connect the long-dead Barty Crouch to the living and breathing Barty Black.


	77. Chapter 77

As I said before, I've only got two weeeks-worth of chapters, so Saturday's chapter will be the last one of this stint. Until then though, enjoy!

Beta'd by the marvellous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of holidays and house-hunting **

Blaise slumped comfortably on the wooden bench placed in the shade of a curving rose arbour, feathers fluttering slightly in the breeze, keeping half an eye on the large picnic blanket on the lawn where Cassie and little Marius were crawling around under Rhea and Dee's supervision –they were growing up so fast– and the rest of his attention on the newspaper in his hands.

The _Daily Prophet_ had been significantly improved by his sister's takeover, as the Potter Family had already possessed a 35% share in the company and added to the Ministry's 30% it had given her a majority share of the board. Rhea's first act, right after taking control of the Ministry, had been to introduce the editor of the _Prophet_ to the realities of the laws covering libel and slander, particularly seditious libel, which had been in place since Roman times and had not changed significantly since the seventeenth century. They'd been buried in the back of the Archives for nearly two-hundred years, but they still existed and had never been repealed. They were also valid under Muggle common law, so the editor had no excuse: if he didn't want to be sued –which right now meant facing the tribunal sentencing people to Thralldom and hard labour– he had to take responsibility for his journalists and ensure they wrote nothing they could not prove in a court of law.

The result was very satisfying: the _Daily Prophet_ actually read like a moderately respectable newspaper now rather than another representative of the gutter press. There was a courts section, following the latest cases decided by the tribunal and any crimes of particular note that had been brought to light, a section covering the refurbishment of the Floo system and when various parts of the county were being closed off for maintenance, a section on foreign affairs –entirely new and very interesting indeed– and a page detailing the various positions that had opened up in the Ministry this week and how to apply for them, all in addition to the usual news, sports, advertisements and so on. There was even a new page dedicated to 'advancements in magic', which described a particular invention or innovation and the witch or wizard who had come up with it. It was interesting and light, but still subtly educational. Blaise could see Dorea's fingerprints all over that, gently encouraging the British public to think for themselves.

Blaise suspected that the older generation of British Wizards was unlikely to ever get the hang of thinking for themselves, due to having grown up under the gently smothering presence of Albus Dumbledore; Dumbledore had not liked thinkers, innovators or those who tried to achieve it since he had compared Rhea to Gellert Grindelwald of all people when she had created Lycan's Ease, which would end Lycanthropy given enough time and suitable distribution. His generation however had a much better chance, what with all the hard work Dorea had put into changing the culture of Hogwarts and streamlining the Ministry.

His sixth year at 'Britain's Finest School of Magic' had been remarkably quiet beyond the trials and tribulations of keeping the Hellions in line and he had finished up by taking his NEWTs at the end of June alongside the rest of the original Study Group. None of them would be returning to Hogwarts next year and Hermione and Padma already had jobs in the Department of Magical Law, newly created to manage and rework all the ancient documents Percy Weasley's team were digging out of the Archives; the latter was progressing very well but it was all still slow going, as some of the objects and spells outlawed needed to be researched before the laws could be kept, modified or removed. Some spells that were practically harmless had been banned for arbitrary reasons, like the Feather-Hair Hex that had been outlawed after some wit used it on a Minister right before he gave a speech.

Next year's seventh-years would be much reduced: Neville, Fay and Roger from Gryffindor had graduated early, as had Susan, Hannah, Justin and Ernie from Hufflepuff, Luna and Terry Boot from Ravenclaw alongside Trey, Theo and Blaise himself from Slytherin. There would only be twenty-two seventh-years sitting their NEWTs come next June and probably a large number of sixth-years; Blaise doubted Ginny Weasley wanted to remain in Hogwarts a minute longer than she had to, especially with the threat of being left in charge of the Constellation hanging over her head; seeing the face the redhead made when Luna informed her of that possibility had been a Patronus-worthy memory, especially as Luna had gone on to say that 'it was obvious when you think it through, silly.'

Leo Black would actually be taking over the running of the group come September, alongside Dee's sister Astoria and Trinity Lynn from Gryffindor. Ginny had been offered a command position and declined; she wanted to focus on Quidditch and improving her fighting skills. Blaise believed Ginny also wanted to continue her membership in the recently-formed Duelling Club with an eye to going professional, but hadn't mentioned that to anybody yet. He might be wrong after all, as he wasn't close enough to Ginny for her to confide her aspirations in him.

Next year would also be when his Hellions got to learn about accessing their Flames, provided they had the inner strength and aptitude for it. Blaise privately pitied Leo and Sadie, the Slytherin fifth-year prefect whom he'd trained to replace him over the last six months of school, and was glad he was spared the experience. Teaching them magic had been challenging enough; teaching them Soulfire would be an even more harrowing experience as it amplified certain traits depending on which Flame a person had. They got into enough fights, arguments and debates already, so they'd get rather visibly worse before they adapted.

However Blaise did not think that the Constellation members would continue to take their NEWTs early and graduate: the years below Leo and Ginny's had more subjects to take and better teachers, so they'd have neither the time nor the energy to get very far ahead. In a few years the Constellation would be just another study group and teaching about Soulfire might turn into a legal elective, given that Dorea was hard at work fiddling Britain's laws to her satisfaction. Actually teaching the students to _use_ Soulfire would have to be a scholarship thing though, because most people simply did not have the aptitude.

Turning a page, Blaise hummed thoughtfully and smiled, basking in the warmth of the day. It was nice to be on holiday, spending time with family and friends.

* * *

Leo was very glad that school was over for the holidays, as preparing for his OWLs while running herd on twenty-four driven and intelligent fourteen-year-olds was quite possibly the most challenging thing he'd ever done. Not because the OWLs were hard –he'd known all the material for most of a year– but due to the sheer volume of incredibly dull coursework the teachers had dumped on them and not wanting to stop working on Sun Flames with the rest of the Constellation's 'Sunshine Division' he'd had a lot on his plate. In fact, after April Leo had been down to five hours or less of sleep a night and keeping his Flames on a constant, gentle burn so he didn't fall over and sleep for a week. He'd saved that until after his exams were over, at which point he'd slept an entire weekend away, then enjoyed twelve-hour nights until the end of term.

After recovering from overworking himself Leo had spent a highly enjoyable two weeks catching up on all the videogames that had come out since Christmas. Video and computer games were Leo's favourite thing about the non-Magical world and he was very keen to see magic blending with technology to bring them to his poor deprived Pureblood friends, who knew nothing of the delights of Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, Worms, Pokémon, Super Mario and Tomb Raider. Yes, it was a pretty expensive hobby, but Leo's parents were both well-off and it really was the _only_ thing he ever asked for at birthdays and Christmas so they indulged him.

Leo knew his Mum liked playing them too, the Nintendo and PlayStation games as well as the newer PC games, and that he was the only one of his siblings to come home regularly for the holidays now. Trish was utterly absorbed in the research Cousin Rhea was sponsoring on Flames and barely recognised the _existence_ of holidays nowadays and Greg had just graduated and was keen to get a Mastery in History so he could teach. Leo was happy for both his older siblings, but thought they could stand to remember they had parents who missed them. If Leo could Apparate he would wrangle his siblings down for at least weekend visits, but he couldn't, they didn't have a family elf for him to talk into taking him places and would have to Floo to borrow one from Rhea, which was a bit over the top except on special occasions. He _did_ plan to do that later in the holidays for Mum's birthday though, but until then he had other things to be getting on with and playing video games was part of that.

Which was part of why he was at home, kneeling comfortably in front of the television playing the new and enthralling Final Fantasy VII on his PlayStation while Mum kept him supplied with snacks and chatted to her friends in the kitchen. The other part was more self-serving and was why he had a notebook on the carpet next to him: research. Video games were full of truly fantastic ideas that Wizards really should be exploring rather than letting them languish in the realms of Fantasy. Tomb Raider had given him all kinds of new and intriguing trap ideas and his current new fascination was _full_ of neat ideas for spells that really should be created. _Dungeon Keeper_, the other game he was currently working through, had already spawned all manner of new and cool ideas Leo couldn't wait to share with Luna, whom he had already converted to the wonders of Pokémon when she visited him at Christmas; her illusory menagerie now included all sorts of Pokémon in addition to all the other creatures she'd come up with.

Leo had a mental list of 'Fun Things You Can't Do in Magical Britain' which, beyond playing videogames, included:

See 'Men in Black' at the cinema four times –Leo was honestly slightly worried what the Prewetts would do with the neuralyser concept;

See Madness live at Finsbury Park –which Leo had done last summer;

Watch the Olympics –something else Leo had done last summer;

Learn to drive –this year's fun project as you didn't need a licence to drive on private land;

Practice parkour.

That last one was a sticking point for Leo as he _loved_ parkour and despite taking as much time as he could to train in secret at Hogwarts over the previous years, he was glad to be out and able to meet up with all the friends he'd made after discovering the new discipline. Leo would have liked to parkour around Diagon, but the street was too busy and the rest of Magical Britain was too scattered or rural for a proper run.

All in all, Leo was enjoying himself and keeping busy, both of which were important. Idleness had always gotten him into trouble even before accessing his Flames and the perils of boredom had only gotten worse since. Maybe he should find a martial arts school that did intensive summer sessions? That he could practice at Hogwarts more easily than parkour, even though he had taught his fellows in the Sunshine Division the basics of it, if only so as to have people to run with.

* * *

George Prewett hummed happily to himself as he calibrated the enchantment on a small, portable Wizarding Wireless so it would pick up Muggle frequencies as well. This little modification was technically a proprietary Black Charm, as Lord Padfoot had created it, but Dorea had set up a royalties system so they could apply it to radios for sale in their shop; George hoped that such a system would lead to more Enchanted objects being sold, further development of said objects to higher standards and more profit all around. Now the war was over all their more dangerous products had been relegated to the back shelf and carefully packed up against future need, enabling George and Fred to go back to the honoured and noble practice of making people laugh.

The Eye-Dye was just the first in what was to be a vast and varied range of permanent colour-change potions; George had got the idea from dealing with the irritation of having ginger roots as his Jerry-hair grew out and Fred had extended it to include a way around the difficulties Dorea's Zabini body-doubles had when it came to mimicking their prince's unique eye-colour. That Gaetano had spent a week with sparkly purple eyes had actually been deliberate: that way they had known when they had hit on the right formula for a Colour-Cancelling Potion. The Eye-Dye was now available in eighteen colours, although they deliberately weren't marketing the 'natural' shades: those were best kept for disguises.

Next on the list was Hair-Flair, as Fred had decided to call it. However as hair was dead rather than living tissue –Muggle science was so handy at explaining things– the potion had to be rather more complicated and specialised. How to avoid dyeing the drinker's skin was also something they hadn't quite figured out yet, which had resulted in a few days of being blue and lots of smurf jokes; they had needed the joke explaining to them but afterwards he and Fred had really got into the concept by wearing white hats and trousers. The Colour-Cancelling Potion had then needed to be modified as well, since what worked for eyes didn't work for skin, and it had been back to the drawing board for the Prewetts.

George wasn't just coming up with new prank products though. He was also dating Hermione whenever he could drag her away from her new job and assisting the Zabinis in their search for Dorea's husband. The Mafia infiltrators were the people who were getting the naturally shaded Eye-Dye, as once drunk the colour change was both permanent and undetectable until you drank the Colour-Canceller. They'd be getting the Hair-Flair as well once it was finished, though George had discovered that in the Vongola what counted as a 'normal' hair or eye colour was a bit looser than what he was used to. Green and Magenta were apparently both possible, if not precisely normal, and purple eyes could pass without comment. Strange. Muggles didn't have magic so he wasn't sure how that could happen naturally aside from possible creature blood in their family tree.

George was still being Jerry part of the time; in fact all the Zabini contract work he did was as Jerry, brown hair and all. He wanted to keep his legal and not-so-legal business separate, which meant that Fred and George Prewett were distinct and different from Jerry and Frank Prewett. The surname thing made it challenging, but the important thing was to make sure there was no proof. Fred and George would remain firmly within the British Wizarding World, while Jerry and Frank wandered further afield.

There was no doubt in either twin's mind that dearest, deadliest and most devious Dorea would get her husband back, which since he was a Muggle criminal meant she would inevitably get tangled up in Muggle crime, at least around the edges. So they would follow her, in the interests of enjoying the fallout and keeping an eye on her. Jerry and Frank Prewett didn't exist in the Muggle world, so there was no trail of information for future enemies to follow. Even in the Magical world they lacked birth certificates, school records and other identity paperwork.

George just hoped Hermione wouldn't make too much of a fuss about the whole crime-thing. How she hadn't cottoned on yet despite the various not-so-subtle clues that Dorea's husband didn't exactly abide by Muggle laws was something that perplexed George, as Hermione was more than smart enough to put it all together by herself. That she had not yet done so said quite a lot about how much effort and brainpower was going into the ongoing battle of researching, rewriting and updating all the Ministry legislation. Hermione was probably not going to be terribly thrilled once she surfaced and noticed the criminal aspects of Dorea's married life considering she was currently working hard at defining and governing criminality, but his girlfriend had managed to surprise him before. Such as when she kissed him before he managed to work up the courage to ask her out.

* * *

Blaise had just succeeded in putting his imperious little niece to bed when Vincenzo Zabini, one of his cousins via zio Graziano, showed up at the door of the Potter Manor's main suite, bouncing on the balls on his feet in impatient excitement. Blaise ignored him completely, carefully pulling the blankets up over little Cassie and the already-sleeping Marius, backing out of the nursery and closing the door before turning his attention to his cousin.

"_What's up Enzo?_" Blaise asked.

Enzo –because 'Vincenzo' took too long to say– beamed. "_Stanzo found the Varia base,_" he said gleefully, black curls falling forward over his eyes as he stopped bouncing. The shorter Zabini brushed his hair back absently as he continued, "_He thinks the Princess should buy up land in the area, possibly even a house, so she'll be nearby once we find him. Sicily's certainly closer than Britain, anyway._"

It also wasn't across any Muggle national boundaries and was even closer to Sabina than France was, making communication far simpler. Besides, wasn't Rhea talking about leaving the country once her 'reforms' were completed, so as to get the babies out of the way of angry idiots who didn't understand you had to break eggs to make omelette? This was the perfect solution. Especially since Rence was already in Sicily learning Alchemy from Nick Flamel and Dorea would be moving there anyway at some point, to be with her husband. Well, once they found and rescued him; what kind of dragon needed rescuing?

"_I'll convince her; where is it exactly?_" Blaise asked. Enzo promptly rattled off the coordinates according to the Magical Positioning System, which was distinct from Muggle Latitude and Longitude because the planet was actually slightly larger than Muggles thought it was, so their system wasn't accurate enough to Apparate by. Unplottable land couldn't be mapped but it could be mapped around, so most Muggle maps were peppered with inaccuracies of varying severity.

Blaise consulted his childhood geography lessons and left the suite, intent on finding Dorea and letting her know he was going to Sicily for a week to visit Rence and start shopping around for a nice big empty patch of land they could build a Magical mansion on, or at least a Muggle mansion they could convert.

He should take Luna with him too; Blaise wasn't as good at seeing through illusions as he wanted to be and the Varia headquarters was probably hidden in some way since Dorea had _finally_ told them that her husband had shared that a lot of people in his section of the Mafia could use Soulfire, although apparently Muggles called it 'Dying Will Flames'. That Soulfire was used both by the Mafia and Dorea's growing scrum of friends and allies had prompted quite a lot of Zabini interest in the subject and sent Blaise back to Dorea's books on past Flame-users, some of which he could now tell were mafia-affiliated in an organised and systematic way. It would have been useful to know that sooner, but Dorea had been right to worry about her husband's safety and it was all water under the bridge now. Knowing beforehand wouldn't have helped them locate him any faster anyway.

He had a sister to find, land records to struggle through and money to spend; rest and relaxation was all very well but it was nice to have a project again. Wrangling the Hellions and preparing for his NEWTs meant he was now used to a certain level of activity, no matter how much he liked to grumble about it.


	78. Chapter 78

Beta'd by the ubiquitous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of truly unforgettable first impressions **

It was now over a year since Rence had been temporarily relieved of his duties as Rhea's vassal and allowed to dedicate all his energies to pursuing Alchemy, specifically gem-smithing. While the prospect of _not being there_ while Rhea was inevitably getting herself into trouble had been rather panic-inducing, Rence had managed to keep himself calm and remind himself that Dee _was_ there to make sure Rhea didn't do anything too crazy. Dee could and would obliterate anything that attempted to make trouble for Rhea, which Rence approved of. Besides, this was temporary: as soon as he reached journeyman-level he could go home to his liege-lady and pursue his craft there.

Knowing that he could only go back to protecting Rhea after Nicholas Flamel –who had insisted on being called Maestro or Talbot– felt he was competent in his subject had lit a fire under Rence; never in his life had he ever worked so hard. He had cooked, cleaned, carried wood and coal, lit fires, sorted ores, memorised gemstones and metals, been quizzed on absolutely everything and spent hours learning to sketch realistically and create technical and proportionally accurate designs. He'd also learned to care for sheep, from birthing lambs to shearing to butchering, and could speak Italian with reasonable fluency since they were in Italy and speaking the local language was important. Rence privately thought speaking Italian wasn't all that useful when the few locals he'd actually met only spoke Sicilian, so he was learning a bit of that too whenever he was sent off the farm on errands, but he was the apprentice and Flamel –Talbot– was his teaching master so he abided.

It was all worth it though, as after thirteen months and two weeks of intensely exhausting work Talbot finally allowed him to do more than work the bellows or answer questions. He was given a respectably-sized uncut emerald and the run of the workshop, then left to create something under his Master's gimlet gaze. Rence had examined the emerald closely, determined it would do best with a square cut and very carefully and slowly faceted it. That had taken him a week of mathematics and double-checking. Then he had taken the largest of the chips and shaped that with a neat rose cut. The rest of the chips he set aside; they were good-quality emerald and would do just fine for small Flame focus gems, suitable for delicate work.

The ring he was making would be a blunt instrument, needing a lot of power to use effectively, but Rence had power in abundance, unlike most of the others in the Study Constellation. The smaller gem he intended to place on the inside of the band would make delicate work easier, but Rence recognised he was more suited to heavy-duty applications of Lightning Flames as he had the power for it. Others however were not, so would benefit from smaller focus stones to work with.

The metal he would use to fashion the actual ring would be an alloy he had discovered in the Potter Library, the same one used in Rhea's wedding ring. Since apprenticing under Talbot Rence had learned that the hard, brittle, silvery metal that long-ago Potter had called 'Durum' was what modern Muggle chemists had designated as Osmium, so he knew he could recreate the alloy. Designing an appropriate ring would have been the hard part, except that Rence had been designing rings for Rhea's inner circle to use in what little free time he had ever since deciding that Alchemically-enhanced jewellery was the craft he wanted to pursue. The design he had settled on was sturdy, but not so much so that it would look unwieldy on a female hand, simple but not boring and included a stylised griffin, as featured on the Potter Family crest.

It took Rence another week to complete the ring to his satisfaction, but once it was done Talbot had examined it then pronounced it a perfectly useable B-class ring and an excellent first project. He had then informed Rence that, while he was not quite journeyman quality yet, he was good enough to start taking on small commissions and would be allowed both to visit home at weekends and take on customers. The blond nineteen-year-old had been overjoyed and had immediately requested permission to go back to Potter manor for the weekend, so as to let Rhea know. Talbot had laughed and agreed, sending him off with a house-elf as soon as he had a bag packed.

His greeting on getting home had been everything he'd hoped for: Rhea had squealed like she was twelve again and had jumped him with a fierce hug. Rence had grabbed her around the waist and swung her around in the air, laughing in delight and relief. She really _was_ alright, like her letters had said! Talbot didn't allow mirror calls, claiming that Rence would spend all his time chatting rather than working, so the nineteen-year-old had been forced to settle for writing.

"You really _are_ fine," he said, setting her down on her feet again and pressing a kiss to the backs of her hands.

"All fingers and toes accounted for and no new scars," Rhea confirmed with a happy smile. "Now come and see my babies! They've gotten so big!" She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him off, not that Rence minded. His liege-lady was everything to him, his reason for living, and he was happy to do anything she wanted him to. Besides, he had missed little Marius and Cassie as well.

The twins were with Barty. Rence had been told about Barty and had held certain reservations despite knowing that Rhea had truly impeccable instincts, but meeting the older man in person calmed all his fears. Barty was like him, utterly devoted, but his experiences had made him warier and more given to pre-emptive strikes. Since he was looking after Rhea and the baby twins Rence didn't have a problem with Barty's proactive attitude and suggested he learn about Soulfire, since Rhea was definitely going to get involved with the Muggle world in the near future. Barty had listened, demanded a demonstration and an explanation then agreed to learn. He'd also suggested wandless magic, which Rence wanted to kick himself for not thinking of sooner. Rence wasn't allowed to use a wand in the workshop and hadn't touched his in months, so going entirely wandless was probably a good idea.

Then the Prewetts –actually really Prewetts now– had found out he was back and had begged the house-elves for a proper party, which had been provided in short order. Rence had then been swept up in a whirlwind of friends he hadn't seen or written to in far too long and had spent all evening catching up and finding out what they'd been up to lately. He'd also met several dozen new Zabini, congratulated Deborah Avery neé Oatley on her pregnancy and heard all about who still at Hogwarts had activated which Flames since he had started his apprenticeship.

Rence woke up early the following morning, realised he didn't _need_ to get up and spent a quarter of an hour enjoying the feeling before getting up anyway. There was always plenty to do at Potter Manor and he had been shirking his duties as Potter Steward to study Alchemy. With Rhea's permission, but the argument stood. There were things that needed to be done by the Potter Steward.

He was most of the way through the paperwork and had set it aside for Fleur to sort out –the part-Veela was engaged to Bill Weasley now and already training Fay Dunbar as her replacement– when Jerry Prewett knocked on the doorframe. Rence knew it was Jerry because Jerry's hair was a slightly blonder brown than Frank's. Fred and George were both still redheads of course; Rence had long since got used to seeing all four of them about the place as they'd lived in Black Manor for months after their father died.

"Yes Jerry?" he asked.

"Frank and I have a request," Jerry said, walking inside and choosing a chair to sit on. "We're working on some permanent hair dyes and we've got most of the kinks out, but we don't actually know for sure if they really _are_ permanent or just very long-term."

"What's that got to do with me?" Rence asked warily. The Prewetts were far better about asking than the Weasley Twins had _ever_ been, but they were no less tricky and inventive.

"Well, you're living well out of the way and will be for some time with nobody around except your Alchemy Master, so we thought you might agree to test the newest batch out for us," Jerry said. "It's a really obvious colour, so you'll be able to tell if it starts fading or darkening, but I don't see how that'll matter considering."

"What colour?"

"Green," Jerry said with a grin. "Seeing as you're our devious, despicably delightful Dorea's Green Knight we thought you should look the part. We'd like you to time-test the eye-dye too."

Rence considered the logistics of green hair. "For how long and what shade of green?"

Jerry grinned triumphantly. "Just a year to begin with; if it's still going strong after that we can re-negotiate. And it's a tasteful rich fern green, like tree leaves. You'll look very dashing."

Rence suspected he'd look more like an escapee from Arthurian legend, but didn't say as much. Jerry knew that already, since he must have tested the dye to know what colour it was. This was a time-test that Jerry was asking for after all, not a colour-test.

"What's in this for me, Prewett?"

Jerry pouted. "Where's the love, Higgs?"

"You are manipulative and grasping and take great delight in conning people," Rence said dryly, "and I have nothing but respect for those qualities but still feel I should take precautions against them."

Jerry laughed. "Fine, fine. What do you want?"

Rence pondered. What _did_ he want? What could he ask for that would be most useful that the Prewetts had the resources and ingenuity to provide?

"Armour," he said eventually. "Armour that will protect against both Magic and Muggle weaponry and isn't made of dragonhide; dragonhide is damn conspicuous. Something I can wear under my usual clothing," he gestured at his loose green leather trousers that were necessary protective gear in the forge and his green shirt, "or even over it, so long as it won't stand out and scream 'armour!' at everybody who sees it."

Jerry hummed, producing a notepad with a flourish and jotting down notes. "I'll get right on it; this'll take time, you realise?"

"You've got a year," Rence pointed out.

"So I do," Jerry agreed, glancing up with a grin. "This'll be challenging; thanks for that. See you around; I'll bring the potion over at tea-time!"

Rence waved the older Prewett out of the door and went back to the paperwork; he wanted it finished by lunchtime.

* * *

Everybody in the Vongola Famiglia and indeed all of the allies knew about the Vongola Rings, handed down from Primo himself. What most people outside the Guardians of the Vongola Bosses and the Bosses themselves didn't know was that there were two sets of rings. The Boss would wear the main set until deciding upon a successor, at which point the main rings went to the heir and heir's Guardians and the Boss and his Guardians would then wear the back-up set until they retired, then go on wearing the back-up set after retiring because being retired did not mean you weren't a target. There had never yet been a situation where a retired Boss, a current Boss _and_ an heir were all active at the same time, until now. Ottava had married rather young by Vongola standards then retired even younger and Nono had also married young, which had created something of a predicament.

Namely, that Nono needed to hand the primary rings over to Federico and his Guardians but couldn't take the back-up Sky, Mist and Cloud rings off his mother and her remaining Guardians because Daniela Vongola being eighty-seven didn't mean she'd stopped being an assassination target. Thus new rings were needed –probably an entire set since this issue was likely to come up again in the future because people were living longer thanks to advances in medical care– which meant visiting Talbot. Nono had expected it to mean being _visited_ by Talbot, but when he'd called the ancient and eccentric ring-smith the man had told him to,

"Come up to the workshop and I'll sort it out; oh and do bring your mother, I miss chatting to her!"

This was fair enough, but led to Timoteo, his mother and their respective Guardians all going on a field trip up into the mountains a week before Christmas, along incredibly poor roads to the farmstead Talbot lived in with its attached workshop in a former barn. It also meant dealing with Talbot's sheep, which all seemed to consider motor vehicles as intruders on their territory that had to be thoroughly examined. Timoteo suspected Talbot did this on purpose; keeping them on their toes and reminding them that Talbot had seniority. Don of the Vongola or not, Timoteo was nowhere near as old or knowledgeable as Talbot was.

But still, sheep? Oh well, at least Ganauche was amused: his youngest Guardian was talking to the ovines as he pushed them out of the way, addressing each of them as 'madam' and explaining that he rather needed to get through, so could they please move? Timoteo could see Coyote, his Storm, rolling his eyes and Brow Nie looking nonplussed but Bouche, his Mist Guardian, was simply helping clear the way so they could get from the road up to the farm –which was a steep fifteen minute walk on a sunny day even for someone young– without further delay.

Timoteo glanced at his mother, who had been in a wheelchair for over a year now, but she didn't seem to be having any trouble at all despite the two inches of snow. Nebbia, her original Mist Guardian whose name had vanished from the Vongola records at some point during the Second World War, had applied Flames so the wheelchair was floating slightly above the ground and the two were conversing animatedly in Sicilian. Adriana Visconti, his mother's third Cloud Guardian and the mother of Timoteo's own Cloud Guardian, was walking along behind them and looking resigned. It was an expression often seen on 'Zia Rana', as the older two tended to ignore her whenever she tried to dissuade them from whatever eccentricity they had come up with today. Considering Nebbia was five years older than his mother –making him ninety-two– Timoteo found it rather unfair that the man was not having any visible difficulty with the climb. They'd only been walking for five minutes and Timoteo's knees were already aching; how could somebody over twenty-five years older than him be so much fitter? Then again, Talbot was even older than that and could still take care of all his sheep.

It took twenty-five minutes to get up to the front of the farmstead, by which point Timoteo's knees hated him and Brow Nie had stopped hovering nervously and firmly planted his hand flat against his Boss's back so he could soothe the inflammation, muttering mutinously about 'stiff-necked Vongola idiots' as he did so. Timoteo took this as a good sign; his previous Sun Guardian had never hesitated to order him about when his health was on the line. However _that_ Brow Nie had died during the Cradle Affair and his replacement was acutely aware that he was only chosen because Don Nono's health was rather poor; Guardians were usually chosen for their combat prowess, not their healing skills. _This_ Brow Nie –who got called 'Brow Nie Junior' by Timoteo's English-speaking allies– had spent his teenage years expecting to remain in Varia Medical all his life and had not adapted all that well to being a Guardian compared to Ganauche, who was two years younger and had taken to it like a duck to water. But then again, Ganauche had known since he was thirteen that he was going to be Guardian to a Vongola; the only question had been _which_ Vongola.

Then Nebbia stopped dead mid-word, head cocked on one side, which brought the rest of Timoteo's Guardians back to form a protective huddle as Visconti scanned their surroundings for whatever had caught the elderly but still exceptional Mist's attention.

"_Talbot's out,_" Nebbia said casually in Sicilian, drawing an irritated huff from both Visconti and Coyote while Timoteo's other Guardians looked blank; none of the younger ones understood the local dialect. "_Somebody else is in though; two somebodies, in fact. Both of them Lightnings, in the workshop._"

That wasn't good news; in the Mafia Lightnings were generally used as shock troops, decoys and for suicide missions and Nebbia wouldn't have been able to sense them from this far away unless they were tapping into their Flames. An enemy of the Famiglia could easily have tapped the phone call and dispatched a disposable assassin to try and cause as much damage as possible. Timoteo's Instincts weren't suggesting any particular danger, but with heavily-trained Lightnings that wasn't always indicative of peril: a Mafia Lightning could register as 'not a threat' right up until they made to stab you, and even then it was only the offensive movement, not violent intent, that a Sky would notice. Lightnings frequently didn't feel anything at all about killing people.

Sending _two_ Lightnings however was more than just opportunism. It suggested some kind of strategy, possibly involving Talbot and might have nothing to do with the current and former Vongola Bosses. Talbot had been working for the Vongola for as long as there had _been_ a Vongola; he was Family. Timoteo nodded at Coyote, who advanced with Schnitten, the Rain Guardian, towards the door of the workshop as the other Guardians fanned out in front of him. Nebbia hung back next to Ottava and Adriana; Timoteo knew his mother's Flames were not what they had been lately, but from the way she produced her crossbow out of nowhere to rest in her lap it was clear she was in no way defenceless.

Hopefully Talbot really was just out and had not been taken anywhere by enemies of the Family.

* * *

His visit home had been seven weeks ago now and Rence was still green. Quite seriously green, as Jerry had failed to mention the dye affected _all_ body hair, so his fair skin had acquired a slight greenish tint by proximity to the fine dark green hairs covering it; Rence didn't mind being green but Dawn had insisted on taking him shopping to update his wardrobe, as clothing that worked with blond hair apparently did not do so with fern-green hair. Talbot found it hilarious and had taken to calling him '_Cavaliere_' which was the Italian for 'knight'. Really, after this Rence was probably going to be stuck with the moniker of 'Green Knight' for the rest of his life, but oh well. It was worth it for proper armour because the Prewetts were good at what they did.

More importantly, the Hogwarts Christmas holidays had started so Rence was getting his first actual customer. Since he was only completely certain of his skills in creating Lightning foci, Rence had decided to approach Parvati Patil, as she was the oldest of the finesse-orientated Lightnings and the one who had invented many of the exercises currently being used by what the Constellation was calling 'the Flash Division'. Parvati had been delighted at the prospect of a more refined tool for channelling her Flames _and_ new jewellery, even if she had to pay for it. Rhea had agreed to have one of the Potter elves transport the Indian girl to and from Sicily because Talbot's Wards didn't allow for Apparition and his Master refused to disclose the farm's location, so Rence would have four hours in which to catch up, measure Parvati's hands and come up with both a ring design she liked and an appropriate alloy. Using the Potter alloy in a ring for somebody not properly sworn to the Potter Family would be inappropriate.

Parvati arrived at exactly two o'clock local time, as expected. What Rence had _not_ expected was for the seventeen-year-old to instantly hug him and press a kiss to his cheek, but he caught up quickly enough and managed to hug her back.

"Rence! It's been far too long!" Parvati gushed, stepping back and looking him up and down as the house-elf vanished with a soft crack. "You're looking very… green. I'm glad Padma warned me."

Rence smiled wryly. "I'm testing how permanent the Prewetts' latest hair dye is," he explained. "How have you been?"

"Quite excellent, thank-you," the sari-clad witch said briskly. "I'm helping train the latest crop of fourth-years in Soulfire and let me tell you, they're quick studies. I'm learning as much as they are some days. Then there are my upcoming NEWTs, of course, but I'm quite confident I shall have no problems there. The only _real_ problem is Ronald-bloody-Weasley who is making a huge deal of the fact that half the year graduated early, as though they did it just to spite him. Twit." Parvati looked like she wanted to use a much ruder word than just 'twit' but didn't consider it ladylike. "The only girls left in the Gryffindor seventh-year dormitory are me, Lavender and Emma Vane, so I'm spending quite a lot of time with Ginny and her friends."

"I thought Lavender was your best friend?" Rence was certain he hadn't imagined that. What had happened to separate them?

Parvati sighed. "Oh, she _is_, but she's gone completely gaga over Weasley and is _dating_ him, which is utterly obnoxious. They're so bad for each-other."

Rence had never had a very high opinion of the youngest Weasley boy, so could see where Parvati was coming from. "Do you want to come through to the workshop so I can show you what I had in mind, then you can decide on a design you like?" he suggested, offering up the distraction.

Parvati beamed at him and accepted the change in subject. "I'd love to! I've heard so much about your new ring and I want to find out how much of a difference a faceted gem will make."

Rence offered his arm, which the younger teen wrapped a hand around. "To the workshop then; it's just through here."

The workshop was inside a former barn, but it was warm, well-lit, well-ventilated and very clean despite retaining all the original rustic features; the sheep lived in an altogether different barn. Rence showed Parvati to a comfortable chair –for customers– and sat next to her on a low stool so he could show her his own ring.

"It's more blunt-instrument than what you want," he explained as she turned the ring over in her hands, tracing the subtle design with one elegantly manicured fingertip, "but if you try sending a bit of Soulfire into the small gem on the back of the ring that should give you an idea of what I'm going to try and make for you."

Parvati did so and made a small, pleased sound as a fine needle of green Flames emerged above the gem. "Oh, it's so _easy_! Rence, this is incredible! I'll be able to try so many new things and do so much more!" she reached out and gripped his hand tightly for moment before going back to examining the ring more closely. "I'll be able to make my carvings so much more detailed!"

Rence had heard Padma mention that Parvati had taken up carving semi-precious stones as a way of practicing with her Flames but hadn't realised the brasher of the Patil twins was quite so invested in her new hobby. "I've got a few different small gems already faceted," was what the currently-greenet actually said. "I'll bring them over so you can try them out and tell me what works best for you."

Parvati had just selected a gem she liked –there were two she had vacillated between so Rence was tempted to give her a ring with both– and was showing him a simple exercise for improving fine control when the workshop door was thrown open and Rence got an abrupt sense of 'Storm' and 'threat'. Having learned to use Soulfire around Ginny Weasley, who had not always been as in control of her Flames as she might have been, Rence reacted instantly: his kite shield was summoned wandlessly to his arm and he was moving forwards before even getting a good look at the intruder. There was a crack –Muggle firearm– and Rence called on his Flames in a rush, using a diffuse burst to mimic the effects of the Knockback Jinx while further reinforcing his shield so the potentially enhanced bullets wouldn't damage it.

The unknown Storm was bowled back out of the door, leaving Rence facing the Rain that had been lurking behind him. Rence knew all about Rains though; he'd spent an entire school year fighting Blaise the unspeakably devious _and_ duelled the Italian regularly in the summers since. He'd even found time to duel on his most recent visit, so he knew he hadn't lost too much of his skill.

The Rain Flames were swiftly contained in a semi-Hardened bubble along with the person calling them up, then rammed with his shield to shoot the bubble out through the doorway. Reaching the door Rence saw there was a large party outside, so he readied his shield and planted his right hand –the one with the ring on– against the doorframe so he could Harden the entire workshop. Talbot didn't like it when people used lots of Flames in the workshop, but this was better than the building coming down which in a Flame battle was a possibility. Soulfire was destructive regardless but Storms were by far the worst about it.

Sensing Parvati coming up behind him, Rence shifted his stance so the people outside wouldn't be able to see her clearly. "_Stay back please Parvati_," he said slowly but clearly in Hindi, "_I don't want them to see you._"

"_I didn't realise you spoke Hindi,_" Parvati said, her voice coming from over to his right.

"_I helped my lady keep in practice while she was confined to the house,_" Rence explained. "_I am not perfect, but I understand more than I speak._"

"_What do they want?_"

"_I have no idea,_" Rence admitted, "_but my Master should be back soon. We can wait for a little._"

Between Parvati's fingers a small, faceted emerald lit up, illuminating her face. "_Indeed we can; I know how to fight._"

Rence hoped it didn't come to that.

* * *

Daniela Vongola was honestly impressed; she'd never seen anybody secure a building quite so effectively against a superior force in this manner before. First Coyote had been launched out of the door like a rag doll, then her son's Rain had been rolled out in a Lightning-Flame _bubble_ of all things –which was admittedly a truly fantastic idea she wished she'd thought of– and then a green young man with a diamond-shaped shield nearly as tall as he was had placed himself in the doorway and Hardened the _entire_ workshop with his Flames. It was a decent defensive manoeuvre, but not one suited to a long-term siege. Although there _was_ another Lightning in there still, so maybe the green –in colour if not in combat experience– youth was deliberately hiding them from view?

He really was _very_ green. Green clothing, green hair, even greenish skin! She wasn't close enough to see his eyes, but the sheer volume of Lightning Flame being used meant his eyes would probably appear green right now anyway even if that wasn't their natural colour. He didn't feel threatening though, so she put her crossbow away.

"My son, have _two_ of your Guardians just been defeated by a young man who lacked the element of surprise?" She inquired archly.

Timoteo sighed as Coyote got to his feet, brushing snow off his suit and Schnitten lowered himself carefully to the ground as the bubble he was in popped.

"I think I've learned more about the possibilities offered by Lightning Flames today than in the past four years," Ganauche said conversationally from where he was standing beside Daniela's chair. "That was _awesome_."

Nebbia chuckled.

"Coyote, tell me what happened," her son demanded of his Storm.

"When I threw the door open there were two people in the workshop," Coyote reported, "a dark woman in a pink sari in an upholstered chair and a man in green on a stool next to her. The green man somehow called his shield to him and charged me; I shot at him but the bullets bounced off the shield despite being Flame-enhanced. Then there was a shockwave, like from an explosion except without the explosion, and I was thrown backwards out of the open doorway."

The Rain Guardian then picked up the narrative. "I dodged to avoid getting thrown out of the workshop with Coyote and called on my Flames to incapacitate the attacker. However he immediately spread his Flames out and contained mine, trapping me inside a sphere which he then rammed with his shield. The sphere squeezed itself back out of the door as it was thrown backwards and rolled away down the slope until bursting."

"Was the lady in pink sitting in a chair with scrolled arms and dark gold upholstery?" Daniela asked.

Coyote nodded. "Yes, Eighth."

"That's the customer's chair; Talbot has it booby-trapped somehow so only paying customers can sit in it," The elderly former Boss said. "I think you may possibly have overreacted, son of mine; Talbot has been taking care of himself for centuries after all."

"Who's the green menace then?" Coyote demanded grumpily.

"That would be my apprentice, puppy," came a voice from behind the assembled Vongola. Daniela twitched, but managed not to spin around like her son did. Talbot had always been overly fond of theatrics.

"You have an apprentice?" Timoteo managed to ask reasonably politely as the wrinkled, blindfolded man in layers of shapeless robes stomped out of the tree line, weighed down with carrier bags. Had the man been out shopping of all things?

"I'm a craftsman, my dear Ninth; I've had several apprentices over the years," the ring-smith scolded, striding forwards. "Knight here is just the latest one. Knight! Stop that and come out and greet my guests!"

The young green man called Knight withdrew his Flames from the building, but did not move from his spot. "They attacked my client, Master!" the young man called out, his accent suggesting he was not actually Italian.

Talbot turned on them, disapproval radiating from his bony frame. "You attacked a fellow guest? In my home?"

"My sincerest apologies, Talbot," Timoteo said sincerely, "My mother's Mist sensed you were not present but two others were and we suspected foul play."

The wrinkled ring-smith howled with laughter. "I was old when I made those rings for little Giotto and I'm even older now; did you _really_ think I could have gotten this old without knowing how to defend my home?"

There was a general embarrassed shuffling from her son and his Guardians as beside her Nebbia chuckled soundlessly.

"Oh well, it's happened now and nobody appears to have died," Talbot said magnanimously, "so I will pardon your rashness. Come on up; I'll introduce you to Knight and you can apologise to the young lady for your ill-mannered behaviour." He marched up to the door and Knight stepped out of the way to let him in, vanishing back inside the building. Daniela caught her Mist's eye and at once her chair was rolling up the slope over the surface of the snow, Adriana hurrying to keep up.

"Come on now, my son; we've already been rude enough for one day," Daniela scolded, glancing over her shoulder at the boy she'd raised to rule the Vongola after her.

Timoteo sighed, walking forwards. "Yes, mother."


	79. Chapter 79

So, this was supposed to be the last update for a while. However... I've written three more chapters over the past fortnight, and they tie up this sub-plot quite nicely, sooo... you're getting those too, starting Monday!

Beta'd by the practical Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of introductions and reasonable caution **

As Talbot ushered the party who had attacked them into the building –it had apparently been a misunderstanding but still– Rence ushered Parvati back to the chair and whispered in her ear in Hindi:

"_Do not show that you speak English; it is better to not give them ways to find us._"

"_So Hindi then,_" Parvati agreed, understanding they their accents and fluency in the notoriously idiosyncratic language that was English would give them away. "_Or French; do you speak French?_"

"_Not at all,_" Rence admitted frankly. "_Latin, yes, and my Italian is acceptable, but I am otherwise short on languages. My family lacked the connections for a language tutor._" He only spoke Latin because his mother had tutored him in it herself.

"_Then I shall speak Hindi and you will translate into Italian for me,_" Parvati decided firmly, "_and_ _unless they ask about French I shall not volunteer it._" She pressed the emerald back into his hand and settled herself in the armchair, fanning her skirts around her. "_Now go and fetch those designs._"

Rence moved to obey, but was waylaid by Talbot. "_Knight!_" the Alchemist called out in Italian. "_Chairs!_"

His Master got precedence; Rence turned around and hurried through the passage leading to the house. "_How many?_" He shouted over his shoulder as he entered the main room on the farmhouse.

"_Two!_"

Rence selected the two nicest chairs from beside the fireplace and carried them both back along the passage to the workshop, easily Hardening his muscles and bones to accommodate the not inconsiderable weight of the furniture; they were heavy. Upon returning to the workshop he set the chairs down in the diagonally opposite corner of the barn from Parvati, leaving a generous space behind them for the men in suits to lurk. Then he ducked his head politely at the elderly lady in the wheelchair and retreated back to his workbench to fetch the designs. These strange Flame-users might be his Master's guests, but Parvati was _his_ guest and therefore his primary responsibility.

"_Here we are,_" he said in Hindi, handing her the entire stack. "_Take your time; I'll fetch a few metals for you to choose from._" They still had most of three hours left before she could go home.

Parvati nodded, her Gryffindor courage stiffening her spine as she deliberately relaxed her shoulders and began a slow, thoughtful perusal of the sketches Rence had given her. It took a special kind of courage to relax in a room full of people who had only minutes ago been trying to kill you; Rence was very impressed, both by her guts and her faith in his ability to defend her if necessary. Glancing over to where the other guests were settling in, the green-haired vassal of House Potter deemed he had a few minutes before Talbot decided to introduce him and went to fetch the metal samples. As Talbot's apprentice he got to use some of the Master Alchemist's alloys, but he hadn't been shown all of them yet; he wasn't that far into his apprenticeship to have access to all of them. Then again, Parvati wasn't powerful enough to need a really resistant alloy, so that wasn't a problem.

He had just laid out six slightly differently coloured little metal bars on the stool he had previously been sitting on when Talbot summoned him.

"_Cavaliere!_"

Rence straightened, putting on his best bland smile; time to face the music.

* * *

Ganauche, Lightning Guardian to the Ninth Boss of the Vongola, was unashamedly fascinated by the green guy with the shield who had just bruised Coyote and Schitten's egos. Partly because the guy had managed to do something _he_ aspired to someday achieve, but mostly because this Knight-guy was a Lightning like him that, unlike every other Lightning Ganauche had ever met, was clearly operating on his original personality settings. That he was doing stuff with his Flames that Ganauche had never even _considered_ before was just the icing on the cake, if very nice icing. The nineteen-year-old watched keenly as Talbot's apprentice –who looked about Ganauche's own age– strolled over to stand beside his teacher, a small, enigmatic smile on his face.

"Daniela, this is my little niece's Green Knight, whom I have taken on as my apprentice," Talbot said, slapping the green guy's shoulder and propelling him toward the retired Ottava. "Knight, this is Daniela Vongola, Eighth Boss of the Vongola Family in retirement."

Knight –did the guy have another name or was 'Knight' a codename like 'Ganauche' was? – stepped forward, bowed and lifted the elderly lady's hand almost to his lips. "Lady Vongola," he murmured politely before releasing her hand and stepping back again. Ottava cooed, fanning her face with one hand.

"Oh, such a _gallant_ young gentleman! Such manners! One sees them so rarely nowadays!"

Knight's face did not twitch; he might as well have been an unusually green brick wall. Talbot continued the introductions:

"This is Timoteo Vongola, Daniela's son and Ninth Boss of the Vongola. Timoteo, my little niece's Green Knight," Talbot added. Of course, Talbot might just have easily have meant 'little granddaughter' rather than 'little niece'; in Italian the word '_nipotina'_ was used for both. Ganauche hadn't known the old ring-smith had relatives. Well, living relatives; he was older than the Vongola Famiglia, for God's sake!

Knight bowed to Nono in a somewhat perfunctory manner. "A pleasure."

"Likewise, young man; you are a remarkably gifted fighter," his Boss responded warmly.

"I serve my Lady in all things," Knight said with quiet intensity; ah, _there_ was the underlying Lightning fanaticism that had thus far not been in evidence. Ganauche was as much a Sun as he was a Lightning so he was less afflicted, but in normal Mafia circumstances a Lightning's training involved stripping away everything _except_ that obsessiveness and instilling utter devotion to the Family.

"So how did you come to serve Talbot's niece?" Nono asked with a smile.

"Her tutor in the art of the sword requested that I watch over her," Knight replied somewhat obscurely, "and I took an oath to serve her in all things a few years later."

So, Knight was essentially a personal retainer of Talbot's niece, possibly even her Guardian if she was a Sky.

"So where did you meet her?" Nono inquired a little more pointedly.

Knight blinked. "School."

"Which school?"

Knight cocked his head on one side, face still as bland as bland could be. "You wouldn't have heard of it."

"How can you be so sure?" Coyote demanded, bristling slightly at the dismissal.

Another slow blink from the Green Knight. "If you knew of the school, you would already know of my Lady."

Well, that put a firm end to _that_ line of inquiry. This guy was kind of obstructionist. A green brick wall indeed, even with that small smile of his.

"So, tell me more about your Lady!" Ottava said brightly before the silence could become awkward. "I'm sure she must be very accomplished to have caught your attention."

This got a response: Knight's bland, meaningless smile widened into something more genuine. "She is magnificent," Talbot's apprentice agreed warmly. "It was she who brought me here when I expressed an interest in jewel crafting and is she who is paying for my apprenticeship."

That… that was a serious commitment, Ganauche realised. Ring components were not cheap and Talbot was above and beyond the best there was; even with a family discount Talbot's niece had to be shelling out a hell of a lot of money for Knight's education. Most Bosses wouldn't go that far, not even for all the advantages having a ring-smith in the Family might someday bring.

"Is she pretty?" Ganauche asked. Knight's smile thinned into something less friendly;

"My Lady is _married_," he said icily, then added in more normal tones, "but yes, she is very beautiful." A twitch of Knight's lips that Ganauche couldn't quite decipher followed, then, "I match her eyes."

"Green eyes?" Ganauche checked.

"Emerald green," Knight said fondly, fingering the edge of his very medieval tunic which was indeed, surprise surprise, emerald green.

"Is that why you wear green?" Ganauche had to ask; green hair, eyes and greenish skin really made green clothing a rather inadvisable fashion choice otherwise. Knight's lips twitched again.

"Partly," he agreed.

"Can I just say that I am in awe of your combat skills?" Ganauche went on, because it really did have to be said. "That bubble-thing was amazing and I want to learn how to do it."

Knight actually smiled properly again. "It only works on Rains," the greenet explained, "due to how Rain Flames hold together. Think of it as a semi-solid water balloon; you make the Lightning flames flow like tar, hard but fluid, over and around the Rain Flames."

Ganauche couldn't believe it; he got instructions! "Fantastic! Thank-you _so_ much, I'm going to have fun with that," he said, grinning happily.

"Of course it has its weak points, but so does every technique," Knight added judiciously. He did not elaborate further, but Ganauche was sure that a bit of practice with Schnitten –because the older Rain _would_ want to find a way to beat the bubble trick– would bring those weaknesses to the fore.

"What about that localised explosion?" Coyote asked. Knight cocked his head.

"What explosion?"

"That trick you used to throw me out of the door," the Storm persisted.

"That wasn't an explosion," Knight said unhelpfully.

"What was it then?"

Knight smirked. "Trade secret."

"You explained the bubble readily enough," Schnitten pointed out.

"Mister Lightning did not attempt to attack a client under my protection," Knight pointed out mildly, "and he didn't actually _ask_ me to explain it; he simply admired it."

"My apologies for misunderstanding the situation, Green Knight," Nono said, interceding before anything undiplomatic could be said, "We believed Talbot might be threatened."

"I forgive you for misunderstanding the situation then," Knight said easily. Ganauche noted that they hadn't been forgiven for attacking Knight's client; then again, Nono hadn't technically apologised for that either.

"Perhaps you could introduce me to the young lady, so that I can apologise to her in person?" Nono suggested.

Knight frowned. "She doesn't speak or understand Italian."

"Well, what languages does she speak?" Ottava asked. "We might manage to rise to the occasion."

"Hindi," Knight said calmly. Brick walled again, Ganauche noted.

Nono blinked, a sign that he was rather strongly taken aback. Ottava looked pensive.

"So you speak Hindi then," the elderly retired Boss said musingly.

"I do."

"Would you be willing to translate for us then, so we can convey our regrets?" Ottava went on, her tone still slightly distant.

"Certainly," Knight said affably, "once her consultation is over. My client has a limited time at her disposal and wants everything to be decided today."

"We also have an order to make," Ottava agreed, "so we shall put it off until later. It has been lovely to meet such a loyal and perceptive young man, Knight; I hope to see you again sometime."

"You are very kind, Lady Vongola," Knight said quietly, bowing again before retreating back to where the dark girl in the pink sari had about half a dozen sheets of paper strewn across her lap.

"He's such a good lad, don't you think?" Talbot said fondly. "Keeping my niece's secrets like that; don't think I didn't notice your prying there, Timoteo! That's hardly polite, asking a Lady's vassals to tell tales!"

Ganauche's ears pricked at the word 'vassals'. That implied Talbot's niece –or granddaughter– was actually proper nobility, which was kind of odd as Talbot himself was definitely _not_ nobility. Not even slightly. Probably. Possibly. How old was Talbot anyway?

"Why have you never introduced me to your niece before, Talbot?" Ottava asked with a pout. "You know how much I love to get to know the younger generation!"

Talbot chuckled creakily. "Ah, Daniela, I'm not exactly a respectable person am I? What kind of parent would let me introduce their daughter to my questionable friends? No, my little niece is a treasure but I've only got to know her recently. But you didn't come here to meet my apprentice; what kind of commission were you after this time?"

In other words, Knight's adored Lady probably wasn't affiliated with the criminal underworld in any way, shape or form. Or at least wasn't affiliated with any of the parts of it which were friendly with the Cosa Nostra. Watching the green guy sitting next to his client, pointing out something on a piece of paper, Ganauche rather hoped Ottava managed to persuade Talbot to invite his niece over for a visit. She sounded really interesting and had to be pretty cool to have attracted somebody like Knight. Plus, Ganauche doubted that she lacked her own set of Guardians or at least friends who were capable of using Flames; that the Lightning-bubble was known to only work on Rain Flames meant that Knight had experience testing it on all the other varieties as well.

* * *

"_Is everything alright?_" Parvati asked in Hindi as soon as Rence had removed the little alloy bars from the stool and sat back down again.

"_They were asking about Rhea,_" Rence said grimly, tiny green sparks flitting around his fingertips. It had taken a great deal of effort not to attack the nosy Vongola outright for asking about his liege-lady, but that would have attracted even more unwanted attention. These were the people who had his Lady's lord-husband on ice after all; he didn't _want_ them to find out more about her and realise the connection.

Parvati pursed her lips. "_I will do my best not to betray more than a casual connection to her then; now, about the ring you are going to make…_"

Rence accepted the change of subject and let himself be drawn into a discussion on designs, gem positioning, the effects of different settings and why the alloy selected mattered. It was rather tricky translating everything into Hindi, but as the conversation progressed Rence found his fluency coming back. He also learned a number of new words, which was very nice. But then there was nothing left to discuss, Parvati's choices were all made, documented and set out so he could start work the following morning and there was still half an hour until she had to leave.

This meant mediating a conversation with the very sharp old lady Vongola over that promised apology; Rence sighed quietly.

"_Something the matter?_" Parvati asked.

"_The old lady wants to apologise to you for the attack,_" Rence explained, "_but she's very sneaky and dangerous._"

"_Then it's probably better that I make sure she thinks I'm just another pretty airhead with more money than sense,_" Parvati pointed out. "_It wouldn't be that hard._"

"_No, I mean she's like Rhea-levels of perceptive and sneaky,_" Rence insisted. "_She'd see right through it. Better to be standoffish I think._"

"_Stiff answers and polite but transparent excuses then,_" Parvati deduced. "_Because I honestly do not want to talk to them and hopefully that truth will obfuscate the lower layers._" It was in fact possible to hide things from Rhea despite her magnificent intuition, but you had to not think about what you were hiding and be honest and truthful besides. It was a hard balance to set and never worked for very long, but they could probably stall for half an hour then plead the need to depart.

"_Here we go then,_" Rence said resignedly, getting to his feet and offering Parvati his arm. "_When you are ready._"

Parvati got to her feet, straightened the skirts of her sari and gripped his proffered arm tightly. "_If this all goes wrong I can hide behind you and take pot-shots at them as we retreat strategically, right?_"

"_Of course you can._"

"_Thank-you, Rence._"

* * *

Daniela Vongola was very quiet as Nebbia drove the car back to the Vongola Mansion, her sharp mind and keen Intuition picking at the enigma that was Talbot's apprentice, the mystery of the ring-smith's niece –she was certain it was a niece and not a granddaughter– and the very charming aloofness of the young lady the Green Knight had been making a ring for. She always enjoyed meeting the younger generation; it gave her hope that maybe things weren't as bad as they sometimes seemed.

Knight had introduced the young lady as 'Seer', which suggested a level of psychic talent in addition to average but very sharply focused Lightning Flames. Seer had very clearly wanted nothing at all to do with them and their apology, but had exercised visible polite restraint and accepted their regrets with grace. Well, sort-of, in that it had been obvious she didn't _want_ their apologies but would rather have preferred Knight to beat them bloody on her behalf, yet recognised it would be impolitic to say so. It had been quite masterfully done really, especially for a young lady not yet in her twenties. If Daniela hadn't been acutely aware of how few years she had left she would have tried to persuade Seer to become her Guardian.

Oh well, at least she had managed to wrangle an agreement to visit out of the girl; Seer would be coming to the Vongola Mansion with Knight and up to two others shortly after New Year, to have tea with Daniela and a few of the bright young things the retired Ottava mentored on the side. Probably Petronilla and one of the other Harpies; really, her grandson's young second did have a remarkably apt naming sense…


	80. Chapter 80

I've just noticed I'm _past _300,000 words in this story... wow!

Beta'd by the skillful Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of royalty and high treason **

Belphegor of the Varia was a prince, and like all true royals he utterly loathed and detested traitors. They were rats, padding around on dirty little paws and despoiling everything they touched; uppity little rodents who thought their egos made them better than royalty, who were _born_ to rule!

Belonging to the Varia meant he got a certain degree of leeway when it came to disposing of rats, so long as he documented everything properly so Boss didn't have to deal with whiney peasants whingeing about how Bel was 'out of control'; not that Bel ever was. Bel was a prince and princes were always fully in control of themselves, but beyond that he was also a genius and knew _exactly_ what he was doing. Every single time. Acting crazy was different; a prince could do as he pleased and keeping the peasantry on their toes was important. Boss had never been fooled, the Shark let Bel get on with things and didn't intrude on his privacy, Manservant wasn't fooled either but played along as was proper and Tyrant–

Bel shivered. He didn't play games with Tyrant; _nobody_ played games with Tyrant. Tyrant did not appreciate them.

Back on the subject of rats, Bel knew he wasn't the only member of the Varia who loathed and detested them; all those in the Varia with the brains to care about more than their next kill held a deep and personal distaste for anyone who would abandon their loyalties to Boss, the Vongola and the Mafia generally. The young prince was only now finding out why as he delved into Varia history in greater detail, but he had always approved of that ingrained loyalty. Peasants they may be, but the Varia had a Quality to them that royalty could appreciate and acknowledge. Being royal, Bel had that Quality innately which Boss had recognised, acknowledging him as Storm Officer from the age of eight, but that didn't mean he couldn't get better still.

Bel appreciated his lessons intellectually, even if Tyrant was a mean old monster who didn't treat royalty with proper deference. Bel had never minded Boss treating him like that of course, but that was different. After all, Boss was royalty too.

Boss was a Zabini; that much was blatantly obvious to anybody with eyes. Bel thought he was a son or grandson of one of the current Principe's sisters, as he had to be very close to the main family in order to wield their signature Fire. Secondo had also been a royal Zabini, but Terzo very obviously had not inherited what the Mafia called 'Wrath Flames' so the Vongola most certainly were _not_ royalty, no matter how much they wanted to be; they were good enough to rule over the rest of the mafia peasants but they were _not_ royalty. Boss however _was_ royalty, which made their refusal to allow Boss to inherit all the more stupid and a sign of their inherent peasant inferiority. Royalty was _born_ to rule; they were better at it than everybody else by their very nature and Boss was not simply royal but a _Zabini_, part of the only royal family in Europe to predate the Roman Empire. Zabinis were royalty's royalty and Bel was proud to say he had a Zabini princess as a great-great-grandmother; that kind of thing _mattered_.

Of course, knowing that Boss's Zabini relatives were looking for him, the crown princess in particular, was not exactly good news for the Vongola, but Bel couldn't exactly _tell_ anyone why. The European Secrecy Statute stood; disgusting piece of legislation that limited royal freedoms or not, it was law and, more importantly, one he had sworn to uphold as a prince. Princes didn't break their promises. So Bel _couldn't_ tell the Shark or the Okama or Mammon that the Zabini were akin to being the Varia of Magical Italy, just without answering to anybody save themselves. Couldn't mention that their princess was called 'the Black Widow' for having married, murdered and ruined the men she believed to have been involved with the death of her first husband. Couldn't say that the reason Squalo couldn't find Sabina was that it was Magically hidden.

Bel knew all this because, before he'd been Belphegor of the Varia, he'd been Ramiel, prince of Magical Prussia. Not crown prince –that had been his elder and now very late and unlamented brother Raziel– but still a prince and of a very large and affluent Magical state. However his hated brother had manifested magic before he did and promptly tried to use it to kill him, so Bel had killed him first, then killed all the staff and tutors in the palace for good measure. He didn't kill his parents because they weren't there and he'd seen them maybe five times in his entire life; he didn't kill his little sister Suriel either. He'd never even _seen_ her, had no idea where she was and didn't care. Having murdered his brother made him ineligible for the throne anyway due to kinslaying laws preventing that, but he was still a prince. He would always be a prince and _nobody_ could take that away from him.

After that he'd wandered around Europe for a bit, eventually joining the Varia because he was bored and if it was good enough for a Zabini it was certainly good enough for him. Boss had given him a new name, a much better name and Bel was happy. Or at least he had been, up until his latest birthday.

It had been his eleventh birthday and he hadn't got a letter.

Bel hadn't exactly been expecting a letter from the Neapolitan schools, as they were wimpy peasants, but he _should_ have got a letter from Durmstrang as Prussia fell within their field and letters from Beauxbatons and Sabina as well, because he was _royalty_ and everybody wanted royals in their schools. It was good for publicity. To get no letters at all…

Bel knew he was no less a prince for not getting letters, no less a genius and certainly no less a Varia Officer, but he was still incredibly angry and bitterly disappointed. Raziel's stupid voice in his head was taunting him and the nasty little slime was already dead, so Bel couldn't even kill him for it. Bel hadn't changed; he was still the same person he had been yesterday and it hadn't been like he'd _intended_ to go to school anyway; he was having far too much fun as part of the Varia! There was no reason to be disappointed.

Except that he still _was_.

* * *

Massimo had spent his entire life being considered second-best; the second son, the 'spare' to his father and second in his mother's affections after Federico, the 'baby'. Then his mother had died and he'd seen even _less_ of his father, who had started on teaching Enrico all about the Family within the year, moving the older boy out of the nursery entirely. It wasn't _fair_.

He didn't blame Maria-Chiara for mother dying, but that was partly because he hadn't even known that his little brother or sister had _survived_ until he was nine and was introduced to the little blonde toddler while visiting his grandma. That Father hadn't been _bothered_ to tell him and Federico that they had a little sister was _awful _and Grandma had given him an earful for it, but it hadn't made Father pay any more attention to either Massimo or Federico beyond sending his Guardians to check on them a few times a week. Mostly the Lightning Guardian, who acted really weird around Nurse.

Then Massimo had turned ten and abruptly started seeing more of Father in between his lessons on the Vongola and its history and allies, but Enrico was two years ahead of him in everything and teased him about being behind. It wasn't fair!

As time passed Massimo got overlooked in favour of his older brother a whole lot more, by adults cooing over him in public and by his peers. It was always about Enrico. The _only_ area Massimo managed to get ahead and _stay_ ahead of his older brother was in using Sky Flames, but Enrico always said –loudly and in public– that Flames alone weren't enough to make a person a good Boss –using their great-grandfather as an example and reason why– and it made Massimo seethe.

The only other thing Massimo could hold over his brother's head was that unlike Enrico, Massimo _did_ have a Cloud Guardian. A Visconti, even. None of the Clouds Enrico tried to befriend ever stuck around for more than a day at the most, so Massimo was very proud of having Harmonised with Claudia even though he only had two Guardians total. Enrico might have quantity on his side with four Guardians, but Massimo had _quality_.

Then Federico burst onto the scene, young, charming and outgoing with a full _set_ of Guardians, and Massimo had to deal with getting upstaged by his little brother _as well_. It was however highly entertaining to see Enrico huff and puff when his admirers abandoned him for a younger model. Massimo could cope with that; fewer brainless bimbos to deal with.

They'd been like that for ages, Enrico trying to be dignified but getting into spats with Federico whenever the latter casually upstaged him and Massimo stuck in the background, when Xanxus came along. Xanxus who started on his lessons young because he refused to wait, Xanxus who spat and swore and threw Wrath Flames when he didn't get his way and who everybody whispered about, Xanxus whom their father took in as his own son even though the red-eyed boy couldn't possibly inherit because he _wasn't_ Vongola. Massimo knew his Intuition wasn't great, but he did know _that_. However Xanxus had Wrath Flames and was a half-decent Sky despite being a gutter brat and their father was nothing if not practical; Nono probably wanted Xanxus running one of the Houses.

But no; Xanxus wanted more than that. He wanted to be Decimo. Why his father had let the delusion slide Massimo had _no_ idea –maybe the old man thought it was cute? – but allow it he did, right up until Xanxus found out the truth and promptly tried to take the Vongola down on the basis that 'if I can't have it, nobody can'. That had made Nono sit up and pay attention though and soon Claudia had noticed that he and his brothers were being seriously assessed for becoming Decimo. Enrico first, of course.

Then Enrico was killed. Massimo hadn't expected it. Maybe he should have; they were in the mafia after all; people died. But unlike either of his brothers, Massimo still had both his original Guardians –Moro was the oldest Lightning in the Vongola at thirty-eight– and had never been in a real fight. Though the only reason Federico had been in 'real fights' was because he just _had_ to seduce every pretty thing that batted her eyelashes at him regardless of whether they were married or not.

Massimo had been certain that Federico's womanising would put him out of the running, but no, Federico had not only been favoured over him, Federico had been given _the rings_. Not even _Enrico_ had gotten the rings! It wasn't _fair_! He wasn't even second-best anymore, but _last_!

* * *

Bel had been seeking distraction when the news that Federico had been made official Vongola Heir reached his ears; the prince immediately pondered how Massimo must be feeling about being passed over. Curious and sensing the opportunity to indulge in a little Schadenfreude, the young Storm Officer abandoned his initial whim –terrorizing some of the recruits that had been sent over from the Shark's world tour– and headed out to hunt down Nono's second-born.

What the prince found prompted him to settle in for a while: Massimo, the bad, bad boy, couldn't settle for throwing his weight around at home. No, he had to go and vent his woes in _public_. Around ears that were not particularly friendly to the Vongola and possibly to the Mafia generally; Bel knew he'd seen that woman in a police uniform before.

Careless. Unfortunately for Bel, carelessness was not a killing offense, although it might end with Massimo getting killed by someone else in time but that wasn't Bel's problem or concern. It was entirely possible that, given a little time to stew, Massimo would work his way up to treachery and treason. This bore watching; he should set some of his minions on it. Not Manservant –he was far too useful in keeping the paperwork at bay– but some of the others. Maybe Bulldog, who was in the process of retiring; he wouldn't mind getting paid to sit in a bar for hours waiting for the Vongola rat to maybe show his head. Retiring meant Bulldog had to change all the lab protocols and such since his little research division would be part of Housekeeping from now on if he wanted to keep it up, which the man did. It was useful to the Varia after all. A week or two in a bar going through the tedious paperwork would get the man out of HQ and let him adjust to the change in pace.

Bel hummed, skipping slightly as he turned a corner so Massimo's diligent Cloud wouldn't notice him as she arrived with a car. He should probably get a Mist on the case too, but wanted to keep this reasonably discreet. If this turned into a situation that required the Varia to do 'pro-bono work' –an unsanctioned, unreported mission for the good of the Vongola– it would be best to keep those with pertinent information to the barest minimum. Maybe Mab? She was starting to make noises about retiring too and she had been Varia long enough not to get sentimental about the fact that the rat Bel was chasing was Nono's son. Mab had stepped down from being Mist Squad Leader shortly after spending two months roughing it with Squalo, so she was probably free and in need of something to keep her busy…


	81. Chapter 81

It baffles me that some people seem to think there is no middle ground between 'defrost Xanxus right now' and 'keep him on ice for eight years'. Have a little faith please? I do have a plan.

Beta'd by the fashionable Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of venturing into hostile territory and how to survive it **

Rence knew that as soon as the elf had taken Parvati back to Potter Manor the seventeen-year-old had to have dashed to Rhea in a near-panic to explain the invitation to tea with the retired Ottava of the Vongola and beg to be loaned powerful social backup –alongside Rence himself of course– so he wasn't surprised when three days later another Potter elf arrived at the farmhouse right after breakfast with Potter customers in urgent need of rings.

Somewhat surprising however was that the two ladies in question were Dawn Woodmore and Odile Wilkes. Dawn wasn't all that surprising considering, as she was Rhea's Black representative on the Wizengamot and therefore his liege-lady's political heavy hitter, but Croc was an unexpected addition.

"I am Rhea's guest," Odile told him haughtily in response to his raised eyebrow, "not her vassal. I go where I please and Parvati agreed I could be her plus one."

Parvati must have been delighted; having the Crocodile at your back at a potentially hostile tea party was like taking a Muggle grenade launcher to shoot ducks; effective provided you didn't mind that the mess made of the targets would inevitably ruin your outfit. Brave as Parvati might be, having Crocodile at your back was assurance of the potential overkill kind; however, considering they were dealing with a mafia family, overkill would be welcome.

"I have agreed to accept my ring on long-term loan from Rhea," Odile went on, "as she is providing the gem and the metal; full payment terms to be agreed later. All you have to do is ensure they are ready in time."

Dawn then handed over the small casket in her hands; Rence opened it to find a selection of blue spinel, bazzite, amethyst and xanthite, along with small metal bars and one of the old Potter journals; one he recognised. That particular Potter had done commissions for a variety of Ancient and Noble Families, the Blacks included. That was good; he could re-use those same alloys without having to worry about whether or not they would work.

"A Mazarin-cut spinel for me, I believe," Dawn said easily, "yes, that one there; selecting something for Odile will be more problematic though."

Rence nodded, accepting the judgement –Dawn's precognition of anything short on human variables was positively uncanny– and tucked the chest under one arm before leading the way to the workshop. Talbot was working elsewhere today –he'd knocked off the rings the Vongola had wanted in just two days– so Rence had the place to himself. He started by handing Odile the stack of designs, a few more sheets of parchment and a new quill.

"Here, take your pick; if you don't like any of them feel free to come up with your own design."

Odile nodded sharply, perching on the stool in front of the desk Rence used for drawing and beginning her perusal. Dawn meanwhile sat in the customer chair as Rence went through the contents of the chest more slowly, sorting the gems by class and the metals by property. Some metals added hardness to an alloy, others resistance to heat and others still increased the conductivity of Flames. It was a delicate balancing act, but the journal Rhea had included –likely at Dawn's instigation– was extremely precise in how everything was to be proportioned for each alloy.

"I take it you already have a design in mind?" the green-haired vassal of House Potter said once he had everything in the workshop ordered to his satisfaction.

Dawn inclined her head with a small smile. "Page twenty-seven, near the top; I'd like it in a platinum alloy, please."

Rence flicked forward to the right page and hummed at the neat sketch of a gem held in a crow's claw with light feathering etched on the band. "How very Black of you," he said, amused. It was a design a Black had once commissioned, but even if the Blacks still had the ring, the original stone had been a diamond and those really weren't suitable for Flame-Active people unless their control was seriously excellent. "I'll bring it over at New Year, so you'll have a day to practice in."

"Thank-you Rence; Rhea has agreed that House Black will pay for your time," Dawn informed him. "I'll be leaving now; an elf will be back for Odile in the evening."

"It's going to take that long?" Rence shook his head. "Never mind, don't answer that; it might and that's enough. I'll get started on Parvati's ring in the meantime."

"See you at New Year," Dawn said, smiling impishly before letting herself out of the workshop. She was probably heading out down the hillside past the edge of the Wards, from whence she could Apparate anywhere she wanted to.

"Goodbye!" Rence called after her, then tidied away everything he was not currently using, pulled on his green leather work tunic and set about stoking the forge-fire. The alloy for Parvati's ring was already made up, so he just had to heat and shape the metal into the design she had chosen. Considering how very hard and heat resistant Flame-alloys were however, that would take him some time.

Odile he ignored; when she wanted something she would tell him and in the meantime she wasn't the sort to poke about. She was however highly particular, so the matter of selecting a ring design she liked was probably going to take hours, as would selecting a gem she liked the feel of.

Rence might actually go ahead and facet all the purple gems to their best advantage, so she could make a more informed decision. It would mean Croc having to come back again after Christmas, but she would probably consider that a small price to pay for a 'proper' choice.

* * *

Parvati's ring, with its two emeralds and elegantly flowing design, took Rence all of three hours to complete, considering he already had the alloy ready and the gems faceted. Then he set it aside to cool, retrieved the blue spinel Dawn had indicated would serve her best, sat down at the work table and got out the spotlight and various tools required when preparing to facet a gemstone. He had to determine the gem's natural cleavage, so he could take advantage of it and cut along it rather than against it. Opposing a gem's cleavage was as likely to shatter it as not and weakened the resulting product, so getting the maths right was essential.

It was however a long, slow process for somebody as unpractised as Rence was; Talbot could do it by eye, but he had over five hundred years of experience. The apprentice let time slip away from him as he measured angles, refraction and distances; getting this right was the most important part of making a ring. A bad alloy mix could be rectified to a degree with individual elements smelted out and then remixed in the proper proportions –whether or not it was worth it depended on the value of the metals, what was wrong with the alloy and how difficult the chemistry was– but a shattered gem could not be fixed, not even with magic. It just wasn't how gemstones worked. Repair spells, or even Alchemical repair techniques, just could not restore crystals to their original state, as they joined the broken pieces together with magic. Soulfire worked into those pre-existing weaknesses and shattered the spells, reducing the gem to shards once more. It might be possible to Alchemically grow a gem, but Rence had never heard of it being done and wasn't actually interested in trying.

Given his recent success in cutting the emerald on his own ring, Rence settled for triple-checking his calculations rather that sextuple-checking like he had before. He also managed to tot up the numbers rather faster, having experience in how they were supposed to look and being less nervous since his Master wasn't hovering behind him, making a mental tally of every stumble and mistake. That done, Rence decided it was time for lunch. Well, time to make lunch if he wanted to eat in a timely manner; there were no house-elves at the farm that Talbot supposedly lived in. Talbot might have spent a lot of time here but it wasn't his home; his home was with his wife.

"Croc, I'm doing lunch; pasta," the green vassal of House Potter said without looking around. If Odile wanted some she'd come and take some, she was direct like that. He was going to cook for two on the assumption that she _would_ want some, because even if she didn't he could stick the leftovers under a Stasis Charm and eat them later.

Much as Rence had expected, the Crocodile did indeed arrive in the kitchen just as he was serving the food: she took the spoon off him and served herself a bowlful, then made herself comfortable at the table. Rence didn't comment; that she was comfortable enough with him to forgo polite manners was actually a sign of friendly acceptance. Well, as friendly as the former Head Girl ever got.

"Made up your mind yet?" he asked.

Odile gave him a Look. It was a very eloquent Look.

"Right, fine, forget I said anything," Rence backpedalled; it was just a question! "It's going to take me at least a week to cut all the high-quality gems even if I _don't_ take Christmas off, so you've got until the twenty-eighth to come to a decision. If you haven't then I'll ask Rhea to, since it's her money."

Odile nodded sharply. "Fair enough," she conceded shortly.

* * *

Rence _did_ take Christmas off, if only because Talbot kicked him out of the workshop at nine o' clock at night on Christmas Eve and told him not to come back until Boxing Day; apparently the old man had better things to do than supervise him. Considering Talbot was really Nicholas Flamel and married to the very pretty Perenelle, Rence could see the man's point so he went quietly.

Christmas in Potter Manor was a cheerful, brightly-coloured riot, with little Cassie and Marius toddling at alarming speed and starting to talk coherently and just about all of the original Study Group showing up after lunch to hang out, chat about what they'd been up to and plot for the upcoming year. Percy Weasley stopped by to see his younger brothers and mentioned that they weren't even halfway through the Archives yet, so there was another eighteen months' work yet to be done there, minimum. That provided a timeline for Rhea eventually leaving the country, though Rence knew that Costanzo Zabini was counting on getting inside information concerning his lady's missing husband within the year so it might not take that long. Certainly Blaise was already in negotiations to buy up land in a certain part of Sicily and had even put in a bid on a house. At least when they emigrated Rence would already know the language.

Luna was back from her six-month post-graduation tour to Japan –the land of Pokémon was how she phrased it– and had given everybody manga, Pokémon cards or exotic books as presents. Neville was back from studying for his Herbology Mastery in South America for the holidays and had given everybody pot-plants –some more dangerous than others– and Justin Finch-Fletchley was deep in a discussion of politics with Sally-Anne Truman née Perks, as he was currently cramming so he could get into Muggle University and study the subject properly. All in all it was a proper get-together of the sort Rence had missed since he followed Rhea in leaving Hogwarts and he enjoyed every second of it, even though it meant downing a Hangover Potion at six in the morning after barely three hours sleep so he could get back to Sicily so the rings would be finished before the New Year.

Rence spent the next week in a haze of mathematics, chemistry –those books Rhea's cousin Trish had got him three Christmases ago on 'under-graduate metallurgy' were a godsend– and intensely hard work, but it all paid off: on New Year's Eve he had two more completed rings and a dozen more good-quality faceted focuses ready for setting.

Odile had informed him of her choice on the twenty-eighth, presenting him with an incredibly challenging asymmetric ring design featuring an endless stranded knot of thorny platinum strands surrounding a gem, but he'd made it work and it looked _good_. Rence had added in the design to his own workbook as a Black Design, since Rhea was paying for it, and had told Odile that she should get a discount on terms for coming up with it. The tall, willowy ash blonde had gotten a look in her eye that suggested negotiations were imminent and might get messy, but she had said nothing and simply dragged Rence back to Potter Manor with her, to 'get some sleep and change into something _respectable_ so you don't show your Lady up'. Rence had better sense than to oppose the Crocodile and he needed to know what the ladies he was visiting with had in mind, so he did not protest.

In the end Rence found himself standing in the front Hall of Potter Manor right after lunch on the second of January, wearing fitted leather trousers tucked into knee boots, a fancy shirt under a sleeveless dragonhide vest and a tabard belted at the waist over the top. He also had forearm bracers that covered his knuckles, also in dragonhide, and his shield slung across his back. The shirt was white, but everything else was in shades of green, the dragonhide included. Oh, and he was wearing his ring, of course. All four of them were.

Dawn was smartly and impeccably dressed in a ruffled cream silk blouse and a chocolate brown tweed ankle skirt and suit jacket with blue accents that perfectly set off her auburn hair and lively grey eyes. She was wearing suede boots in a subdued shade of blue rather than flimsy heels, which was practical since there was still a good chance they'd have to run for their lives at some point. Rence was pretty sure she also had throwing knives in her sleeves and even more tucked inside her jacket lining in addition to the very lovely sapphire and pearl necklace and earrings that completed her appearance.

Odile was wearing a dull lilac dress with considerably more material in the skirt than was immediately apparent, a high neckline and long, close-fitting sleeves. It was far more robe-like than what Dawn was wearing, but then again Dawn had been raised mostly-Muggle and Odile hadn't. Over the dress Odile wore a dark grey jacket and hat, which made her look even taller and thinner than she was, and she had sleek black low-heeled duelling boots on her feet. She could probably walk over lava in those boots without damaging them. Odile's favoured weapon was the chain-whip, which she had wrapped around her waist in almost plain sight, barely camouflaged by her sash. Her only jewellery other than her thorny ring was a simple pearl necklace, probably a family heirloom.

Parvati in comparison looked much younger and less dangerous in a vibrant green and gold sari, sandals on her feet and a wealth of gold jewellery around her neck, arms, in her hair and hanging from her ears. It was a lie though; Parvati might not have weapons training but she was wickedly accurate at throwing Hardened Flame darts with her new ring and could embed one in solid metal.

All the ladies had their rings on and had left their wands behind; this was after all a foray into Muggle and later mafia territory.

"Time to face the music then," Rence said, turning to the elf that would be transporting them to where the Zabini had arranged for a car to pick them up. The driver was _not_ a Zabini, but he was married to a Zabini and knew how to keep his mouth shut.

Parvati walked closer so she could grab hold of Rence's left arm, while Odile wrapped her fingers around his right and reached out with her other hand to brace against Dawn's shoulder. Dawn held out a hand to Loppy, the elf responsible for taking them to Sicily, and smiled.

"Once more into the breach, my friends."

* * *

Ganauche was very excited. So excited, in fact, that he was having to work hard not to bounce on the spot; Knight and Seer were coming to visit Ottava, and they were bringing friends! Ganauche didn't think Knight would be bringing his Lady –they weren't that lucky and Knight wasn't that stupid– but more people! People who were part of a group that had unadulterated Lightnings! People with odd weapons and unusual talents!

It hadn't taken much to persuade Nono to let him 'sit in' on the tea party –his Boss was as curious as he was– so Ganauche was at Ottava's service today. The old lady had twinkled knowingly at him when he showed up in her wing this morning, but in the Vongola gossip moved faster than thought so there would be a _lot_ of people 'casually' passing by and hoping to catch a glimpse of the Lightning who had made fools of Nono's Storm and Rain.

Coyote was still seething quietly about that; Schnitten was more pragmatic. Pride went before a fall after all and the Rain had a rather lower view of his skills than any of Nono's other Guardians, with the possible exception of Brow Nie. Though, Ganauche reflected, that might also have something to do with Schnitten having been very heavily scarred and badly beaten by the then-eight-year-old Varia Storm Officer during the Cradle Affair… genius or not, the kid had been _eight_.

Ganauche stopped pondering the reasons for his fellow Guardian's poor self-image as a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit III in glossy black purred into view up the driveway. It was a fabulously beautiful, powerful and expensive car, probably a few years old and very definitely armoured, considering how low to the ground it was riding. That was only sensible really; they were visiting mafia territory and accidents happened, even on Vongola territory. Of course Seer, Knight and their two associates were guests so in case of attack Ganauche would be leaping in to deal with the problem before they could get so much as a scratch, or at least that was the plan. If there was one thing Ganauche had learned from his unexpected career path –as a kid he'd never expected to be a Lightning– it was that nothing ever went quite the way you'd hoped it would.

The gorgeous car came to a halt right by where the Lightning Guardian was standing and Knight emerged from the front passenger seat, looking rather medieval. However he did not turn to greet Ganauche; instead he opened the rear passenger door and bent down, holding out a hand to whoever was inside.

A gloved hand emerged, then a pair of blue boots and the next thing Ganauche knew he was faced with a tall and smiling lady with auburn hair and silver-grey eyes, who held out her hand angled in such a way it was clear he was _not_ expected to shake it. Obedient to the apparent social standard being set, Ganauche bent over her hand while maintaining eye contact and smiled charmingly.

"A pleasure, lady..?"

"Veritas," the elegant Rain told him serenely in impeccable Italian. "You must be Ganauche; Knight mentioned you."

"All good things I hope," Ganauche replied playfully, releasing her hand and turning to get a better look at who else had come out of the car, but failed to do so as somebody else stepped into his field of view.

"So this is the Lightning," said the woman who had just boxed him in. She was even taller than Veritas and visibly slimmer, wearing distinctly old-fashioned clothing and had on her face the most disconcertingly calculating expression Ganauche had ever seen. "I am the Crocodile; I will be speaking for Seer today." She notably did not offer him her hand.

Ganauche did not flinch, blink, swallow, pale or squeak, no matter how much he wanted to; he was representing the Vongola and it would look bad. He had met quite a few Clouds of both genders, but this _Coccodrillo_ was right up there on the 'shamelessly predatory' end of the scale. The Guardian really had to applaud Seer for knowing somebody like this and managing to persuade them to speak on her behalf; somebody was clearly well-versed in strategy. Well, that or the self-professed Crocodile had thought this sounded like a good way to expand and enhance her influence and invited herself along, which was equally likely. Everyone except Skies generally worked _around_ Clouds, and even Skies accepted that working around was less likely to cause trouble unless it was really important.

Clouds were however rarer than any other Flame-type except Skies, so Knight and his lady having a Cloud in their sphere of influence was something to make a note of, particularly when said Cloud referred to themselves as 'the Crocodile'. As nicknames went it was both somewhat unflattering and rather ominous.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Ganauche said diplomatically, making the Crocodile's eyebrow twitch slightly. It seemed this Cloud was one of those who used Multiplication to enhance their senses and reflexes; she clearly could tell that he was lying out of politeness. Being a Cloud, she likely considered manners a weakness. She didn't comment on them though; instead she waved a languid hand in his direction.

"Lead on then, _Cioccolatino_," she told him.

Ganauche twitched. Despite his codename being a kind of sweet he didn't like it when people referred to him as though he was something small and edible. It was demeaning! Of course Crocodile noticed his discomfort and smirked at him, the wide, thin smile suggesting it may have played a part in earning her codename. It was a _very_ crocodilian expression.

"We don't want to be late," added Knight from off to one side, where he was standing with Seer nervously clutching his right arm. Ganauche noted that Seer was the youngest in the group, possibly by several years. They were probably all going to be very protective of her; actually that might explain why Crocodile and Veritas were here, as it had been Seer who had been personally invited to visit Ottava, with Knight getting an invitation as well so as to make it harder for the girl to refuse. That Seer had come to Ottava's tea party so supported suggested that she was important to Knight's lady, or at least that she knew important things said lady wished to protect from a prying Sky.

"This way then please; follow me," the Lightning Guardian said easily, turning his back on the party and leading the way indoors. Glancing back as he crossed the threshold he saw that Veritas was leading the party, followed by Knight and Seer with Crocodile bringing up the rear. Tactically sound, keeping the youngest and least strong member of the group in the middle, the formation also suggested that both Veritas and Crocodile were more offensively orientated than Knight.

Ganauche did not doubt that all four were armed. They certainly moved like they had combat training, although Seer probably had far less than the other three; to do with her age perhaps, or maybe due to not being part of the same group? The Lightning Guardian got the impression that Knight, Veritas and Crocodile considered Seer to be under their protection but not actually 'one of them'; that suggested one group protecting and another, potentially larger group enjoying protection and using it to further different, more specialised skills. While 'more specialised' could mean anything, it was probably less formal and expensive than Knight's apprenticeship to Talbot. Seer was mostly civilian, but there were a lot of mafia women like that. The vast majority of Ottava's protégées were 'mostly civilian'; women like Crocodile and Veritas –because the smiling Rain was a warrior or he really _was_ a chocolate pudding– were rather rare.

Of combat-inclined women with Flames, Ganauche only knew Ottava and her Cloud Adriana, Massimo's Cloud Claudia –who was Adriana's great-niece– and Lal Mirch, the Arcobaleno attached to the CEDEF. Most of the other Flame-capable women were in support roles, like Medical, Housekeeping, Education or R&amp;D. Oh, and there were probably a handful of women in the Varia, no matter _what_ rumours about the Varia being 'male only' said. Ganauche had been there when Superbi manipulated Don Scarlatti into handing over his daughter and the Varia Boss wouldn't have bothered with getting his hands on the girl if having women in the Varia wasn't somewhat normal.

All in all, this was shaping up to be a _very_ interesting tea party, and they hadn't even reached Ottava's wing yet.

* * *

Translations 

Coccodrillo = crocodile (Italian);

Cioccolatino = little chocolate (Italian).


	82. Chapter 82

This really _is_ the last chapter I'll be uploading for a while, so thank-you everyone for your support! I'll be updating again once I've got enough chapters lined up.

Beta'd by the inestimable Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of waging impeccably polite warfare **

Rence followed after Dawn with Parvati gripping his arm, Odile bringing up the rear behind them as they were led into Vongola Headquarters by Ganauche the Lightning Guardian. Despite being dizzyingly busy of late, Rence had still made time to read the reports Dorea forwarded to him via owl concerning the search for her husband, which always included a lot of information and rumours about the Vongola. The Zabini responsible for collating the data did colour-code their notes according to whether something particular was proven truth or just hyperbole, but one thing that _was_ true was that Vongola Headquarters was sometimes called 'the Iron Fort'. It wasn't the most reassuring of names considering they were walking into it, but Rence knew it was generally easier to escape forts than get into them in the first place; they were built to repel attackers, not contain prisoners.

The important thing was to not name names, not mention the Zabini and not so much as _hint_ that they were interested in Xanxus beyond it being interesting gossip, and even then only if Madam Vongola mentioned it first. Parvati had the advantage there, as being outside the core Study Group she didn't know that the reason Rhea was investigating the Vongola had anything to do with 'Xanxus Vongola'. In public back in Britain Rhea referred to her husband as 'Alexandro Zabini' when she named him at all; generally she stuck to calling him 'my husband' or 'my consort', though the latter was generally reserved for situations when she was being Lady Black Regent. With Martial Law still ongoing she did not actually have to appear in public, but visiting some of the Black holdings went so much more smoothly now she was married and had a body double of her husband with her to be intimidating.

It was vitally important that Rhea did _not_ come to the attention of the Vongola, considering her husband had apparently been involved in an attempted coup at the time of his freezing. The Cradle Affair –what a silly name– did go a long way towards explaining _why_ Alexandro Zabini was currently on ice, but it just made it all the more important to keep Rhea well away from Don Vongola and his allies. His Lady held her husband's Flames within her and they were highly distinctive; getting recognised would probably lead to her being imprisoned herself, and pressured by the mafia if not. If they found out about the children... no, better to keep Rhea _away_ from her husband's captors until they had said husband back, so the Principe Zabini could then decide for himself how best to go about dealing with the mafia connection.

Not talking about the Zabini was covered by the Statute of Secrecy, since the Zabini Family more or less coincided with the Magical Principality of Sabina, so the main challenge would be not naming names. Rence knew that over Christmas Rhea had sat down with Zee, Dee and Dawn and brainstormed codenames for everyone in the so-called 'Command Team' as well as all those Constellation members who would be coming of age in the coming year, so as to be prepared. He of course was 'Knight', but some of the other nicknames were a little odd. Why on earth Rhea thought 'Negotiator' was a suitable name for Barty was a mystery, unless it was a joke; if that was the case his Lady's sense of humour was more broken than Rence had already suspected it was. Theo being 'Poet' was rather suitable though, as was the Prewetts being 'Thing One' and 'Thing Two', with Jerry as 'Thing One'. Calling each-other 'One' and 'Two' had promptly been included in the Prewett double-act repertoire, though they didn't swap names just to be confusing like they did as Fred and George.

Rence firmly diverted his mind back to the present and his current surroundings. The hallway was very baroque, with ridiculously fancy ceilings but rather plain walls, lit by sconces and chandeliers that mimicked candles but looked to have been powered by gas before being converted to run on electricity. The walls were painted in muted pastel shades but the ceilings were all frescoes and plaster curlicues with gilded highlights, elegant and ridiculous.

Careful scrutiny revealed patches where the fresco had been redone more recently, possibly to cover places damaged by fights or youthful stupidity; Rence had done quite a bit of damage himself during the former, even as defensively orientated as he was during practices and training bouts. Rence had heard enough stories from Dee to know to _never_ underestimate the abilities of young, eager and Flame-capable teenagers and if Soulfire training was as widespread in the Vongola as the records suggested, then this building had done well to still be standing.

They weren't headed into the main body of the building though; their elderly hostess apparently resided in one of the wings. Rence was however more concerned by quite how many people 'just happened' to pass them in the corridor and the itchy feeling in the back of his head that said somebody was using Mist Flames to spy on them. It didn't feel malicious –Rence lacked his lady's instincts but he had a sense for trouble honed by watching out for said lady and her friends– but it still wasn't comfortable.

"Is the staring normal?" he asked, in Italian of course. Ganauche turned around, eyes flicking around at all the people vanishing into rooms and down side-passages before chuckling.

"Heh, no. You made an impression though and everybody's been gossiping about how you beat Coyote and Schnitten since before Christmas."

Rence snorted. "I just surprised them; if they'd bothered to counter-attack I would probably have gone down eventually."

Ganauche nodded seriously, dropping back to walk beside him as they continued along the hall. "Exactly; you'd have lost _eventually_. As Nono's Guardians we're supposed to be the best there is but you were outnumbered and ambushed yet _still_ won the first round. That makes an impression."

"A good impression, I hope?" Parvati asked, also in Italian. After telling Dorea all about that initial encounter and the invitation to tea, Parvati had asked to be allowed access to the Ministry's Language Repository, so as to be fluent in Italian in time for the New Year. The Indian teen had subsequently spent Christmas unable to speak anything _except_ Italian and still had trouble finding the right words in English, French and Hindi, but as the newly-acquired language 'settled' her other languages were finally coming back to her. It had also had the happy effect of making Parvati very popular with the legion of Zabini rotating in and out of Potter Manor during the holidays to wish Rhea and her children well.

Ganauche raised an eyebrow. "I thought you did not speak Italian, Miss Seer?"

"I did not," Parvati said simply with a dazzling smile, "but that was then; this is now."

"Ah." Ganauche did not pry further. "And yes, it was a good impression; more or less. Certainly everybody is very impressed."

In other words, Rence realised, everybody and their mother wanted to come and gawk at him. Wonderful.

* * *

Knight was still about as expressive as a green brick wall, but Ganauche had seen the irritated little grimace he made after being told why everybody was staring. It seemed Talbot's apprentice wasn't keen on being the centre of attention, which was seriously odd for a Lightning. Ganauche knew _he_ certainly rather liked having everybody paying attention to him, and he was only half-Lightning; even the really zombie-like Lightnings without any actual personality tended to do flashy stuff now and again just to get people to stare! Not liking attention and recognition was so un-Lightning it was a bit strange, really.

"Don't you like it?" Ganauche asked bluntly, because sometimes it was better to ask than extrapolate and assumptions had been what had started off the whole mess at Talbot's workshop in the first place.

Knight looked pained. "Not particularly; I dislike being stared at."

A Lightning who didn't like attention. Now Ganauche really _had_ seen everything.

"You don't mind it when your Lady looks at you," Veritas said teasingly. Knight went slightly pink, which looked very odd considering the greenish tint of his skin. This was what a brick wall blushing looked like, Ganauche realised.

"That's different; she's my _Lady_ and she's always paying attention anyway."

Ah, confusion over: Knight _did_ like attention, so long as it came from one very specific source. How very knightly and courtly-love of him; hadn't he mentioned that his lady was married though? How did _that_ work out? Were Knight and his Lady lovers, or was it a genuinely platonic attachment? The name of 'Knight' suggested the latter, but still how did it work out considering she was married?

Ganauche would have to live with his curiosity though, because he could tell that even the slightest mis-wording of that kind of question would have the Green Knight trying to take his head off for disrespect. Possibly even succeeding, which would be extremely uncomfortable and very final for Ganauche. Sure, Knight carried a shield, but he had a ring too and the property of Lightning Flames was Hardness, so taking a person's head off with them was _easy_ provided you hit with enough force in the right place.

* * *

Daniela Vongola brightened as the hallway door opened, letting in her son's latest Lightning Guardian and her four guests. Knight and Seer were both very smartly dressed –if in rather dated clothing in Knight's case– as were their companions, both of whom were women. Flame-Active and _interesting_ women; the Cloud was the sort Ottava would have loved to have at her back during the war and the Rain had a quiet depth to her that reminded Daniela of her first and much-missed Rain Guardian. Dear Tito had been wonderfully grounding and kind, and had been the inventor of Shellshock Therapy which later Rains had refined to treat the PTSD that surfaced so frequently now that firearms and explosives were widespread.

Of course, Tito hadn't actually invented it to treat shellshock; he'd been trying to get baby Timoteo to sleep through the night. It was funny how those sorts of things happened.

To Daniela's right Petronilla and Giulia, two of her protégées who belonged to the group her youngest grandson's right-hand-man had dubbed 'the Harpies', perked up and paid avid if discreet attention to the quartet as Ganauche took their coats. Both of the taller women were very conservatively dressed for girls of their age –Daniela had worn a skirt suit like the Rain's before becoming Boss and the Cloud's dress was positively Victorian– but the outfits were still flattering.

Watching them sit down was _fascinating_: Knight waved off Ganauche and pulled out the seat directly opposite Ottava for the Rain to sit in, the seat to the Rain's left –next to Giulia– for the Cloud, then the seat to the Rain's right for Seer. Then rather than sit down himself in the last seat –between Seer and Adriana, Daniela's Cloud– Knight walked back to stand behind the Rain, slightly to her left so as to be firmly between the table and the door. Ganauche took his cue from his fellow Lightning and moved to stand behind the retired Ottava, so he had a good view of the door and could look Knight in the eye.

"Lady Ottava, these are Veritas and Crocodile," Knight said quietly, gesturing first at the Rain, then the Cloud. "Veritas is my Lady's representative and speaks on her behalf; the Crocodile offered her assistance to Seer and was accepted."

So much dancing between those few lines; Daniela was impressed and not just because the Cloud called Crocodile was barely bothering to hide the chain-whip wrapped around her waist and scrutinising Adriana –who was directly opposite the younger woman– with lidded eyes. Adriana had stiffened as soon as the younger Cloud entered the room and even now looked ever so slightly like an offended cat; hopefully this would not dissolve into a territorial Cloud-spat before she even managed to serve the tea. Adriana had far too much self-control to be provoked like that, but the younger Cloud was an unknown and quite shamelessly predatory; the name of _Il Coccodrillo _however suggested that she, too, could wait for the right time to strike.

That the Rain was called 'Truth' was very suggestive indeed; Daniela hoped that the reason for that would become clear, as the attractive young redhead seemed rather more subtle than her name indicated. Maybe it would become clearer with time and conversation.

"Tea?" Daniela asked, indicating the teapot after everybody around the table had been introduced. Interestingly it was Knight who picked up the pot, moving around the table to pour the drinks. The retired Vongola Boss noted with interest that right after picking up the pot Knight had paused, an almost imperceptible twitch of energy flickering around his hands before he poured Veritas some tea. Now why would he do that? Her Instincts suggested he'd been checking the tea for potential tampering, but Daniela wasn't sure _how_ a person could use Lightning Flames for such a thing.

After pouring the tea for the three ladies he had accompanied, Knight caught Ganauche's eye and offered him the teapot. The young Guardian responded immediately, moving quietly around the table to take the teapot from his fellow Lightning's hands and pour the drinks for the ladies on _his_ side of the table. Daniela had never seen etiquette like it, but it did make sense; nobody wanted a strange Flame-user moving around behind them. It was why a good portion of Housekeeping was specially selected to _not_ be capable of accessing their Flames; hosting parties could otherwise get rather fraught. She would have to remember this method as a valid alternative, especially for closed room meetings where confidentiality meant Housekeeping were barred from entering. Not that she hosted many such meetings these days, but her son would probably be interested.

Drinks served, Ottava took it upon herself to fire the opening volley. "I am very pleased you were able to accept my invitation, Seer," she said, looking directly at the teenager in the elegant green and gold sari. "I hope we can put the misunderstanding at Talbot's workshop behind us." Even though the young woman didn't understand Italian, it was still important to look at her during conversation.

Unexpectedly, Seer actually replied directly. In Italian, even. "Rest assured that I do not blame you in the slightest," the young Lightning said prettily with impeccable politeness. Daniela paused.

"Your Italian is very good," the elderly Sky said leadingly.

"I put my Christmas holidays to good use," Seer said sweetly. "I wanted to be able to participate directly in conversation."

Daniela silently added a capable Mist to her mental list of flame-users Knight's group had access to. Becoming fluent in a language in barely a fortnight was impossible without the assistance of a well-trained Mist. More and more interesting, this group of people was becoming. They had to have a Sky, which was probably Knight's Lady or maybe her husband, if he was letting his wife's people take the lead. Very interesting…

"So, I see that Knight has completed your ring," Ottava said, picking up another tangent. "I've not seen one so delicately made before; does it work well for you?"

Seer smiled brightly. "Wonderfully well: it is very precise and perfect for detailing. I've made more progress in the past week than the last half-year!"

"Detailing?" Daniela pressed gently, her face a study of interest. She genuinely _was_ interested, but right now it was the people at the table, not their preferred activities, that held her attention.

"Seer is an artist," Crocodile intercepted smoothly, smiling thinly over the cup and saucer cradled in her hands. "She carves stone, especially precious stones. It's been mostly simple things up until now, but she started on a layered puzzle ball right after Christmas, didn't you Seer?"

"I wouldn't call myself an _artist_," Seer demurred, lashes fluttering. "It's just a pastime. But yes, I managed to create a simple three-layered soapstone ball with my ring; it gives me so much more control over the carving process. I still need to decorate it, of course, but I have all manner of ideas for new projects!"

"I would very much like to see your work," Daniela said brightly, smiling over her own teacup.

"It is rather unlikely that Seer will be able to visit again," Veritas said pleasantly, setting her own teacup down upon the table and lacing her fingers together, casually drawing attention to her own ring with its blue stone. That was very well done of her, truly. "School begins again soon and she has other commitments besides."

Ah, a defensive manoeuvre! Daniela had been wondering when they would begin, as it had been very clear from before Christmas that both Seer and Knight would have much preferred to not have anything to do with the Vongola at all; even getting the young woman to agree to this little get-together had been a challenge.

"Visiting an old woman can't be so onerous a chore, surely!" the retired Ottava protested.

"It is quite a way to travel simply to socialise," Veritas said implacably, smile still warm and accommodating, "and my dear lady cousin is concerned how such visits might reflect upon Seer, considering your family's connections. You know how it is."

Finally, a hit! Bringing in the Vongola's criminal history and suggesting that consorting with such despicable people might smear the reputation of an innocent without ever actually _saying_ such a crass thing! Very sneaky; Daniela could not seriously protest without implying either that Seer had no reputation to lose, or that the elder lady did not actually care about the younger woman's wellbeing. Which she did not, but saying so would be terribly impolite and prompt them to break off the tea and leave.

"I'm long since retired from such things," Daniela said instead, not bothering with a denial that her Instincts told her would get her nowhere. "These days I simply entertain myself with the doings of the younger generation, such as Petronilla and Giulia here."

"One can learn a great deal over tea, can one not?" Veritas mused, eyes twinkling slightly as she turned a hand over to examine her manicure. Not the hand the ring was on either, drawing attention away from the potential threat the ring represented; very good indeed! "Even concerning parties who are not present at the table."

Another hit, that one rather closer to home. Veritas knew how to play the game. Daniela smiled sweetly at the challenge. "Gossip is always amusing," she agreed, not going into further detail.

"Yet so often inaccurate," Veritas sighed, "especially when a person hears things from people who were absent from the event in question; I do wonder how outlandish the story of Knight and Seer's little mishap with your son's Guardians has become."

Daniela laughed; oh how delightful! "It has become somewhat ridiculous," she agreed candidly. "Would Knight perhaps be interested in dispelling the rumours?"

"I would not order him to, considering his Lady requested he keep this a civil encounter," Veritas parried calmly.

"So Knight's Lady is your cousin?" Daniela changed the subject again, picking up a hint Veritas had dropped earlier.

"On the other side of the family from Talbot," Veritas replied easily. "She has been very good to us."

So Veritas was in no way connected to the potentially noble family succession Talbot had implied his niece belonged to when he named Knight as his niece's vassal. The young lady still came across as very well bred though, both in appearance and demeanour. Veritas exuded an aura of class, her movements controlled and her voice gentle as her sheer presence dominated the tea table without so much as a hint of Flame enhancement. Petronilla was watching avidly, dark eyes taking in all the fine details as she sipped her tea in silence while Giulia seemed to be more interested in Crocodile. They were such good, observant girls!

"One should always take care of family," Daniela agreed affably. In the lull that followed her statement Knight and Ganauche poured another round of drinks and Giulia took a biscuit, handing the plate to Crocodile who also took one and passed the plate onwards. In the quiet of sipping drinks and nibbling on confectionary Ottava mused over what she had learned and where the conversation could go next. She had quite a few options open to her, some of them more likely to succeed than others. Trying to pressure Seer into coming back was however a lost cause; that much was clear. The Cloud was being territorial of the young Lightning, so attempting new questions about Seer's art was likely doomed to failure. However Daniela still had other openings to test.

Daniela had just set her cup down for the next round when the door opened abruptly and Massimo barged in, followed by his Guardians.

"Grandma, I –" her eldest surviving grandson paused, taking in the tea table, Knight who had spun around and had his shield on his arm rather than slung across his back and the six pairs of reproachful female eyes staring at him. "My apologies for the interruption," Massimo managed after a pause. "Would you introduce me to your guests?"

Daniela was about to introduce and then dismiss the silly boy when Crocodile, clearly scenting weakness, rose from the table and moved to flank Knight in a blatantly confrontational manner. Behind Massimo Claudia bristled and Moro, her grandson's Lightning, slipped slightly sideways so he had more room.

Into this abruptly tenser atmosphere Veritas rose to her feet, stepped between Knight and Crocodile and approached Massimo fearlessly. "I am Veritas; to my right is Crocodile and to my left is Knight. I do hope there is nothing the matter."

Massimo grinned. "No, no; nothing like that. I was just visiting. The same Knight who beat my father's Storm and Rain? A pleasure to meet you, ladies and Knight; I am Massimo Vongola and these are my Guardians Moro and Claudia." He shook Veritas' hand and nodded to the Cloud and Lightning flanking her. "Are they yours?" He added to the Rain.

Veritas shook her head. "No; I am representing Knight's Lady here and Crocodile is her own." The three standing before the table were firmly blocking Seer from view, although Massimo had probably glimpsed her when he walked through the door. They really were protecting the young Lightning then. "Vongola you say; are you perhaps one of Madam Daniela's grandchildren?"

Massimo nodded, still smiling; he was very charming when he smiled. Unfortunately her middle grandson did not do so very often; he generally walked around looking sulky and sour. "Her second grandson; well, the eldest now, I suppose."

"My condolences for your loss," Veritas murmured, just as Daniela's Instincts abruptly flared into life and warned her that everything was about to go cataclysmically wrong. However before she could act, Veritas continued, her voice light and curious as though she was unaware of the weight her words held. "So you are the heir then."

Massimo's smile evaporated. "No," he managed to say reasonably pleasantly, "That is my younger brother."

Veritas cocked her head sideways; Daniela was still wheeling her chair around so she couldn't see the Rain's face, but she had seen Rains do this before, seen them verbally eviscerate the unwary across a bargaining table so that their Boss could advance across the bloody ruins. The Vongola were going to lose this round and possibly the entire game, all because Massimo had got it into his head to visit her without warning! Damn it!

"That is most unexpected; how were you passed over?" Veritas lilted.

"I was deemed less capable than Federico," Massimo gritted out, scowling darkly.

"That seems… extreme," Veritas noted as Crocodile drifted outwards, casually blocking Daniela's progress without ever turning around. "I have only ever heard of heirs being passed over for severe misconduct; in such cases they tend to be evicted from the family altogether, so as to prevent… misunderstandings." The Rain narrowed her eyes at Massimo, her profile abruptly as aloof and unreachable as the moon. "I believe it might be best for us to take out leave. Knight!"

Knight stepped forwards as Veritas stepped back, not drawing on his Flames but calmly awaiting the opportunity to do so. Behind her bodyguard Veritas took Seer's arm as the younger woman rose from her chair.

"Thank-you for having me," the young Lightning said politely, glancing quickly at Petronilla and Giulia before smiling apologetically at Daniela and turning to Ganauche. "Might we have our coats, please?"

Ganauche, clearly well aware that the whole situation was teetering on a knife-edge and actual conflict would be something to avoid, swiftly fetched the ladies' coats from the hooks on the wall. Seer put her own coat on then took Crocodile's as well; the Cloud was maintaining eye-contact with Claudia and idly twirling about a foot of chain-whip from her right hand. Claudia was as stiff as a ramrod, eyes flashing and hands fisted very near her guns; Daniela sighed. Claudia was a grown woman, well into her forties and should have been able to recognise when she was being deliberately antagonised. The silly girl had always been over-protective of Massimo though; Veritas' verbal attack had clearly curtailed all rational thought.

Once dressed to leave Veritas and Seer drifted right towards Crocodile, who drifted further right with Knight keeping between Massimo and the two women who were not obviously armed; this opened up access to the room. Ganauche stepped into the gap and caught Massimo's arm, pleasantly but firmly steering him through the gap with his two tense Guardians sticking to his right flank, between him and the guests. Crocodile then advanced boldly into the hall as Knight turned, giving his back to Veritas and Seer as the followed the Cloud out of the door. Knight then retreated backwards to the doorway, followed by Ganauche who ambled along with both hands clearly visible. Once the entire group was out in the hall Ganauche closed the door and the tension in the room dropped.

"Well, I hope you're proud of yourself grandson," Daniela said dryly. "Veritas just played you impeccably."

"What!" Massimo demanded. "You heard what she said!"

Daniela sighed. "They didn't want to be here," she elaborated, "and your barging in gave them the perfect opportunity to engineer an excuse to leave. I do not believe we'll ever be able to get them back in either; what a waste."

"Isn't the Knight Talbot's apprentice?" Claudia asked. Clearly forethought was yet to be restored, even if the woman was actually thinking now.

Petronilla snorted. "That he is Talbot's apprentice means we have to be even more careful and not say anything that could be perceived as threatening; antagonising the old man would be very, very bad for the Family. We were trying to establish a rapport, create a social connection that could be drawn on for later encounters and you ruined it." The young Mist used the plural 'you', hinting at the fact that Massimo was entirely to blame for the failure.

"_I_ ruined it? She said–" Massimo started hotly.

"Grandson!" Daniela barked. Massimo flinched. "She deliberately provoked you and you responded exactly as she wanted you to. Think on that."

"Yes, Grandma," Massimo grumbled, face once more in its habitual pout. Daniela sighed. Well, there went her chances of ever meeting Knight's Lady; she'd been so _sure_ the woman was or could be very important to the Vongola, too…


	83. Chapter 83

Updating again! But only for a week, as it's been slow going and I've had other stories taking up my mind, as well as RL to keep up with.

Beta'd by the intrepid InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of hobbies and subtlety **

Theo's father had made no secret of the fact that he didn't think his son would ever amount to much. "You have your damned mother's soft heart," he would complain whenever Theo hesitated to practice Dark Magic or paused to ponder his father's dogmatic yet oddly unproven rants about how Muggles were nothing more than animals. Theo had doubted that, wanting to know why and how, which had just sent his father off on another rant that never actually answered Theo's questions.

He'd been wrong about Theo having his mother's soft heart; Theo knew he wasn't a particularly kind or gentle person. What he had done to Umbridge proved that. However he had a working brain and liked to think, which had often gotten him into trouble because his father really had _not_ liked to be questioned. Theo had therefore learned to keep his mouth shut, his ears open and to read everything he could get his hands on, so as to acquire alternative viewpoints. It wasn't until he finally allowed himself to befriend Rhea that he started to let himself ask questions again, and she had never once gotten angry at him for doing so. In fact, she had welcomed his inquisitiveness and encouraged him to seek out answers for himself.

Graduating early had been nice, as it meant he no longer had to limit himself to the Hogwarts Library –and the books from the Come and Go Room, of course– for his studies. Hogwarts was home to the largest library in Britain but a lot of the material was outdated and kept to Ministry standards, so it had largely been supplemental texts from the Come and Go Room along with the unofficial book club that kept him in reading material. None of the extra reading had inspired him to the extent of him wanting to make a career of anything though.

Theo really did not want to take up the mantle of Lord Nott just yet; he wanted to find out more about himself first. His father had not really wanted a son, just a vessel on which to imprint his own standards and values, so Theo had been actively discouraged from doing things he actually enjoyed unless his father approved of them.

His mother's death had come about because she had supported him in his quest for individuality one time too many and his father had lost his temper. Theo remembered that quite vividly and witnessing her death was something that set him apart from most of his peers for a long time; they couldn't see thestrals after all.

Swordsmanship he had learned at his father's behest, although he had come to enjoy it over time. It was quite pleasantly mindless, requiring instinct and awareness rather than abstract thought and quite relaxing after a busy day filled with books. He was now good enough with a Claymore to give anyone pause despite his thin build, which was rather gratifying. Blaise, despite being more broadly built, used a flamberge of the rapier variety.

His pursuit of Mind Magic was however something he had kept well hidden, as his father would no doubt disapprove. Not because it was illegal –Notts were above such petty things– but because his father couldn't see the point of it. It was not a battle skill, nor something that would bring the family money, so what good _was_ it? His father, Theo had come to realise over the years, was truly a short-sighted fool.

Theo was glad to be shot of his father and was quietly grateful to Hermione for having killed him, although he hadn't said as much because it had probably been accidental on her part. Rhea was a much kinder ruler, though the oaths that bound him –and House Nott– to her were relatively light. She had agreed to continue as Nott Regent while he 'got his head on straight' –her words not his– then handed him over to Donald Woodmore for a 'Muggle Familiarisation Course' –again, her words not his. Donnie was a squib, but he was also sharp as a tack, fully adult and a motorcycle engineer, which looked to be easily as complicated and demanding as Alchemy or Enchanting despite not involving magic.

The pureblood had lived with Donnie for twelve months, in which time he'd learned to cook without magic, work a telephone and other domestic appliances, use public transport and taught himself to play guitar.

Theo loved his guitar; he'd always enjoyed the Muggle music on Rhea's wireless that had guitar parts and having one of his own to play loosened something inside him he hadn't known was there. It hadn't taken him long to get the hang of the chords and then he'd been off, copying music from the wireless and off the telly and singing along to his playing. Donnie had however caught him at it one evening and somehow talked him into coming down to the pub to play; that had been when Theo discovered that Muggles would give you money for playing music they liked. How very different.

Theo had also discovered that his accent and diction were considered assets in some professions and had been recruited into an amateur dramatics club before he quite realised what was going on. Not that he minded, per se; it just would have been nice to be asked. Still, acting was something that didn't really exist as a profession in Magical Britain, which was quite a contrast from Muggle Britain where you could make millions at it if you knew the right people.

Not that Theo was interested in getting to know the right people, but helping out with costumes and props backstage taught him a lot of useful stuff about Muggles generally, particularly how uniforms could make a person invisible. Knowing where to get a uniform from opened up an entire new world for him and soon Theo was slipping into restaurants and helping wait at tables, dressing as a postman and being let into gated communities and doing all manner of other interesting Muggle things, aided by a suitable uniform and a touch of Mist Flames to fill in the fine details.

Before he knew it an entire year had gone by.

* * *

Coming home to Donnie having bought him a cake to celebrate 'one year in the real world' was a wake-up call, because Theo knew this year had been a gift from Rhea. She'd arranged it, she'd taken over his family responsibilities, she'd given him the funds he'd needed to settle in until he found his own ways of making money. It was more than he'd ever hoped for, so much more than he'd realised was possible, and he really couldn't just let that lie. He had to reciprocate somehow.

So Theo regretfully said goodbye to the friends he'd made and to Donnie, thanked everyone for being kind to him during his 'gap year' and went back to Potter Manor to see what he could do for Rhea. He owed her; it was as simple as that.

Taking over authority for the Nott Estate was tedious, but Remus Lupin Call-Me-Moony was happy to explain everything to him and continue with the day-to-day management on his behalf, so it didn't actually need much work once he knew what he was doing. Rhea on the other hand had a much more complicated request: she wanted him to experiment more heavily with Mist Flames and help her cousin Trish work out what the limits of Mist Flames were, if indeed there _were_ any limits.

That was hard work, but great fun. Theo learned a lot doing that. Most importantly, he learned that Mist Flames were like religion: it was all about faith. If you believed it could be done, then you could do it, whatever 'it' was. However if you didn't believe, you were stuck.

Theo spent quite a lot of the next few months slightly drunk, euphoric from Cheering Charms and –one highly memorable day– giddy from Felix Felicis, all in the name of science; obtaining that last potion had been easier than it might have been, as Rhea had a Potions Mastery and Frank Prewett was in the process of gaining one as well. It was that last one that finally obliterated all his doubts and fears; he was a Mist and he could do anything he wanted to do… except upset Rhea. Because while using Mist Flames made him feel accomplished and in control, Rhea made him feel appreciated, like he _belonged_. It was the best possible feeling and Theo never wanted to lose it.

Then Christmas came around and Dawn approached him to ask if he'd be willing to take a few risks, for Rhea of course. Rence and Parvati had been invited to the Vongola Mansion for tea and Dawn would be accompanying them to try and keep the risks at a minimum, but Dawn had a feeling that Rhea's husband was in the Mansion somewhere. Theo couldn't physically come along, as only four guests had been agreed on and the fourth was going to be Odile, but could Theo come along some other way?

Muggles had so many wonderful ideas that his supplementary reading and 'gap' year had exposed him to, one of which was Astral Projection. Then there was Possession, which could only be done if a person gave permission for it somehow. Dawn agreed, so Theo went along to tea with the retired Vongola Ottava in the back of Dawn's head. Nobody noticed him of course; he wasn't doing anything except watching the world through her eyes and her Flames completely concealed his own.

He got a very good look at the building's defences though, and memorised the faces of several members of staff. He could hunt them down later and possess _them_ for a while, getting to know their routines and the inner workings of the Vongola Family. Finding Rhea's husband would be a nice bonus, but Theo thought it unlikely. If, once he'd got a good feel for the culture of the staff, he infiltrated the building, _then_ he could look for Alexandro Zabini. But not before then; it would be too risky.

He was going to have to talk to Blaise about how the property situation was going; if he was going to infiltrate properly he needed to have a house nearby. Especially if he was going to untangle those Wards around the Vongola mansion; they were a mess, as though the people who had put them up had all had different ideas about what was needed and done the work without consulting each-other or checking for pre-existing structures to work from. He was also going to have to find somebody –or summon one of his house-elves– to look after his body for him, or else figure out a way to possess people without leaving his body looking like it had been Kissed by a Dementor. He should probably speak to the Prewetts about that: their Mist doubles could do everything they did, so if he made one his could do that too, but without the pesky problem of leaving his body behind.


	84. Chapter 84

Insane Scriptist would like to remind readers that we share all members of the Varia, be they retired, active or newly recruited along with any traditions they have.

Beta'd by the determined Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of discipline and idiot underlings **

Squalo recognised that Luss had sent him the best Squads first. He even understood why the Sun Officer had made sure that for the early stages in his little world trip he had cohesive, level-headed and integrated Squads backing him up. It had been important for overall discipline, it had meant that he could focus more on training than running herd on the underlings and by the time those Squads had rotated back to HQ, they had got to know him and respected him enough to keep the rest of the Varia in line as his prolonged absence started to give the idiots ideas. Being Varia Quality only made said idiots more dangerous.

Unfortunately a direct consequence of having had the good Squads first meant that now, over a year into his training and recruitment tour, the Squads he was getting were more impromptu and less accustomed to working together. Like the Squad he had right now, for instance.

Maslúl Squad, named after the Rain who had the dubious fortune of being in charge of it, was not an established Squad; established Squads and Immortal Squads like Dark Horse had tested and proven teamwork along with skills handy for any situation. Lussuria had more or less thrown it together based on the requirements of this step of Squalo's world tour, with the most constraining variable being that they needed people who spoke Indonesian languages. Other than Luss himself, there were exactly two people in the Varia who spoke languages from the Indonesian archipelago, so both had been tapped. Maslúl was not one of these, but had been made Squad Leader because he had truly remarkable patience and was very imaginative, so he was good at improvising. He was also a certified light aircraft pilot, which mattered because Indonesia was all islands; mountainous and heavily forested islands at that. The only way to get around was to fly.

The two Varia who spoke the required languages were Miráž –who spoke Javanese and was an experienced and persuasive recruiter– and Maínomai, who was a Mist and spoke a selection of Indonesian languages due to his taking various holidays there as well as numerous other places around the world. Maínomai was however one of the flightier Mists and needed almost constant supervision or else he got himself into trouble. Maínomai's Varia partner was Pýř, a Cloud who spoke no languages that were remotely useful for the mission but still _had_ to come along because without Pýř, Maínomai would run off on a whim every other minute.

Fortunately Pýř was a capable scout and very good at wilderness survival, even though he'd not actually done tropical wilderness survival before. He had adapted quickly and very well to the change though; Squalo had no complaints about his ability to scout.

In addition to Maslúl, Miráž, Pýř and Maínomai, Lussuria had selected Scatto, a young, keen Sun with an explosive turn of speed and considerable skill in savate, as the team's tank. The Sun Officer had then _intended_ to pick out one of the more experienced and up-and-coming mooks to round out the squad and hold the camera during Squalo's matches against local swordsmen, but while he'd been rounding up a selection of hopefuls Sekti had shown up and very firmly volunteered himself. Lussuria had tried to find out why, exactly, Storm Squad's unofficial second-in-command wanted to be away from Headquarters for two months straight, but Sekti had simply stated that he knew how to work with the other Varia on the mission and had the necessary experience.

Which was all true, but that still did not explain why a Varia of Sekti's calibre, who could have been a Squad Leader very easily if he'd wanted to, was volunteering himself to spend two months hiking through jungle and over mountains in between cramming himself into a small aircraft in order to carry camera equipment and run errands. It just did not add up. Never mind that Luss had quite rightly been wary of what Bel would get up to without his 'Manservant' to do the day-to-day paperwork for him and act as a buffer between the eleven-year-old prince and the rest of Storm Squad.

Sekti had been assigned to Bel by Xanxus within a week of Bel joining the Varia, because Sekti was by far the calmest and most patient member of Storm Squad; there was a long-standing betting pool on whether the tall, quiet man actually _had_ a temper, because nobody had ever seen it. Sekti had proved that he wasn't just Varia Quality by managing to settle into a majordomo-esque relationship with the then-eight-year-old, acting as both mentor and assistant depending on the circumstances. Whenever Bel had been tapped for a mission in the past Sekti had always gone along too, because that kept the mess down.

That Sekti was choosing to be on the opposite side of the planet from Bel for two months was probably going to get messy, particularly considering how Bel's behaviour had been deteriorating lately according to the reports and gossip from Luss. But Lussuria's last-ditch attempt to remove Sekti from the Squad had been foiled by Bel's outright _enthusiasm_ for the idea of 'Manservant' going to back up 'the Shark', so there had been nothing else for it but to accept that Sekti was coming along.

Which had led to the current situation, which was eight people crammed into a light aircraft flying across the mountains of Sumatra. Maslúl, the lucky bastard, was piloting, which left Squalo in the back with a scientist engrossed in his notes, two twitchy Suns practicing their Malay, a Storm carving a piece of bone into fine, sharp needles and a Cloud and Mist who defied convention by getting on _swimmingly_ and who were _knitting_, of all things!

Squalo had not known that Pýř knitted. He could have gone his _entire life_ without finding out and that would have been just _fantastic_, even! Because sitting strapped into a less-than-comfortable chair and being forced to listen to the click-click-click of needles as Pýř murmured peaceably in Danish to Maínomai about Nordic knitting patterns, previous projects and the reasons behind a specific colour choice was just… it was beyond what he could currently articulate, okay?

That in the past week Pýř had already knitted a very intricately pattered pair of mittens in red and white yarn and Mainomai had completed two pairs of socks in cheerfully variegated yarn made the swordsman wonder when, exactly, the Varia had turned into a craft club, because in his last team there had been Brugg, who knew how to make straw hats, and in the team before _that_ there had been Tsue, who made _friendship bracelets_ of all things. Yes, Tsue was completely brilliant with knots and _lethal_ with a strangling cord, but that didn't change the fact that in her free time the Storm liked to use her skills to create cheery silk bracelets in a variety of colours and patterns.

Sekti's tendency to carve whenever his hands were free did not count; the calm Storm was making weapons, not indulging a hobby. Sekti was fond of traditional assassination tools like bone needles, garrottes and suchlike, which he made himself. He even knew enough about blacksmithing to make his own knives, which was a degree of obsessiveness above and beyond what most Varia bothered with. Sekti's hobby was storytelling, which he was too particular about to indulge in while they were in a small, noisy plane.

However being stuck in a tiny plane for hours on end and knowing he was going to be stuck in the plane _again_ tomorrow _and_ the day after and the day after _that_ did make Squalo wonder if maybe he should try and find a new hobby beyond teaching himself new languages. Reading was all very well but it wasn't as distracting as it might have been. Not knitting though.

* * *

Two weeks later Squalo was sprawled across the sofa in the Varia jet parked at Jacksons International Airport in Papua New Guinea, talking to Lussuria about the sheer _insanity_ of Maslúl Squad to the sympathetic Sun Officer as he nursed a thumping headache.

"So we've picked up a few people with potential and we're all crammed into this apartment in this tiny hick town in West Sulawesi called Polewali, and it's the biggest town in the province despite having less than two hundred thousand inhabitants, and Sekti volunteers to go shopping. It's disgustingly humid, so we're all fine with that and Sekti's Malay is good enough for haggling so why not? It's not like he's Maínomai with his damn kleptomania. But it is _three_ _hours_ before Sekti comes back, _late_, with this cow-eyed sneak-thief he shoves at Miráž before handing the food to Pyr and telling us that he caught the brat _melting_ a hole in somebody's window with _Storm Flames_. So of course we can't just leave him there, even though he's all of fifteen and only speaks the local lingo and a bit of Malay.

"Then Maínomai grabs the kid's head and he falls over screaming because the damn impulsive Mist idiot implanted English _and_ Italian in the poor brat's brain _at once_, so _then_ we have to deal with a sick, delirious Flame-active invalid with a migraine for four days while the _esa_ recovers from having his brain played with, which let me tell you is a _nightmare_ when there're twelve of you stuck in a light aircraft designed to hold ten at the most." Squalo swallowed another mouthful of juice; he didn't like drinking alcohol unless he could enjoy it and right now he was too tense for it. "Meanwhile Pýř just goes on _knitting_ and whistling this tune that's been on the radio all week while Scatto _twitches_ and Miráž alternates between snarling at the recruits and trying to keep the brat comfortable."

"Sounds like you've had a bad week, Squalo-sweetie," Luss commiserated, handing him another glass of juice and some painkillers.

"No shit, voi," Squalo muttered bitterly. "Found out why Sekti was so set on getting out of HQ yet?"

"Sorry," the Sun Officer sighed, shaking his head. "Belphegor's behaviour just keeps getting worse too; on Friday he got into Vongola HQ somehow and drove two maids, two footmen, a gardener and a driver into terrified hysterics. I have _no_ idea what's going on there; the rest of Storm Squad are all calm as can be and Bulldog is advising them in how to keep on top of the paperwork, so at least I know it's not Varia-related."

"A personal problem then?" Squalo pressed his forehead against the wonderfully cold glass in his hand. Squalo found the chill much preferable to the tropical summer outside. "Or it might be a rat problem; Boss gave him free reign for those."

"I'll let him know that still applies," Luss said with a tired smile; the Sun Officer was probably severely jetlagged, considering Indonesia was basically the opposite side of the planet from Italy. "Maybe then he'll stop being such a little shit."

Squalo snorted; Luss rarely resorted to profanity so hearing him swear was always amusing, if not the best sign no matter how fondly said profanity was used. "If he's not settled by next month then set up an appointment with Vongola Medical; it might be a hormone problem." Anybody Flame-active who wasn't Rain-natured went through puberty earlier and faster than people who were Flame-latent, which could get pretty messy if the person with the Flames happened to Activate them before puberty had even _started_. Bel had been young when he Activated, so they knew they were going to get that mess sooner or later.

"Ah, yes, Flame-induced maturation," the Sun Officer said distastefully. "Wonderful, just what we needed."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Squalo grunted. "When're we leaving?"

"We're flying to Brisbane in the morning, refuelling then making straight for Honolulu. Once there we'll take a short break overnight, then fly all the way south to Punta Arenas in Patagonia. We'll leave you there; you've then got three weeks to make it up to Malargϋe in Mendoza Province, Argentina." Needless to say that Luss and the plane would be waiting for them there again, with updates, supplies and paperwork. They'd been doing this for fifteen months now; everybody knew the drill.

That the flight would be going direct from Honolulu to Patagonia suggested the pilot was a Mist; only Mists could prolong the life of a tank of fuel to such ridiculous lengths and keep a plane in the air long past when logic said it should have crashed. Squalo didn't know exactly how that worked, just that it did and it kept Mammon happy. The latter point was important considering how expensive his world tour and recruiting mission was. Thankfully they were finding Quality people to recruit and getting lots of new languages in. Languages were more important than non-Varia people thought.

"At least almost everybody in Chile and Argentina understands Spanish," Squalo muttered. "Some of them might even understand Italian." Of the Squad, only Sekti and Pýř didn't speak Spanish and Sekti certainly spoke Italian. Squalo didn't actually speak Spanish either, but he did speak Portuguese and Italian as well as English so he'd doubtless be able to make himself understood in a pinch. The only Latinate language Pýř spoke was Sicilian, which was not particularly intelligible to non-speakers. Squalo knew enough of it to make himself understood, but was not fluent. Maybe it was something to practice on the upcoming flight, even if he had to put up with the knitting?

"Get some sleep dear; the paperwork can wait until tomorrow," the Sun Officer fussed, producing a blanket and covering Squalo up with it. "You've lost weight."

"Vooi! Try spending most of a month flying around a mountainous, densely-forested archipelago with a bunch of crazies," Squalo complained. "You'd lose weight too!"

"Sleep!"

Squalo flopped backwards; as Sun Officer Lussuria was in charge of Varia Health, so it was better not to protest when he demanded you take care of yourself.

* * *

Squalo sat patiently in the very comfortable hotel room Maslúl had arranged for them to stay the night in, waiting for Vezzini to finish fiddling with his new hand. This was the second new hand the scientist had come up with since leaving Italy, and like the previous one he had designed and ordered various parts, sent the specifications back to Italy with Lussuria then built the prosthetic in whichever hotel room, hut or vehicle they were sleeping in at the time.

On several occasions the scientist had sent parts back and borrowed Luss's mobile phone so as to bellow at his incompetent assistants personally, but Squalo had never been disappointed by the results: his previous hand had been miles better than all the earlier ones and the new one would likely be better still. Getting out in the field and actually _seeing_ the kind of usage his prosthetic would have to withstand had done wonders for Vezzini's results. It had done wonders for the scientist too; the Rain Officer didn't think he'd ever seen the man looking so fit and healthy. Vezzini had also continued to avoid any of the more mundane travel perils like sunstroke as well, to Squalo's irritation and continued amazement. Was the guy made of iron?

Now they were out of the inaccessible wilds of Indonesia, tracking down swordsmen to fight and intelligent, capable hopefuls to recruit was far less challenging. The entire Underworld knew the Varia was recruiting and that the new Sword Emperor was out looking for people to fight; from Vladivostok up until Sumatra, Squalo hadn't had to go looking for opponents. They hadn't really needed to look for recruits with a grounding in organised crime either: their first volunteer recruit had been a Russian Mist who had been waiting for them at the Chita train station on the Trans-Siberian Railway and there'd been a steady stream of them ever since.

Squalo had fond memories of some of those, as well as a few of the unexpected finds who had popped up out of nowhere and been dragged along for the ride, more or less willingly depending on the Varia recruiter in question. Kidnapping was considered a viable recruiting method but was more chancy than any of the others; it mostly depended on the person, their circumstances and how willing they were to join a group of crazy polyglot assassins.

There'd been the duel katana wielder he'd defeated in Hokkaido, who'd been capable and imaginative enough that Squalo had deliberately not killed him so he could have the man as his subordinate. Then there'd been the two sets of Chinese Lightnings, both connected to the Triads; a pair of brothers, one six years older than the other, who had sworn service after Gwasgedd had casually swatted the older one when he tried to pick Magharibi's pocket, and a full set of three students and their qiánbèi who had followed them for two weeks straight after Squalo killed their Shīfu in a duel. One of the students had been female, which had been extremely unusual as female Lightnings in the mafia were generally trained from childhood to be broodmares and the occasional seduction specialist, but she _was_ Chinese and the Triads tended not to care about the gender of their little killers so Squalo hadn't commented beyond attaching a note to her file making sure everybody understood she was _entirely_ off-limits unless the interested guy got Magharibi's permission first.

Magharibi was one of the Varia's two 'official' women, a Sun and a highly skilled poisoner; she also cultivated an aura of fear, so as to better keep in line those male members of the Varia that occasionally suffered brief lapses in judgement that made them think that gender had anything to do with Quality. Squalo knew she'd keep an eye on Kayc, even though she already had Csibe as an official apprentice. Mab the former Mist Squad Leader would also keep an eye on the tiny teen that had stared at her with such awe and followed her around like a duckling for the ten days between picking up the quartet and sending them back to Italy with Luss; Mab had a well-hidden soft spot for lethal young women and had mentored all the actual ladies and chronic sufferers of femininity the Varia currently had. That she was retiring probably wouldn't change that; in fact Mab would be well-placed in Housekeeping to keep a closer eye on the apprentices.

"Okay, try it now."

Squalo stopped reminiscing and carefully flexed the jointed mechanical fingers that made _this_ prosthetic several orders of magnitude fancier than all the previous models; Vezzini had been toying with the idea of a hand that responded to actual neural impulses ever since the swordsman had first visited him, but had never been able to make the connections work. However after spending most of two months in Mongolia chatting with Bulldog, who was one of the Varia's most experienced anatomists, and running into a young electronics prodigy in Japan –whom Vezzini had insisting on recruiting for R&amp;D– he had finally come up with a stump cap with sockets that connected to Squalo's nervous system. It was fairly crude compared to the miracle of engineering that was a real hand and the swordsman had needed to retrain his brain so he could control the movements properly, but that prosthetic had been _light-years_ ahead of anything else on the market.

The last hand had only had movement in the wrist and thumb, but this one let him move the fingers as well. Not individually –Squalo would need some serious surgery for that to be possible– but all together, as though he was wearing a mitten. The swordsman bent his wrist up and down, smiling slightly as his hand obeyed him. Then he flexed the thumb, which was also working well and the fingers.

"The little finger's overcompensating," Squalo noted, setting his hand back on the table so Vezzini could fiddle with it again.

* * *

After having his hand fixed Squalo wandered down to the beach. La Higuera had very nice beaches and was, according to Scatto, a good place to surf, but Squalo didn't really care for water sports. He hadn't before chopping his hand off and now his hand was partly electronic submerging it in salt water was just _asking_ for trouble, even though Vezzini had gone to great lengths to make it waterproof. The swordsman would experiment with quite _how_ waterproof his new hand was once they were back in Italy, where he could get parts replaced in the lab without needing to wait weeks. Yes, he and Maslúl both had mobile phones now –Vongola R&amp;D was well ahead of civilian laboratories in all useful areas– but battery life was limited and some areas didn't have signal. Vezzini's minion had mentioned something about satellite phones the last time they were in touch, but that would mean either sending up their own satellite –not as hard as it might be– or hacking one of the existing ones. Whichever R&amp;D settled on, reliable global phone service was still some way off.

It was dark and had been for a while, even though their being in the southern hemisphere meant it was currently summer. However Scatto had decided that he wanted to surf once all the tourists had buggered off, so the younger of the Squad's Suns was still out on the water. The waves looked pretty big to Squalo, though he certainly didn't know anything about surfing and didn't care to find out. Instead the swordsman surveyed the beach until he spotted Maínomai and Sekti sat on a rock a short distance away. Pýř probably wasn't that far off either, but Maslúl was more likely to be in town arranging the duel Squalo had been promised for the upcoming morning.

As he walked closer Squalo realised that the reason Maínomai was sitting so still was that Sekti was telling a story. The patient Storm's voice was rising and falling rhythmically, telling what sounded like the Odyssey in the original Ancient Greek. Maínomai was clearly enthralled, rocking back and forth in time with Sekti's voice.

Squalo carefully detoured around the rock, coming up on Pýř who was sat a few yards away and cleaning his knives. The Cloud had already stated a few days ago that the beach was no place for knitting, which explained the absence of needles and yarn.

"Where's Miráž?" Squalo asked in German, dropping onto the sand a short distance away. Pýř liked his personal space and tended to enforce it, unless of course the person violating it was Maínomai. Squalo still had no idea how that particular friendship worked because the two _were_ friends and not just work partners, but it did. Squalo had the sneaking suspicion that the impulsive Mist was the Cloud's Territory to watch over, which Squalo was perfectly happy to let him go on doing.

"Probably with Esa," the Cloud said idly. "No idea what he sees in the brat."

Squalo privately agreed; rather than send Esa back to Headquarters with Lussuria, Miráž had hung onto the teenager and started teaching him to be Varia while on the move across the mountains, forests and deserts of Chile and Argentina. Considering this was on top of sorting through would-be recruits and keeping an eye out for potentials, the older Sun was very busy. Then again, Suns were all about keeping busy. Esa wasn't doing badly though, so he'd probably make it to Varia Quality once he became fluent in a few more languages and settled on a weapon he liked. If he didn't get there within a year Miráž would probably drop him into the mook pool, where he could sink or swim under his own power. The Varia was no place for freeloaders.

Staring out across the starlit sea, Squalo noticed idly that Scatto at least seemed to be keeping busy; he'd probably been out there for hours. Watching the young Sun chase waves, occasionally standing up on his surfboard, was actually rather restful and Pýř was happy to join in with making rude comments every time the older teenager missed a wave. Then, while paddling well out, Scatto abruptly fell _off_ the surfboard. Pýř promptly _roared_ with laughter, which got Sekti and Maínomai's attention as well, but Squalo stood up and starting moving towards the surf as he realised the Sun wasn't surfacing. Then he finally _did_ surface, thrashing violently and sinking under again.

Sharks, Squalo realised abruptly. The young idiot had run into a shark and rather than trying to _get away_ before he bled out the moron was _fighting it_. Taking a deep breath, the de-facto boss of the Varia waited until the Sun reappeared and then _bellowed_:

"**Voooi! Get back here right now!**"

The Sun definitely heard him; he instantly stopped trying to fight and made a beeline for the shore, surfboard skimming along behind him as he called on his Flames to swim faster. Beside him Squalo could hear Pýř still laughing and Maínomai was cackling loudly in between spitting out the occasional word about 'shark bait' and 'rock and a hard place'; the swordsman ignored them both. Instead he stalked down the beach as the bleeding –literally bleeding– idiot jogged out of the waves and smacked him around the head.

"Moron! The hell did you think you were doing? We'd have had to patch you up anyway but you stuck around and let them bite you _more_? What the hell were you trying to achieve! Voooi!"

Then Sekti was there, twisting the twit this way and that to get a better view of the injuries. "Hotel room," the Storm said shortly. "You need to rinse off the salt and the sand before we can patch you up." At least the moron wasn't bleeding out from his various messy injuries, although that might have been because he was actively using his Flames to prevent it happening.

"Come on Kӧder," Maínomai said with a wicked grin, "I'll give you a lift." The Mist vanished with the Sun in tow; Squalo made a short, frustrated noise.

"I don't think he'll need to be hospitalised," Sekti volunteered, "and it shouldn't slow him down in the long run provided we don't let him move about much for a few days."

Squalo growled. "He'd better not slow us down; it'll be two weeks until we're seeing Luss again and I do _not_ want to have to call him over early with a replacement because Shark-Bait there couldn't keep his head!"

Sekti smiled. "If Maínomai has any say in the matter he's going to be 'Kӧder' until the day he dies."

Squalo thought the idiot deserved it.

* * *

Translations 

Maslúl = orbit (Hebrew);

Pýř = 'glowing ash' (Czech);

Maínomai = 'I am raving', 'I am out of my mind' (Ancient Greek);

Sekti = 'to tell a story' or 'to follow' (Lithuanian);

Scatto = dash, jerk (Italian);

Miráž = mirage (Russian/Bulgarian);

Brugg = bridge (Alemannic German); plot or scheme (Icelandic);

Tsue = staff, walking stick or cane (Japanese);

Esa = calf (Chechen); also 'animal food' (Japanese); the number 'one' (Malay);

Gwasgedd = pressure, as in the physical force (Welsh);

Magharibi = twilight (Swahili);

Kayc = sparkle, twinkle (Armenian);

Kӧder = bait (German);

Qiánbèi = senior student (Chinese);

Shīfu = teacher, master (Chinese).


	85. Chapter 85

Beta'd by the charming Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of violence and necessity **

Bel lounged on a conveniently placed balcony he had staked out due to its fine view through the windows of the bar Massimo had taken to visiting lately. The peasant had gone beyond carelessness into idiocy and was straying perilously close to stupid. Perilous for him, that was; Bel had been waiting for this for months. Bulldog and Mab had both told him what they had heard –verbal reports only– and the microphone planted under Massimo's favourite table was transmitting to the speaker in Bel's ear and the tape recorder in his pocket, evidence that Massimo was letting people who weren't Family coax Vongola secrets out of him. Only small, minor ones so far –transport titbits and peripheral locations– but it was all that the enemies of the Vongola would need to carefully unravel a significant area of Vongola influence, should they have the patience for it.

Then another person entered the scene and Bel narrowed his eyes, smile evaporating; that was the law enforcement bitch. She was practically a regular here now. Massimo however failed to notice and went on talking, grumbling about ungrateful fathers and jumped-up baby brothers and how he needed a holiday. Bel focussed on the details Massimo was throwing away, his mind swiftly running through the possibilities.

Massimo, the stupid peasant, would have to die; he was a liability to the Family. However the intel he was spewing would also have to be rendered useless, and quickly; for the Family's sake, because Boss loved the Family and Bel would follow Boss into Hell. In fact, if it came to it he'd follow Boss into Heaven, which was a far more disturbing prospect… Hell was easier to get into and something Bel was sure he had unrepentantly earned several times over already. Heaven would mean repentance, pious behaviour and giving up fun which was… it was disturbing to think about when he was in the midst of doing distinctly un-Christian things for Boss.

So, the prince needed to shake up the Vongola so badly that routines were disrupted and then eliminate Massimo in a way that cast no suspicion either on him or the Varia as a whole… the former would be easy, but for the latter he'd need an accomplice. For all his Varia Quality Bel was still only eleven: not strong enough to manhandle a grown man and unable to drive a car. Who was there coming back from a solo mission about now that was loyal enough to Boss to accept Bel's evidence and follow the prince's lead without question?

The prince shuddered in distaste as his brain handed him the answer. Yes, it would work; in fact it was the _perfect_ choice. But why, why, _why_ did it have to be that idiot _Levi_?

* * *

Lussuria had intended to be the one taking Bel to his scheduled appointment with Vongola Medical, because as a fellow Officer Bel did respect him just a little and in the absence of Sekti's calming presence that respect was all the leverage the Varia had against Bel's increasingly erratic moods. The Sun Officer would _much_ have preferred to put this off until later, but Bel was displaying all the classic signs of really severe Flame-induced maturation so the blood test to check the Storm Officer's hormone levels really did have to take place as soon as possible.

Unfortunately Squalo also needed a new Squad flown out to take over from his current one in two days time and with Bel alternating between sneaking off alone to do who-knew-what and terrorizing Housekeeping at the Vongola Mansion Lussuria had not had the time and space to put together a proper team. It was important that this team be reasonably cohesive, as Squalo would soon be venturing into territories held by the various South American drug cartels. He would not be travelling into Columbia until May though, so the last Squad would have to be very observant and much better at teamwork.

As it was well over a year since the Rain Officer had set out on his recruitment drive the Varia was actually almost back up to the numbers it had before the Cradle Affair, with Squalo's recruits being bolstered by various hopefuls from a range of criminal backgrounds who wanted to see if they made the grade. Other Squads had also picked recruits up while out on missions and a few offers had been made to freelancers. Once such freelancer had been Trident Shamal, but he'd turned them down again. A shame, as with Bulldog retired the Varia no longer had a doctor in their ranks. True, Bulldog had been more of an anatomical pathologist specialising in Flame-induced injury, but he had still been a doctor.

Anyway, Luss had been forced to order two of the mooks to bring around a car to take Bel to Vongola Medical and had told the first Varia he grabbed after that –a Cloud called Tekân– to go with. Tekân had looked like the Sun Officer had just asked him to arrange his own funeral, but he still went. That had been nearly an hour ago and since then Lussuria had been feverishly trying to put together a Squad that wouldn't give poor dear Squalo as many headaches as the current one yet actually had all the necessary skills. Lussuria had already heard about Scatto's new name and how he'd earned it.

The problem was that with so many new recruits, most of the experienced Squads –other than the Immortal Squads of course– had newbies in them. Not that the newbies were incompetent –they were Varia Quality after all– but they were unknown and how well they'd work on a long-term mission away from Headquarters was also unknown.

The Sun Officer knew this Squad had to include Vӧkva, because the Varia had very few specialised recruiters and Squalo had gone through most of them already. Vӧkva was a Rain of the 'trick and browbeat them into submission' school of recruiting rather than the 'make them think it was their idea' school, but he was no less brilliant and capable for that. Lussuria had been playing with the idea of making him Squad Leader as well, but couldn't find enough people with the right skills who would respond reliably to his command style. He had Qaz, a Lightning who would cheerfully obey any Squad Leader the Varia gave him, and Yai, who as a Cloud responded unreliably to _all_ orders outside of strictly professional situations while being pragmatic about missions, but nobody else.

However assigning a different Squad Leader would be challenging, as with how the numbers and specialties went and who had already gone out to spend two months with Squalo, a different Squad Leader capable of working with Vӧkva would have to be a Mist. Mists were more likely to work with or around Vӧkva and his recruits compared to other Flame-types, who were more likely to be at cross-purposes. However the Mist Squad had almost doubled in size over the past year, so any Squad Leader would inevitably come with a newbie or two attached.

Well, other than Fuseau, but that was because Fuseau came with Wanhope attached and Wanhope was generally bad for the nerves. Getting assigned to a mission with Fuseau and Wanhope was frequently done to ensure the newbie in question had the nerves for full Varia membership and being given a name. Fuseau was however on the steady end of the Mist spectrum and had an interest in South American languages, so he was a good choice both as designated linguist and Squad Leader. Wanhope the rest of the Squad would just have to put up with. It wasn't like he was sending Kuchisake in with them; Kuchisake had done her stint with Squalo already and was currently up to her ears in training recruits, being the new Mist Squad Leader now that Mab had retired.

However he was still short a scientist wrangler; Mammon would probably assign some nameless hopeful to Fuseau to see if they _really_ had what it took to be Varia Quality so Lussuria didn't have to worry about finding a dogsbody to carry the cameras and do errands. The hopeful might complain, but it would be a good experience for them. So, who was there in the Varia with patience and a science degree, or at least some scientific experience? Having somebody to talk to about technical details meant said scientist was more likely to behave, even though Vezzini was pretty grounded for R&amp;D and had visibly improved his people skills over the past year and change.

Lussuria was pondering his options when the phone rang. He answered it.

"Helloo-ooh! Varia mansion, Lussuria speaking!"

The voice on the other end was female, with that particular steady undertone that indicated they were a Rain nearing the end of their tether. Much more of this, that tone said, and I will kill them all and let God sort them out.

"Hello, Sun Officer; this is Vongola Housekeeping. Could you come up to the mansion and collect your Storm Officer? He's made a mess of Medical."

Lussuria considered what a Rain would call 'a mess' and winced. "How much of a mess, darling?"

"Four nurses, a doctor, six bystanders and all three of the men he came with are dead," that deliberately calm voice continued with poisonous sweetness, "and we have a further forty-three wounded, not including those who were injured prior to Belphegor's little fit and had to be moved out of Medical for their own safety. Please ensure he is _not_ within a day's drive of the Vongola Mansion for at least a week so that everyone has a chance to calm down." Unsaid was that the calm, organised and definitely in-charge person on the other end of the line would be tempted to attempt murder otherwise.

"I'll send him on a mission," Lussuria promised quickly. He had a mission to Switzerland here somewhere; Bel could replace Sarja on it as Squad Leader. What to do with Sarja instead…

"Come and collect him _now_, if you would?" the woman on the other end of the phone line said pointedly. Lussuria mentally adjusted his perception of her from 'angry Rain in charge' to 'angry Rain in charge not intimidated by assassins'. That rather limited the number of people she might be…

"I'll be right there, darling; might I ask who's calling?"

"You may."

Lussuria grinned; yep, Rain-humour for the win. She wasn't quite at the end of her rope just yet then. "Who am I talking to?"

"Maria-Chiara Vongola, Head of Housekeeping." The phone went dead; the Sun Officer paled. Okay, he'd better get in a car and over to Vongola Medical right _now_. Vongola Housekeeping definitely had a few Varia Quality people lurking in it somewhere judging by the disappearances two years ago, and the younger Madam Vongola being Head of Housekeeping meant she was probably one of them. Bel might be a Varia Officer and a cut above the usual Quality, but that didn't make him invulnerable. He was, after all, only eleven.

Grabbing the Switzerland mission and his notes on who would be getting it, Lussuria dashed for the door.

* * *

Bel hummed happily as he perched on the top of a wall in a dark back-alley not far from the docks of Messina; his little scheme had thus far gone beautifully: his rampage at the hospital had set the whole of the Vongola on its ear, the spreading rumours putting the entire Famiglia on their toes, and when Lussuria came to retrieve him from the clutches of Housekeeping the cross-dresser handed him a mission that gave him an excuse to be where he could intercept Levi.

It was so gratifying when a plan came together; then again Bel was royalty and several cuts above the peasants around him, so it wasn't so surprising really that he'd managed to outwit all of them. Boss would have noticed, but then Boss was royalty too. In fact, had Boss been around he might have _ordered_ Bel to do this.

Then the hitman the Storm Officer had been stalking for the past few minutes entered the alleyway and Bel grinned, drawing out a length of wire. He may have massacred a dozen or so people that very afternoon –including that idiotic peasant Cloud of supposed Varia Quality who had under-estimated him– but hunting down hitmen was his favourite hobby and he had a few more hours to kill until Levi arrived on the late ferry. The other members of the Squad Bel was in charge of for this mission were all sleeping back at the hotel; the two Storms and one Rain knew better than to try and treat him like a child. They also knew that they'd only be stopping in Messina until Bel decided it was time to move on, which could be at any time since the ferries never stopped running.

Bel's plan was to take one of the early morning ferries, but that part was subject to change. It all depended on how long it took him to convince Levi to assist him and on Massimo being where rumour claimed he was. It was annoying to work of unconfirmed intelligence, even though Massimo was very much a creature of habit, but Bel could do it if necessary.

That was to be dealt with later though; right now he had a peasant to kill.

* * *

Bel knew which ferry Levi was on because Levi was ridiculously by-the-book and had called ahead to let Lussuria know when he'd be arriving in Sicily –to the minute– that morning. Well, technically that very morning, but that phone call was soon going to have taken place on the morning of the previous day because it was nearly midnight. Bel had staked out the car Luss had arranged to be left at a specific car park for the Lightning Officer, so when Levi appeared all the Storm Officer had to do was melt out of the shadows and grin up at the monolithic nineteen-year-old.

"Hi there Levi," he said cheerfully, knowing he looked a bit different to usual and that would be enough to put the other Officer on his guard. Mostly because he was actually wearing the latest uniform despite having made it clear he _loathed_ the ridiculous kimono-style coat-thing Luss had foisted on them. He did in fact hate the wretched garment, but he had quite a lot of blood spatter on his preferred uniform from slaughtering four hitmen so it had been neatly folded and packed away in his bag to put back on again after this little mission was complete. Alibis were important.

"Belphegor," Levi said flatly.

The prince held out the tape machine containing the cassette with Massimo's treachery recorded on it. "Got a little job for the two of us; we have to keep the Family up to Boss's standards after all."

Levi accepted the cassette player, holding it up to his ear after automatically checking it for explosives. Bel waited patiently; he knew how this was going to go, so he could afford to stand around for a bit. The Lightning Officer listened through the recording once, rewound then listened again before handing it back.

"You have a plan." It wasn't a question; Levi had slipped into work-mode, in which he was little more than an obedient automaton. Bel's grin widened; perfect.

Bel's plan was simple, but it was the simplicity that made it perfect. After all, the secret to this kind of crime was not to ensure that there were _no_ suspects, but that there were _infinite_ suspects. Thus they snuck into Massimo's holiday house in Brolo over the garden wall, slipped a cheap knock-out gas grenade through the Vongola idiot's bedroom window –it only had a latch, not even a proper lock! – and then lifted him right out of his bed, wrapped in a blanket they had brought along with them. Bel noted that Claudia Visconti was also in the bed; sleeping with your Sky was a really _stupid_ thing for a Guardian to do and this proved it. Never mind that the silly peasant didn't even have the spine to push her boss to marry her; this couldn't possibly be a new development, not when Claudia had been Massimo's first Guardian. She was supposed to be a Cloud? Not even that slimeball Ottabio was this spineless.

Once out of the window and back at the car Bel coated the bottom of Massimo's feet with a combined sedative and anaesthetic; the sedative would make sure he slept through the trip up the coast –and through any potential volcanic eruptions that might take place as well– and the anaesthetic would prevent any injuries from registering. Both drugs were essential for the success of Bel's simple plan and were newly stolen from Vongola Medical.

Back in Messina Bel directed Levi over to the dock where he'd set things up in anticipation of the kidnapping: a cement block, part-way through curing. Levi didn't need things spelling out to him: he stopped the car, checked his stolen coat was obscuring his face then lifted Massimo out of the rear footwell and stood the snoring rat upright in the cement. His feet sank slowly, indicating that the cement was nearly cured. Massimo would have nasty caustic burns on his feet within seconds due to the high pH of the limestone in the concrete, but the anaesthetic would keep him from noticing until it was too late.

Levi caught Bel's eye and nodded; Bel slid out of the open driver's side door and rolled under the car, crawling underneath and away into the shadows of a nearby alleyway so as to avoid the cheap, poor-quality surveillance cameras the car was parked in front of to block the view of the dock. Levi would be just fine waiting on his own for the half-hour until the cement cured then sliding the block down into the depths of the dock; Bel had to go get changed back into his bloody clothes, wake his Squad and get on the ferry.

After kicking Massimo off the dock Levi would drive out of town, clean up the car and then make his way back to the Varia Mansion by a roundabout route that would justify him refilling the tank with petrol along the way. He'd probably arrive back _after_ Massimo's death was noticed, but there was nothing wrong with that.

Dressed once more in his preferred –if stained– uniform, Bel carefully used Storm Flames to burn off any potential evidence from the other uniform, folded it back into his bag and set off towards the hotel he'd left the Squad in. Time for the prince to give the peasants an especially early wake-up call!

* * *

Claudia Visconti woke up with a start, clutching at her chest as phantom pain clawed at her insides. It was just a nightmare; Massimo was right…

… there?

But the only person in the double bed was her, the window had clearly been forced then closed again and there was the shell of a gas grenade on the rug.

Realising that the pain she could feel was no figment of her imagination but _real_ –that she had _failed_– that her lover was dead –_dead_– was all too much. Claudia screamed, purple flames igniting around her clenched fists.

She went on screaming as the sounds of people elsewhere in the building waking up and running around started up and ignored it all as she reduced the fancy furniture in the bedroom to kindling and punched craters in the cement walls.

Massimo was _dead!_

* * *

It was five in the morning and Lussuria hadn't slept at all; as a Sun he was better equipped to work through the night than most other Flames types, but that didn't mean he enjoyed doing so. Well, if it was mission-related or in the pursuit of a hobby that was one thing, but assisting Vongola Housekeeping in clearing up Bel's mess, healing the people he'd injured and substituting for the dead doctor was _not_ something Lussuria particularly enjoyed. It wasn't easy making Bel's life difficult without the Storm Officer noticing he was doing it, but Lussuria _would_ find a way; possibly by mothering the brat until he screamed. Yes, there were less personal means and ways of doing so, but those the eleven-year-old could take countermeasures against should he catch on to what Lussuria was doing. However Luss could play off the mothering behaviour as concern and _smile_ as Bel squirmed under the attention.

The Sun Officer was washing up after a very messy operation involving a pair of teenage morons who had been doing some unsupervised Flame experimentation _on each-other_ –that was murder-worthy stupid right there– when there was a sudden uproar on the outskirts of the temporary medical station. Drying off his hands, Lussuria wandered quietly over to eavesdrop.

Moro, Massimo's Lightning Guardian, had apparently committed suicide… because Massimo was dead.

Huh.

And it wasn't even his birthday.

From the sudden hush and the way everybody turned to glare at him, it seemed Lussuria had said that last bit out loud; that was unfortunate. The Sun Officer raised an eyebrow at the glarers behind his prescription sunglasses.

"I've never made any secret of loathing the man, cupcakes; you all know I've been right here all night."

"Quite," said Maria-Chiara Vongola, the impeccably competent Head of Housekeeping –she really should have been born a Sky because she was clearly the most competent of the Vongola siblings after Boss– as she appeared through the doorway, "but you should probably return to Varia HQ and stay there until this is properly investigated."

Lussuria glared at the woman. "Look here, sweetheart, I've got to get Squalo's replacement Squad out to him tomorrow! I can't _possibly_ have been involved and you know it!"

The Madam Vongola sighed. "Yes, _I_ do, but that won't be enough for some and as you said, your dislike was public knowledge. Please remain visible for at least a week, Officer, so that things can be done properly."

The Sun huffed, but recognised that objecting was pointless; this was _politics_. "Fine; as it is for the good of the Family I will abide," he stated, peeling off his apron and dumping it in the wash basket. "But as this is a _Vongola_ decision I will be billing Vongola Housekeeping for any expenses my being _grounded_ will incur."

Because the only other Officer in HQ right now was Mammon and Mammon wouldn't fly out to Chile with the paperwork and the Squad for the exchange unless he was getting paid. Mammon might even add on expenses incurred by a disrupted personal schedule as well, which would make for a truly terrifying bill for all that Mammon would only be sitting in the jet to and from South America while watching over Squalo's paperwork.

* * *

Translations 

Tekân = 'to tremble', 'to shake' (Persian);

Vӧkva = 'to water' (Icelandic);

Qaz = goose (Turkic);

Yai = egg (Swahili); also stare (Chinese) or cliff, precipice (Chinese);

Fuseau = spindle, bobbin (French);

Wanhope = despair (West Frisian);

Sarja = series, chain, sequence, succession -of events- suite -of music- and used as a modifier meaning 'serial' or 'automatic' (Finnish).


	86. Chapter 86

There is nothing more soul-crushing than having to write a 4000-word mini-dissertation about accounting procedures. Muse has fled for the duration, but will hopefully return once I've handed it in. I've still got chapters up until Saturday, but after that it'll be another wait as there are also family holidays coming up.

Beta'd by the genial Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of genuinely unwelcome surprises **

On arriving at the Corrientes International Airport and being granted access to the hanger where the Varia plane was lurking, Squalo stormed away from the Squad he was –thankfully– not going to have to work with again and up the steps into the office, looking for Lussuria so he could have a good rant. However right before shoving the door open the swordsman had an abrupt feeling that doing so would not be wise, so he opened it carefully instead.

It turned out his instincts were spot on: Luss wasn't there. Instead there was Mammon floating over the boxes of paperwork with Fantasma circling his head like a halo… and _Tyrant_ of all people was standing by the coffee machine, calmly sipping from a mug. Squalo silently made a note _not_ to drink any coffee today; Tyrant had truly dreadful taste in coffee, preferring it as black as the pits of Hell and strong enough to raise the dead. Tyrant's coffee was in fact _so_ strong that anybody other than Skies or Suns usually came down with severe cardiac arrhythmia after drinking it, to the point of requiring medical aid. Even Suns were wary of it and only availed themselves of it when they wanted or needed to stay awake and alert for a further twenty-four hours at least.

"Tyrant, Mammon," Squalo said, nodding politely to the retired former Boss of the Varia. "Where's Luss?"

"Massimo went and got himself murdered," Mammon said flatly, "and even though Lussuria was in full sight of Vongola Housekeeping at the time he's been _invited_ to remain at Varia Headquarters for a week due to _politics_. I am charging the Vongola extra for making me come out here when it is entirely unnecessary, plus a fine for abject idiocy."

"The mutual enmity between Massimo and Lussuria was incredibly obvious," Tyrant pointed out calmly, "so his remaining behind should prevent future stupidity."

"That explains why Mammon's here," Squalo conceded, grabbing the nearest box of paperwork and dropping onto the sofa. "Is there something I need to address for Housekeeping, Tyrant?"

"No, nothing urgent," Tyrant said mildly, sipping his coffee. "It's simply been a while since I left Headquarters so I tagged along."

Squalo considered the likelihood of the unsettlingly ageless Sky –no-one was sure about his exact birth date but he didn't look to be more than middle-aged– being there on a whim and compared it to the alternatives, which were that Tyrant was _bored_ –nowhere would be safe– or that he was seeking a brief respite from all the idiot newbies swamping Headquarters. That last possibility was the most likely, in fact; as Head of Varia Housekeeping Tyrant was responsible for all the apprentices, which was probably a hell of a job right now when according to Luss there were currently a good _fifty_ apprentices in HQ, half of them underage and there was no telling how many were Flame-active and in the midst of puberty right now. That was more people than _any_ of the individual Flame Divisions currently had or were ever likely to have, bar the Mist Division. That was without including the other staff or the retirees; Tyrant was responsible for nearly one hundred people, all told. Then there were the other things Varia Housekeeping were in charge of, from transporting general supplies to dusting to basic maintenance of Headquarters and all Varia property including the vehicles. Taking a break from the daily chaos that was part and parcel of cleaning up after and taking care of the Varia and getting the apprentices up to scratch was only sensible.

Becoming Varia Quality, while not easy, was not as hard as all that; it was _staying_ Varia Quality that was challenging. From what Squalo had seen, the human body tended to start protesting the harsh treatment as a Varia member approached their thirties. Mab had been thirty five when she retired, but she was a Mist and they were generally less hard on their bodies than, say, Suns, Lightnings or Storms in that order. Bulldog had been thirty two when he retired and now had a cane he liked to whack peoples' shins with when they got in his way, although he also leaned on it when his knees were giving him trouble; his hands were still assassin-doctor steady though. Considering Bulldog had been Varia for twelve years, he wasn't really any more badly off than most of the other retirees. It was the ones who had to retire following career-ending injuries that Squalo really felt for; some just offed themselves but others went into Housekeeping to help teach the apprentices what they needed to know. Ironically, have so many apprentices pouring in had resulted in fewer suicides because those invalided out of the Varia could _see_ they were still needed.

However pondering on the state of morale in Housekeeping was not what Squalo was there for; he was supposed to be doing paperwork. With that in mind he turned his attention back to the typed and closely-written sheets, leaning back on the sofa with his boots on the coffee table. This was probably going to take a while.

* * *

Varia paperwork was a form of torture, Squalo was sure of it; it was bad enough that mission reports were frequently written in languages he lacked more than a basic grounding in –again, he wasn't Boss who could learn a language in under a month without Mist assistance– and that almost everybody had crappy handwriting, but he also had to read through the intelligence acquired by the Mists, some of whom wrote in tiny letters or crazy colours, keep said intelligence in mind while reading the mission requests and then decide which ones the Varia would be taking and which would be refused. Thankfully he didn't have to go through _all_ the requests –Mammon did the less politically sensitive ones– but there were still more than Squalo liked to think about and doing three weeks-worth at once was just exhausting.

The only paperwork Squalo actually enjoyed was reading Changeling's reports, because they were well-written, concise and rib-crackingly _hilarious_ provided you didn't think too hard about the fact that the ridiculous incompetence she was documenting was seriously impeding the CEDEF's ability to collate and respond appropriately to the doings of the rest of the Mafia. If you did consider the implications it was depressing, which was probably why Changeling had deliberately gone for humour; you either laughed or you cried.

In addition to the dry, pitch-black humour of the reports there were also the essays, which were fascinating commentaries on various management methods and how they worked, or how they failed to work depending on the person implementing them and the circumstances. Squalo really enjoyed those because he recognised he was shit at that kind of thing –it was part of why he'd given the Varia to Boss– and the way Changeling explained things was so clear and useful that he was actually _noticing_ those kinds of things now and making use of the psychology she referenced. He was never going to be even a quarter as good as Xanxus at it, but he would at least be able to keep the Varia together until they got Boss back.

The essays were Changeling's hobby, so Squalo kept them as 'private correspondence'; the reports were filed in the Varia Archives as appropriate.

The only problem with Changeling's reports was that they always made him laugh, which had got him curious looks from Lussuria. Mammon was a bit more direct and tried to steal the pages Squalo had already read. The swordsman noticed the illusion just in time to snatch them back.

"Voi! These are confidential!"

"Nothing confidential could _possibly_ be that entertaining, Superbi," Mammon said flatly.

Squalo raised a challenging eyebrow. "I'm not about to compromise somebody in deep cover just because they have a sense of humour, Mammon."

"The Varia doesn't _do_ long-term undercover, Squalo," Tyrant pointed out. Mammon floated closer.

"The Varia may not, but _I _asked one of _my_ Rains to do this as a favour for Boss and until we get him back they're doing the Varia a hell of a lot more good where they are than they would in a Squad just running missions," Squalo said sharply, narrowing his eyes at the illusionist. "So no prying, _Viper_."

The Arcobaleno twitched at being reminded of his former name. "I will not pry then, Superbi," the Mist Officer said grudgingly.

Squalo accepted the promise with a nod. "We're making money off the intelligence," the swordsman commented as a peace offering. They really were too; picking off the occasional would-be CEDEF mole brought in decent cash whenever Changeling hired them on behalf of the _Consulenza Esterna_, and some of the information she passed on had made possible certain missions that he would otherwise have turned down. The Varia did not like to accept missions without factual and confirmed intelligence, because doing so got people killed. Having CEDEF's perspective and information to hand and more in-depth details available on request meant that the Varia was considerably more informed of current goings-on beyond what their Mists could dig up quickly.

"Well in _that_ case…" Mammon turned around and floated out of the room. Squalo glanced warily at Tyrant, but the Head of Housekeeping seemed content not to inquire further. That was a relief, because Squalo wasn't sure he could have managed to avoid giving something away if the old Sky had decided to pursue the issue.

* * *

"So who am I getting as my new Squad?" Squalo asked after finishing off the second box of paperwork. There was only one box left, but he was hungry so food came first. Well, food and a shower; it was early autumn in this part of the world but it was still hot and it was getting increasingly humid the closer they got to the Equator. But first he rather wanted to know who he was going to have to put up with for the next nine weeks. On the one hand, he wasn't sure they could be worse than the Squad he had just gotten away from. On the other hand, the Varia lived to surprise.

Tyrant did not actually answer him, despite being the person the Rain Officer's question had been addressed to. Instead the Head of Housekeeping wandered over to the desk and pulled a letter out from where it was wedged halfway under the last box of paperwork.

"Here," the faintly greying blond said blandly, passing him the letter with the squiggles of Lussuria's native Thai snaking across the front of it. The swordsman could recognise maybe a dozen words in Thai script and this happened to be one of them; it was pronounced 'bplaachàlăam' and meant 'shark'. Squalo suspected that the curlicues inherent to the first written language the Sun Officer had learned had a lot to do with how frilly the okama's handwriting in other scripts was; Lussuria wrote like a teenage girl, all twirls and flourishes. It just needed hearts.

Dropping back onto the sofa, Squalo opened the envelope, unfolded the paper inside and started reading.

_Squalo darling,_

_I'm so sorry I couldn't come, but somebody finally offed Massimo and my misplaced enthusiasm got me grounded. _

The swordsman chuckled; he could totally see that happening. Lussuria was usually very much in control of himself, but he was still a Sun and given to impulsiveness when particularly tired or stressed. Squalo still didn't know why Luss was with Vongola Housekeeping –he hadn't asked Mammon because the baby would charge him for the information and it might be in one of the reports he hadn't read yet– as the boxes of paperwork were sorted by week, other than the intelligence reports which had to be read first. Bugging Tyrant when he was drinking coffee was not the best idea either; when Tyrant got grumpy, people got dead. Squalo had no interest in joining the slowly rising numbers of 'suicide via Tyrant' listed in the Varia's records.

_Mammon's agreed to bring you everything instead; I paid a premium so he wouldn't snoop in the paperwork. I've sent you the best Squad I possibly could, but I had to keep a few people back for next time, as you'll be venturing into the regions held by the drug cartels then and need to put up a strong front._

Which meant that _this_ Squad was not quite as stable as Lussuria would have liked, so Squalo probably wasn't going to like it much either.

_Squad leader is Fuseau_–

Squalo let his head flop back on the top of the sofa and groaned in abject dismay. Not that he had anything against Fuseau personally, as the man was a highly capable and reasonable Mist regardless of his fondness for gender-ambiguous clothing, but wherever Fuseau went Wanhope followed and Wanhope was a literal nightmare. The unusually stocky Mist walked with a perpetual slump, his untidy white hair falling over his empty charcoal eyes, wore his uniforms to rags before changing them and was always surrounded by a _literal_ aura of abject misery; when he approached you, you could _feel_ your mood plummeting.

Fuseau seemed immune and was good at keeping Wanhope sufficiently distracted for the aura not to transition from 'miserable' into 'suicide-instigating', but Wanhope was still not someone that _any_ of the Varia liked having around for that particular reason. Of course, that everybody avoided him did nothing for Wanhope's general mood, even though he knew perfectly well that it was partly his fault; Mists made no sense sometimes and Squalo now had Wanhope to deal with for the next two months and change.

Squalo went back to the letter. Wanhope was only one person, so there had to be a few _decent_ people coming along too that he could talk to.

–_so of course Wanhope will be there too. The recruiter is Vӧkva, with Qaz and Yai as your tank and scout respectively, although Yai is just as capable of being a tank in a pinch. _

The Rain Officer raised an eyebrow; a Squad with _two_ Varia Squad Leaders in it? That was unusual. Vӧkva was one of Squalo's own Rains, so that was a plus as he'd be able to get all the latest Rain gossip and the highlights of what the rest of the people knocking about HQ were getting up to in his absence. Qaz was… not slow, exactly, but certainly not about to win any prizes for his intellect. The Lightning was good-natured and loyal though, so he'd be no trouble. Yai _might_ be trouble, but Squalo knew that despite having been recruited by Ottabio –whom Squalo still did not trust– the Cloud respected Boss a great deal, so they'd probably manage to rub along well enough. Yai had certainly never given him any trouble before, unlike some Clouds the swordsman could mention.

_Due to Bel having something akin to a psychotic break in Vongola Medical I had to send him on a mission, which meant I had to find something equivalent for the Squad Leader he was replacing to do considering I'd just gypped him out of a paycheck. As it was Sarja, I decided he could join you to keep an eye on Vezzini. _

Great; Squalo had _three_ Squad leaders to juggle. One passive-aggressive –Vӧkva– one rational yet breathtakingly manipulative –Fuseau– and one so cruelly sarcastic that Bel thought he was _funny_. At least it was a six-man Squad, so each Leader could be paired up with a non-leader who wouldn't get on their nerves too badly. Fuseau and Wanhope, Vӧkva and Yai and Sarja and Qaz would be the best pairings. Then there was the Bel mess, which did explain why Luss was with Vongola Housekeeping and tired enough to forget to be politically correct; the idea of Bel having 'something akin to a psychotic break' was not something Squalo was looking forward to dealing with, but probably would have to once he got back if Bel was still in the throes of Flame-induced puberty then.

_Due to how many new people we're getting in Fuseau had to bring one of the recently recruited Mists along, but as you need someone to fetch and carry that shouldn't be a problem. She seems driven, was smart enough not to complain more than once about being the Squad's official dogsbody and her stats look good, so she shouldn't give you much trouble._

Well, in Squalo's experience the women who joined the Varia were about ten times more motivated to succeed than the men; actual women or sufferers of femininity and thus just technically female, they had all made Squad Leader or died in the attempt. This Mist was unlikely to be any different, so was probably going to be worth his time; unlike the moron who'd been with them in Japan, whom Kuchisake had disposed of just ten days in and then 'recruited' a replacement for from somewhere. Squalo suspected that Kuchisake had kidnapped said replacement mook, but that did not clarify where she'd found him. Still, the possibly-kidnapped mook –who wasn't yakuza and had quite possibly been a civvie– was a much better fit.

Admittedly the replacement _had_ possessed common sense, which was so vanishingly rare in the Varia it should have been called 'uncommon sense', but despite his remarkable survival instincts he had been barely bilingual and rather pitiful in a fight, though by the time Kuchisake had dragged him back to Italy at the end of the two months he'd been a _lot_ better than he had been. He'd also been fluent in five languages by then; Squalo was looking forward to that guy getting through his apprenticeship and hopefully joining Rain Squad. Squalo already had a name in mind for him when and if he made it; Varia mooks had a terrible habit of dying and skewing the casualty averages for the Varia as a whole even though they didn't count as proper Varia. The mooks might be Varia Quality, but unless you had a name you weren't _really_ Varia.

So, he had a 'difficult' Squad rather than a 'crazy' Squad; not much of an improvement, but Squalo would take what he could get. Three Mists and a Cloud in close quarters was however likely to get explosive, so he'd have to keep an eye out for escalating problems before they exploded messily. Beyond that he couldn't see any immediate issues beyond Wanhope. Then again, he didn't know any of these Varia –other than Vӧkva of course– so getting to know them better would be the first step.


	87. Chapter 87

Family trees for all these Zabinis are on Deviantart. I have the same pen-name there as I do here: Umei_no_Mai.

Beta'd by the laudible Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of getting along with the in-laws **

Dorea was rather pleased with how well everything was going, both on the domestic and on the political front. Her adorable, precious babies were going to have their second birthday within the week and were both noticeably ahead of what Aunt Drusilla called 'developmental milestones', so she was organising a family party for them. Of course, it being a _Zabini_ family party meant that, even though she was limiting attendance to those of her husband's cousins and cousins-once-removed who had children in the same age bracket as Marius and Cassie, there were going to be no less than _thirteen_ children at the party. Admittedly that was including Costanzo and Graziano's nieces and nephews, as she knew her husband's body-doubles rather better than any of his other relatives, but still. It had taken all her effort and influence to limit the party _that_ much; her husband had twenty cousins and thirty-two cousins-once-removed, just from his parents' siblings! Dorea hadn't actually taken the time to count how many further cousins-once-removed and second cousins he had in the wider family, because she was sure the numbers would be completely ridiculous. The Zabini were legion!

It was not a Black Tradition to do large birthday parties for small children; Dorea's big parties had only begun once she was old enough to behave appropriately at them, starting from when she turned eight. However it turned out to be a Zabini tradition to introduce children to their closest cousins as young as possible, so they all grew up together and considered each-other close family. Dorea could see the advantages; the Zabini were an immense Family and ensuring that a child knew their closest relatives their own age almost as well as if they were siblings meant they had friendships almost guaranteed. Dorea still found it a bit overwhelming though; she wasn't used to being surrounded by family her own age, all being loud and boisterous and messing around. The Blacks were rather more formal and there were considerably fewer of them, while Dorea's friends all recognised and respected the fact that Dorea liked things to be orderly. Loud was fine, silliness and jokes were also fine, so long as there was some shared activity or activities, be it music, magic or research or indeed anything else.

Dorea recognised that she had issues with unstructured interactions and that it was likely a product of her highly ordered childhood, but couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't help it; if there was no structure she felt the urge to create or impose one. However a birthday party for a pair of toddlers _couldn't_ be too structured, so Dorea settled for setting a time for everyone to arrive by, a time for food and a time for the guests either going home or putting their children to bed in guest rooms, followed by dinner for the adults. Playtime in between her children's guests arriving and tea-time would be in the large music room; having something to do would settle her nerves and both Cassie and Marius loved it when she played anything on the piano, even if they were playing with their toys or looking at picture books rather than just watching her.

She wasn't even eighteen yet, so seeing how _fast_ her twins were growing up was rather disconcerting. They were already talking intelligibly and had started calling up the signature Zabini fire right after Christmas! Costanzo thankfully had helped her teach little Marius and Cassie how dangerous the fire was and that using it on anything and anybody other than other fire-users –who were mostly immune unless there was serious malice involved– was _bad_ and _naughty_ and would result in going to bed early without dessert.

Teaching toddlers to be responsible was challenging, but at least her babies' fire was barely fierce enough to singe paper right now. It would get stronger with time and experience, but currently it was little more than a night-light. Honestly, Dorea was the one doing most of the learning as Costanzo and Gaetano taught her all the little games their relatives had taught _them_ when they first demonstrated the family Fire. It was actually great fun, though Dorea had to wonder if her husband had ever had anybody play those games with him.

* * *

The sixteenth of April dawned grey and wet, very much in keeping with all of the previous week. Dorea didn't mind it; inside the house was comfortably warm and even through the rain the views out of the windows were beautiful. In fact, in some ways they were even more beautiful in the rain; the colours were more subtle and the light shifted in fascinating ways. It was the kind of day that, when she had been pregnant, she had spent hours sitting on a sheltered section of the terrace at Black Manor painting with watercolours in an attempt to capture the subtle play of light and colour.

Dorea loved the rain. It was soothing, gentle and helped her put things into perspective. Like her Rains did, in fact; Blaise was her voice of sanity and Dawn could always find a way to make things happen the way Dorea wanted them to. Padma was just as good, keeping Hermione grounded and smoothing over problems before they could really arise. Not that Dorea saw as much of Padma as she did of Blaise and Dawn, but the Indian teen could generally be found in Potter Manor on Saturdays, making sure Hermione actually rested rather than attempting to work. Hermione still had to be bullied into taking breaks, but at least she was getting better at realising she _needed_ them.

As the twins' birthday was on a weekday Hermione and Padma would not be attending, being busy with the Ministry, but Rence had managed to persuade her Uncle Nick to let him have Wednesday night off, so he was able to wish Marius and Cassie 'happy birthday' over breakfast and give them the presents he'd picked out. Both twins had been delighted by the simple, sturdy wooden menagerie with two of each animal –green and red for Marius, blue and purple for Cassie– and had started playing with them right away.

Barty hadn't bought the twins presents at all, not really seeing the point, but hovered protectively in one corner of the room as Dorea listened to Daphne go over the arrangements in place for when the guests arrived and who, exactly, was expected to show up. It was a long list; Dorea was grateful that Theo, Blaise, Daphne and Luna would be there to help her keep the guests entertained. Odile was also in the house somewhere, but Dorea didn't think the Crocodile would do more than pass through the party at a moment of her choice; the Cloud was not what you might call sociable. Tracy was busy at St. Mungo's, studying to be a Healer, while Draco, Leo, Millie and Ginny were still at Hogwarts. The Prewetts had promised to stop by later but had apparently had a breakthrough on their latest product so might not make it until dinner and Rence of course was back in Sicily until Saturday.

Dorea was very pleased that her Knight now had weekends off, and had instated a Saturday routine so that he could spend the mornings with her babies and half the afternoon in the music room or training with her. Both Marius and Cassie were very fond of him, calling him 'Gwee' and demanding he read them stories at bedtime. They'd both very quickly got used to the fact he was only there at weekends, so on Saturday and Sunday evenings it _had_ to be Rence reading to them or they made a massive fuss. Dorea would have to train that out of them… later. They were toddlers right now and toddlers should be doted on.

"So everything is ready?" Dorea clarified once Daphne had gone over the entire list.

Daphne smiled, recently-bobbed golden hair swishing slightly as she twirled her quill. "Everything is ready," the eighteen-year-old confirmed lightly. "Don't worry so much Rhea; we know you can do this."

"Thanks Dee." Dorea really was grateful; she really did have far too much on her plate these days to effectively manage everything, which meant delegating as much as was at all feasible. Daphne was a very capable Steward and Dorea was delighted to have her, although the older girl's decision to cut her hair short had come as a surprise.

In Magical Society, long hair was _the_ fashion for women; short hair was either an indication of being low-class or having a commitment to work that the woman placed above the 'natural' duty of marrying and raising a family. Daphne's elegant bob proclaimed that she was devoted mind, body and soul to the wellbeing of the Black Family, to the point that marriage was not something she was prepared to even contemplate. Dorea hoped that changed in the future; Dee would make an excellent parent someday.

* * *

Marius and Cassie had just woken up from their lunchtime nap when the first guests arrived. Marco Zabini was Dorea's husband's maternal cousin and had stunning white-blonde hair, which looked slightly disconcerting considering his golden eyes and only faintly olivine skin. Marco's wife was called Bianca and they had been high-school sweethearts, marrying right after leaving school and were now the proud parents to two daughters, Teodora who was nearly two and Maura who was barely six weeks old.

Teodora had no qualms about finding something to play with from the music room floor, which had toys all over everywhere in a probably vain attempt to keep fights at a minimum. Maura was currently fast asleep in her father's arms, but that would likely change. Babies rarely slept for very long; Dorea knew that from experience.

None of the rest of her husband's maternal cousins were married and most of them were actually younger than Xanxus was; half of them were also younger than Dorea herself. The youngest, Giulia, wasn't even six yet.

Next to arrive were Gaetano's elder siblings with their spouses and children: his brother Gabriele with Paola, his wife and their children Luisa and Agostino, and his sister Marianna and her son Filippo. Marianna's husband was an ambassador abroad, so unfortunately hadn't been able to take time off to attend the birthday party of his Principe's children. Luisa was two and a half, Filippo had just turned one and Agostino was just two months old, so Paola sat next to Bianca so they could chat about their respective babies. Luisa and Filippo simply made a beeline for the toys, both of them clearly used to this kind of thing.

Shortly afterwards Martina, Dorea's husband's youngest paternal cousin, arrived with her two-year-old daughter Carla. Martina was about seven months pregnant with her next child, a boy that she confided her husband wanted to call Bernardo. Dorea asked if there was a family history to the name and spent the next five minutes being told about various other relatives called Bernardo her husband Dante had up his family tree. It was almost a relief to be called away to greet more guests.

Next to arrive, in rapid succession, were three of Martina's elder siblings with their spouses and respective youngest children: Giovanna and Leone with their son Matteo, Fabiana and Michele with their daughter Rosa and Pietro and Eva with their daughter Caterina. Matteo was only about a month short of his own second birthday, Rosa was three and Caterina had just turned two back in December. Dorea had just got them all settled when she was called back to the Floo; more guests!

These ones at least she knew well: they were Graziano's eldest Vincenzo with his wife Rossella and their sixteen-month-old daughter Angela. Dorea saw quite a lot of Vincenzo, as he frequently assisted his father with the running of the Principality on her behalf. He was shorter than the average Zabini with curly hair and tawny amber eyes, although his wife was even shorter than he was, which was rather unusual. Maybe she wasn't actually a Zabini by birth.

Vincenzo was followed by Giovanni, eldest son of Graziano's older sister Chiara whom Dorea was yet to meet. Giovanni's wife Alessia was carrying their one-year-old son Maurizio, who had somehow managed to turn out a redhead despite having two black-haired parents. Dorea admired the little boy as an aunt should, then directed them towards the now rather rowdy music room as the Floo flashed green again.

This time it was Costanzo with his sister Lucia and her two younger children Isabella and Riccardo, aged three-and-a-half and two respectively. Lucia's eldest Sara was six and in school, so couldn't come to the party and Lucia's husband Paolo hadn't been able to secure time off work. Dorea admired Isabella's dress and Riccardo's new shoes, assured Costanzo that everything seemed to be going well and let the occasionally overprotective older man send a house-elf to fetch her a drink; really, she might not have siblings of her own but 'Stanzo seemed determined to take on the role of her older brother. Considering he was her husband's body-double in everything except the colour of his eyes it was a little disconcerting sometimes. Thankfully Stanzo's sister took after her mother in looks; it was already enough for Dorea that Zia Angelique was practically Xanxus' shorter female doppelganger with brown eyes and curves.

There were vanishingly few red-eyed Zabinis, so few in fact that Dorea was yet to meet any other than her own husband and daughter. Blaise had told her that red-eyed Zabinis were encouraged to marry outside the wider family, which did partially explain why Dorea had yet to meet any: her cousins-in-law were being very protective of her and her children, to the point of not allowing anybody who wasn't part of the immediate royal family to meet her unless it absolutely could not be avoided. As the princes and their siblings tended to marry carefully, there hadn't been any red-eyed royals in generations.

Now that all her guests had arrived, Dorea returned to the music room, accepted the drink Parser brought her and let herself be drawn into a conversation with Giovanna and Fabiana concerning the possibility of future play-dates.

* * *

It was over dinner after the party, when only Martina, Marianna, Gaetano, Vincenzo, Rossella and Costanzo remained of her adult guests and all the toddlers had been put to bed, that the subject matter turned to serious things. Specifically, the matter of feathers and how Dorea should be wearing them.

"_You are a Zabini by marriage, a sister to prince Blaise and representing Sabina,_" Martina said firmly, ebony curls flying as she gestured emphatically. "_You should be appropriately attired and as you are blooded, that means feathers!_"

"_But I am wearing feathers, Martina,_" Dorea pointed out, tilting her head so her curse-catchers fell forwards. "_Are they not enough?_"

"_Feathers of the dove signify duty and acceptance,_" Vincenzo agreed pensively, "_But Tina is right; they do not convey they right image. Not that you aren't dutiful and accepting, princess, but those are not your primary qualities and they most certainly are __**not**__ what drove you to kill._"

"_They are a poor fit,_" Gaetano agreed bluntly, "_but feathers are usually a personal choice, so us picking out replacements would be inappropriate._"

"_That is not helpful, Gaetano,_" Dorea said tartly, glaring at him across the table. At her right hand Blaise sniggered.

"_You could wear the bones,_" her oath-brother suggested unhelpfully. "_That would be extremely appropriate and very traditional. Nobody would argue._"

"_I __**refuse**__ to wear Bellatrix Lestrange's finger-bones in my hair on a daily basis,_" Dorea said flatly, glaring at her brother-by-choice. "_To intimidate or make an impression, perhaps, but not every day. I am not defined by what she has done to me._"

Blaise quickly held up his hands palm out in a warding gesture. "_Easy Rhea; I wasn't being serious._"

Dorea stabbed her steak viciously. "_Good._"

"_Wryneck feathers maybe?_" Marianna suggested. "_They were wizards after all._"

"_Their being wizards was only tangential to their deaths; another poor fit,_" Gaetano criticized his older sister. "_Cormorant perhaps, for success?_"

"_Again, success was not the purpose of the kill, nor was it immediately apparent,_" Costanzo pointed out. "_Osprey, as it was to protect her children that she did the deed? No, that's not quite right…_"

There was a pause as all the Zabinis present pondered the issue. Not having the faintest idea of how the code worked, Dorea did not bother to comment; she may have been a Zabini by marriage but that did not grant her a miraculous understanding of the obscure and frequently contradictory system they used to determine which feathers best represented the kill they wished to commemorate. She was rather sure they were referring to the death of Voldemort and the subsequent executions though, which was not actually her first kill.

"_Tom Riddle was not the first to die at my hand,_" she reminded them. "_My first kills were when I was abducted from school grounds, before my marriage, and Fizz assisted me in slaying two Death Eaters the Dark Idiot ordered to kill me._"

Blaise's eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. "_Of course! Eleonora's falcon!_"

There was a chorus of agreements around the table, broken only by Vincenzo's groan of, "_How could I not think of that? It's perfect!_"

"_Explanations, please?_" Dorea demanded, then after glancing at Daphne and Theo added, "_In English please, for my friends' sake._" Both Theo and Daphne had some Italian –all the Zabini around the place made not picking some up impossible– but neither were fully fluent quite yet. The only reason Daphne hadn't used the Ministry's Language Depository to acquire the language in its entirety was that such a method took time to settle in the mind, preventing the usage of other languages as it did so. Daphne didn't feel it was appropriate to limit herself that way when she was Black Steward and needed her English for business and the occasional Ministry hiccups she got called in on as Dorea's representative.

As bird species were rather an obscure subject, they were probably feeling a little lost right now. Luna was fully fluent somehow –Dorea wasn't quite sure when that had happened or how– and Barty knew a ridiculous number of languages of which Italian was just one.

"Eleanora's falcon," Blaise repeated in English. "It's a type of small falcon that hunts songbirds on the wing. We use the feathers to mean 'dangerous lady', which you most certainly are."

"It's very appropriate," Costanzo agreed firmly, "much more so than any of the other ideas. Killing didn't really change you, not significantly: you simply became more aware of the possibilities open to you. So a statement of being, rather than of intent is most appropriate. As you said, what you have done does not define you."

Dorea pondered this. "I'm not going to stop wearing my curse-catchers," she informed them, "but if it is that important to you I don't mind adding a few more feathers."

"Wonderful!" Martina said brightly. "I'll find some appropriate ones and have them fitted for you. Gold settings would be best, considering the colours and you being our Principessa; they can come out of the royal budget as that's what it's for."

"I leave it in your capable hands then, cousin," Dorea said calmly, glad to have the matter settled. She could deal with more feathers in her hair if it meant nixing the prospect of wearing those bones Blaise had insisted she keep. Seriously, wearing finger-bones? Zabinis were _odd_ and while she'd always been peripherally aware of that due to five years of schooling alongside Blaise, she'd not properly realised _how_ odd until she married into the family.


	88. Chapter 88

Beta'd by the territorial Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of learning and teaching **

Hosting a throng of Zabini parents and their young children on her twins' birthday had the unintended but very happy effect of giving Dorea more free time. Not directly, but both Cassie and Marius wanted to play with their cousins again which meant arranging visits, which in turn meant time without the twins expecting her to be there to entertain them. Even though Dorea preferred to host all such events at Potter Manor where she could fully control the security and keep an eye on all attending, having two to six of their cousins visiting at a time kept both Marius and Cassie fully occupied for hours on end; this meant Dorea could pick up various other things she'd been neglecting in favour of her children, such as research and Flame practice.

However her not being in the same room as the twins put Barty in a bit of a pickle, as the devoted blond took his bodyguarding duties very seriously and preferred to be able to see what all three his 'principals' were getting up to at all times. As this was no longer possible, Barty had to trust Nanny Sofia and the footmen to watch out for the twins while Dorea was elsewhere, which he was not best pleased about doing. Oh, he recognised that the Zabinis would sooner cut off their own heads than harm their Principe's children, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Barty had trust issues and disbelieved most peoples' claims about their capabilities almost on principle. He made a few exceptions –such as for Dorea herself and certain others like Odile and Blaise– but as a general rule the former Death Eater expected to be disappointed.

Dorea was working on that with him, but it was a long job so in the meantime the man just had to cope with his issues. To be fair, Barty's issues did have a solid grounding in personal experience: the majority of British Magicals above a certain age were rather disappointing, with few exceptions. Most of them could barely think straight, let alone create something new or defend themselves somewhat adequately should it become necessary. Her Zabini staff and guests weren't Hogwarts educated or raised on the myth of 'the infallible Albus Dumbledore', which helped but didn't really make Barty much happier about the situation. She wasn't expecting him to be able to protect her children while he was on the opposite side of the house with her, so he shouldn't expect it of himself either. That kind of thinking was ridiculous and irrational. Of course it was also the kind of thing Tom Riddle had excelled at, so Dorea refrained from being _too_ amused at Barty's discomfort. He knew it was irrational, he knew she knew it too and he was working on changing his habits but that kind of thing took time. Mental adjustments took time to sink in.

Dorea knew about how her Thrall was feeling because she was a Sky and her Flame Affinity was Harmony. It had nothing to do with the Thrall bond at all; that was no more than a leash. It was her Flames that gave her insight into the hearts and minds of those around her. It was how she knew that Rence's fervent and whole-hearted adoration of her was both genuine and platonic, and that Luna loved her like a sister. She knew that Tracy followed after her because the other girl liked Dorea's ideals rather than just because Daphne did, that Padma would drop everything in a second if Dorea asked it of her, that Hermione genuinely saw her as family and that Daphne's devotion to her was not entirely platonic. That last had been a bit tricky for Dorea to come to terms with, but she refused to let it spoil her relationship with Dee and it wasn't like there was anything her blonde friend could _do_ about it. The heart wants what it wants after all.

Her Flames also told her that Odile had been terribly lonely before coming to Potter Manor and would probably never leave of her own volition, that Blaise adored her with a chaste but fervent passion that he would never dare show any other woman –his mother's antics had ruined him for romantic relationships– and that Theo had for reasons known only to him made her the linchpin of his universe. That last one baffled her, because Theo was emotionally reserved and terribly rational, yet his decision to use her as an anchor and guide had been a deliberate and conscious one. Really, just because she had considerable insight into their thoughts and feelings didn't mean they made _sense_ to her. Or at all, really.

Then there were Jerry and Frank, Fred and George, who were far more different than they appeared to be. Jerry truly _was_ Jerry –being George was the mask now– but Frank was Fred wearing a mask. Fred and George lived to make people laugh and to create, they were all about amusement and tricks and showing off; Jerry and Frank on the other hand were about subterfuge, veiled seriousness and protecting what mattered to them by whatever means necessary. Twins they may have been, but they were by no means identical. Not where it counted.

Leo and Draco were easy in comparison: they were both family and both enjoyed the challenges she set them, deliberately or tangentially. They also found the chaos which seemed to follow her around amusing, which she could have done without really. Dorea liked her order, or as much order as she could get considering she had pyrokinetic toddler twins, their playmates, her own friends and a manor full of people wanting her input in running their country vying for her attention.

Ginny saw Dorea as somebody who would enable her to escape the smothering expectations of her mother and magical society generally, and was willing to do quite a lot for that taste of freedom. Seeing as she actually liked Ginny –the redhead was fierce and funny and hard-working– Dorea intended to offer her a job come graduation. Probably as some kind of trouble-shooter out on her remote estates; what with having to run Sabina and care for her children Dorea couldn't spend two months trekking through a wilderness looking for illegal squatters on her land. Ginny on the other hand would be able to and would probably enjoy it too, especially considering the rates Dorea intended to pay and the fact that nobody would miss the people in question. Squatters should have known better by local reputation at least, even if they really were _that_ desperate, but poachers deserved whatever happened to them; the Blacks had a large Warded area full of rare magical and endangered mundane species in central Africa, which was _not_ for hunting on without permission and a hefty fee to the Black Family. Erumpet fluid was one thing, but an improperly-treated Nundu skin getting out in the world could easily start an epidemic or three.

Millie was not so different from Ginny really, although her family background meant that she probably wasn't going to be pressured into marrying any time soon. However Millie was still likely to end up working for Dorea is some capacity or other, simply because the statuesque teen felt she owed her age-mate for getting her into combat classes; Dorea found Millie's sense of debts and repayment very, very odd. Then there was the fact that most of Millie's friends were attached to Dorea in one way or another and well, it looked pretty inevitable that the tally, curvy brunette would find her way to Potter Manor not long after graduating.

* * *

'Harmony' was in itself a tricky concept. Dorea, having over half a lifetime of musical training and practice under her belt, thought of it as multiple elements coming together and reinforcing one-another, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. A harmony was louder and more encompassing than any of the individual notes that were part of it, working on multiple levels simultaneously. Thus, her Flames granting her an Affinity for Harmony meant both that they were made up of multiple other elements working in chorus and that she was predisposed towards creating harmony with others; that she could work with others to extend, amplify and complement their efforts.

There was also the part that Abraxas' books had mentioned, that being a Sky and exuding Harmony would draw people of all the other Flame Affinities to her because they could sense that she could make them more than what they were by themselves and accept them as they were. Dorea didn't really buy into the latter statement –she certainly hadn't let Hermione stay as she was– but recognised that she _did_ accept that her friends were people in their own right, with their own issues and strengths, and that she did not expect them to be other than they were. On the other hand, if they were being stupid she told them so and expected them to do better; most of her friends were gratifyingly sensible so it didn't happen often. Denial was unhealthy after all.

Working out what she could _actively_ use her Flames for had been interesting, because 'harmony' was not exactly a concept that was easily weaponised, unlike 'disintegration' or 'hardening'. It was even trickier than 'tranquillity'! Dorea's first foray into offensive usage of Flames had drawn on her musical background, as she had investigated the possibilities of weaponising the 'amplification' part of the harmony concept in the early stages of her pregnancy.

That had been unexpectedly explosive, but Dorea had been reminded of the stories of opera singers being able to shatter crystal with their voices and had consulted Trish, who had supplied her with books on atomic and sub-atomic physics –one of which had been a high-school textbook, plus a few other interesting ones for background reading– which had been startlingly helpful once she'd got past the language barrier. Science was _definitely_ a foreign language, despite masquerading as English in poor lighting! It had been interesting, but rather technical, but the difficulty had shown her that she did have certain holes in her education compared to her non-magical peers who were aiming for university.

What it boiled down to was that on some level, _everything_ vibrated. So harmonising with that vibration amplified it, often to the point of breaking it apart. Dorea was also very interested in the fact that solid objects were actually over ninety percent empty space; could harmony make it possible to walk through walls? It was certainly a fascinating concept…

Beyond her ability to explode things on demand, Dorea had also been curious about whether she could adjust her 'frequency' to harmonise with, say, Wards. After all, magic was basically energy and only detectable when in motion, which meant that magical constructs had to vibrate too, like physical objects did. She'd put off _that_ experimentation until after she had given birth, but it had led to some amusing effects. Such as her newfound ability to walk through Wards like they weren't there, given a little time to tune into them. Or her ability to touch, twist and bend Wards as though they were physical things, without setting them off. Trish had _loved_ documenting that, and had asked all kinds of pertinent and interesting questions that had given her new and intriguing avenues to explore. Dorea even had a list, so that when she had the time she could pick one that appealed to her without much difficulty and have the results of her experiments documented.

Of course, all this exploration had been slow-going due to having babies who were her first priority, taking care of her Family responsibilities and signing paperwork for Graziano so he could govern Sabina in her husband's absence. Then there had been taking over the Ministry and all the paperwork _that_ had generated, so her progress had been glacial in everything except the control exercises she had developed to ensure she didn't actually regress in her ability to only blow up what she _wanted_ to blow up. The Prewett Twins had helped there, as they wanted to test _everything_ to see how it would blow up and how much energy it took; from wood, stone and glass to random and silly things like water and mashed potatoes. Dorea still needed to speak to Parvati and borrow some of the other girl's time to see if the intensity of Flames used affected whether or not Dorea was blowing up stone samples along pre-existing faults, which had potential practical implications. Plus, more time with Trish to see if just amplifying the individual atoms was breaking apart the chemical bonds, which might explain the dust.

Her recent influx of child-free time enabled her to return to her research, as well as spend more time in the Duelling Hall practicing her sword fighting. She really was rather out of shape, despite making time to go riding in the grounds twice a week and walking in the gardens with the twins every single day, rain or shine; there was a large difference between light exercise and the sustained exertion of an actual fight. Barty was very happy to indulge her need for a sparring partner and turned out to be very quick with a gladius, which took some getting used to as all of her former blade-wielding sparring partners had been longsword users. Barty also had an admirably extensive spell repertoire and considerable experience, so duelling him was a real challenge.

It was also fun. Truly, breathtakingly, relentlessly fun, making her hair curl and her blood sing. There really was nothing like risking life and limb in a semi-serious spar to make her feel _alive_, with the world narrowing down to the sheer physicality of the fight and the singing of her instincts. Dorea suspected sometimes that the only reason Barty dragged her off to fight was that she only really let go of the responsibilities burdening her when she stood with a sword in one hand and weaving spells with the other, dodging his fervent attempts to disembowel her. Certainly it was the only time her hair went back to forming ringlets; these days her black locks fell down her back in gentle waves rather that curling riotously.

It wasn't that she didn't love her children and her friends with all her heart, but it was hard to be happy when there was a gaping hole in her life where her fiery husband should be, even with his Flames sat under her heart warming her as best they could. Dorea hated the dreams most of all; waking up to find it hadn't been real and he _wasn't there_ broke her heart every time. Why, _why, __**why**_couldn't she have a happy ending, just this _once_?!

* * *

Of course, Dorea wasn't just studying her own Flames; not when her friends were just as in the dark concerning their own respective capabilities. Trish had made amazing progress with her own Storm Flames and was busily pushing back the boundaries of ignorance with the scientific process, the occasional mishap and supreme faith in her own competence, but there were a further five Flame-types out there that needed studying. Theo had thus far spent half a year assisting the scientifically-minded Black in studying Mist Flames with remarkable success and Barty was just as curious and keen where his own Lightning Flames were concerned, although the older man deliberately limited his study time so as not to neglect his self-imposed bodyguard duties. Still, the wild-eyed blond had a brilliant if cracked mind and was busily coming up with theories and ideas to try out, some of which had backfired rather spectacularly but some of which had been successful beyond Trish's widest imaginings and had resulted in poor Barty getting dragged off by the Prewetts for an entire weekend, the identical redheads babbling back and forth about 'genius!' and 'breakthrough' and, more worryingly, 'for a good cause, we swear!'

Still, Dorea _had_ got her paranoid and proactive Lightning back all in one piece, so it clearly hadn't been _that_ bad; she didn't know what had taken place yet, but it was possible that the Prewetts had just been borrowing Barty for inspiration and his formidable intellect. Barty didn't seem obviously traumatised by his experiences either, so she let it go. When the Prewetts were ready they'd show her what they'd created. After all, half the reason either of them did _anything_ was for the response they got so it was best to let them perfect their idea in secret. The other reasons they did things were the joy of the challenge of creating something brilliant and, more pragmatically, profit.

Blaise, despite spending quite a bit of time with his family and house-hunting in Sicily, had made considerable advances with his own Rain Flames, which he of course shared with Padma despite the Indian girl having such small Flame reserves that she was rather limited in how she could apply them. The raven didn't let that stop her though; Padma was a mistress of subtlety and was making truly remarkable progress on her own, so Blaise got as many tips back as he shared. Dorea had a feeling they could both rule the world if they ever bothered to, although both were more the 'power behind the throne' type. Or in Padma's case, the 'secretary who knows everything' type was a more accurate summation.

Luna… was Luna, and preferred not to use her Flames at all, but Dorea knew she trained them anyway because fortune favoured the prepared. Luna was currently more interested in the 'new and improved' rollerblades Fred was making for her which allowed her to defy gravity, since they were dating now and Luna liked new inventions more than flowers. Dorea wasn't sure when or how that had started, but she suspected they'd marry eventually. God help the world when they had kids though. Not because they'd be bad parents, but due to the world not being ready for the kind of havoc such a combination of inherited traits could unleash.

Most of Dorea's investigations into Cloud Flames were theoretical, because Hermione was too busy elsewhere to really do more than stay in shape and Crocodile was not currently interested, due to being heavily engrossed in her family magic in her private workshop. However that didn't stop the Lady Potter jotting down thoughts, ideas and suggestions for them to consider and play around with when they had the time and inclination. Trish was making noises about recruiting one of the Constellation members who'd be graduating in summer to try them out, but Dorea suspected that her two Clouds were slightly too possessive to let that happen. Distant and absorbed in their respective subjects though they seemed, both Hermione and Odile were rather jealous of her time and attention where other Clouds were concerned.

As for Sun Flames, Leo's letters and mirror-calls showed he was managing just fine in investigating their properties and capabilities for himself, so Dorea wasn't too bothered. She was using some of his findings to refine her control over her Ward and make it do new and interesting things, but really, that was all she had time for. There were, after all, only so many hours in the day and using time-turners was not at all healthy. She had far too many responsibilities already and couldn't do all of them without delegating heavily, even if she _did_ use a time-turner.

Dorea did sometimes wonder what her Zabini in-laws were doing with the two-dozen time-turners they'd 'liberated' from the Department of Mysteries, but never for very long. She was just so busy and there were moments she had to do nothing more than to sit at the piano and pour out her heart into music, because doing otherwise would mean moping or getting angry rather than getting things done. Music kept her going and kept her from bottling up her feelings unhealthily, but it didn't make the underlying issues go away.


	89. Chapter 89

Yes, I'm back! There'll be updates for a week!

Beta'd by the vigilant Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of embarrassment and gunshot wounds**

It had been four weeks since he'd changed Squads and Squalo _still_ wasn't sure why the Mist-mook tailing Fuseau like a disgruntled duckling was called Bolla. Maybe it was because she had the total opposite of a bubbly personality, or maybe it had something to do with her particular style when using her Flames; the swordsman still didn't know, because since she was the Squad's dogsbody she hadn't had a chance to fight any of the prospective recruits and during Squalo's fights she was the person holding the camera and filming everything rather than maintaining the perimeter.

Squalo was profoundly grateful that Wanhope was a highly capable scout, because it meant he could send the man off for hours at a time perfectly legitimately so that the rest of them could sleep without nightmares; it wasn't intentional on Wanhope's part but it would still happen, as various past mission reports attested to. Of course, doing that meant that Wanhope slept in the van during the day whenever they drove from one place to the next, but that wasn't so bad; his aura of abject misery was less acute while he was unconscious. Yai didn't seem to mind that his position as Squad scout had been partly usurped by the depressing Mist and had silently fallen into the role of close-cover, walking the visible perimeter whenever Squalo duelled and riding a motorbike alongside the van when they travelled.

Technically their transport was a so-called people carrier, but because it was a converted van Squalo called it a van. The fact that it had two rows of bench seats in the back did not make up for the lack of rear windows, even though the absence of windows made transporting all their weapons and equipment easier. This way they didn't have to worry about some civilian catching a glimpse of a gun, sword or grenade launcher. The latter item was probably superfluous, but it was Fuseau's weapon of choice so it came along. Fuseau specialised in physical illusions –which translated to 'solid and highly effective'– and conjured his own grenades, so he never ran out of ammunition and was rather terrifyingly imaginative in what he chose to launch at people. There were rumours of everything from broken glass through live octopi all the way to rotten tomatoes, depending on the man's mood and the requirements of the situation.

So far Squalo had seen water bombs for fending off wild animals, confetti to distract Wanhope, narcotic gas for crowd control and live cockroaches against a particularly irritating piece of trash who hadn't liked that they'd recruited his 'useless' little brother and not him; the screams over getting covered in roaches had proven that the dumb piece of trash really _was_ trash. Squalo however suspected that the cockroaches had been _real_ rather than physical illusions, because the hotel room right before that had been a fucking roach motel, also proven since Wanhope had charmed them out of the walls for Bolla to practice her illusions on and the Squad Leader could easily have grabbed a few.

The swordsman wasn't sure if he should be pleased or terrified that Wanhope was passing on his unusual and very specialised skillset, but since Fuseau was letting it happen Squalo had decided to settle for wariness. Watching Bolla attempt to mimic Wanhope as he mentally commanded the roaches to line up and drill in formation had been rather hilarious, as she'd lobotomised her first batch of test subjects to death and the next few batches had not been much better off. Puppeteers were few and far between, as it took a very specific mindset and a great deal of skill to manage it successfully; Wanhope was the only one the Varia had, which was why Mist Division had thus far prevented him from being murdered by his fellow assassins. Most of the Varia that had to work with Wanhope made a point of finding something to be angry about for the duration of the mission in preference to being miserable, which could easily lead to an assassin deciding it was easy to be angry at –and possibly murder– the guy who was making them feel miserable in the first place.

Wanhope had come into the Varia under Tyr, following Fuseau like a stray dog after an incident in his previously-civilian life had turned his hair white, Activated his Flames and instigated a mental breakdown that the man still hadn't recovered from. Fuseau had just so happened to be in the same town as Wanhope when the incident happened and had intervened in the interests of preventing an epidemic of suicides because that kind of public exposure would be _bad_ for everyone with Flames. Fuseau had spent a week there, managed to put Wanhope back together a bit and had then left, because the man was a civilian, grieving and definitely not Varia material.

Except that Wanhope had then proved he _was_, because he had followed Fuseau back to Varia HQ without being noticed and demonstrated to Tyr his absolutely terrifying talent for taking over people and sending them off to do his bidding. It was like temporary brainwashing, except that Wanhope had full control of his victims' actions right up until he severed the connection and they returned to their right minds. Tyr had promptly recruited the Mist and ordered Fuseau to get him up to Varia Quality, which had not taken very long as Wanhope had been _driven_ despite being horrendously depressed and constantly projecting his misery in a fifteen-metre radius. He'd gotten better at puppeteering too, to the point that the rest of the Varia would have been very wary of him were it not for his total disinterest in the usual Mist head-games. Wanhope wasn't _interested_ in getting people to do what he wanted them to unless it was a mission; his depression was almost an asset there, as Wanhope was possibly the most straightforward Mist that Squalo had ever heard of.

Of course his victims never realised they'd been under somebody else's control, so they thought they'd done everything of their own volition and frequently killed themselves in short order even if Wanhope hadn't ordered them to beforehand. Wanhope's missions always left a very clear and easily-resolved trail for the police to tie up, because there were witnesses and everything. Killing sprees, murder-suicides, crimes of passion… Wanhope's specialty didn't do anything for his depression, but he was at least stable. Reliable too, so long as Fuseau was allowed to manage him as the Squad Leader saw fit. However his being a model subordinate did not make him any less depressing to be around, which meant that Fuseau's Squad was one of the Varia's few two-person Squads and that anybody made to run a mission with them would afterwards do their best to ensure they _never_ had to repeat the experience.

This was probably the longest mission Wanhope had ever been on with a larger Squad and was definitely the largest Squad he'd ever been part of, but the stocky Mist had thus far been quiet, reliable and completely stable despite the challenging conditions, ever-changing surroundings and getting stuck on night shift from day one. If he hadn't come with his very own aura of chronic despair Squalo would have been happy to recommend him for any number of other future missions.

Fuseau was almost Wanhope's opposite: tall where the other man was short, skeletally lean where Wanhope was stocky and inclined towards gender-ambiguous modifications to his Varia uniform where his subordinate simply stuck to an outfit until it wore to rags and then mutely accepted Lussuria's next offering rather than expressing a preference. Wanhope probably _had_ a preference, as some uniforms had fallen apart decidedly faster than others, but he'd never voiced it and possibly never would. Fuseau on the other hand was rather chatty about clothing and picky about what he wore, even when he was dressing up in civilian clothing to travel incognito for a mission.

The more experienced Mist also had a sense of humour, as his fondness for shooting people with sea life and vegetables proved. Although Squalo could have done without it, as Fuseau was ruthlessly logical, practical and manipulative so used his sense of humour to get people to do what he wanted them to. It was a management style that gave the Rain Officer headaches –why couldn't people be straightforward, seriously– but nobody had killed anybody else even after a month and a half of living in each-others pockets so the swordsman could grudgingly admit that it worked. Mostly; there'd been a few tense moments.

* * *

In addition to the usual criminal fraternities, ambitious freelancers and occasional bored genius, this particular leg of Squalo's world trip had thrown up a few surprises. The most notable of said surprises had been the discovery of a traditional religious community in Peru that practiced human sacrifice; a number of the priests could actually use their Flames, which was interesting in an academic sense and explained how they had managed to keep their religion going in modern times beyond being more discreet about who they sacrificed.

There had also been a slight misunderstanding concerning the high priest's pre-teen granddaughter that Squalo refused to think about, because getting mistaken for a flood deity was one thing but having a wrinkly old man cheerfully talking about how much he was looking forward to getting fair-haired great-grandchildren from him was quite another. It had turned out to be a joke, but that did not mean that Squalo wanted to remember it. Unfortunately however both Fuseau and Vӧkva had been present for the entire discussion and they both thought it was hilarious, so it kept on getting brought up or alluded to. Or it had until Squalo had lost his temper and thrashed Vӧkva bloody in a spar to remind him who was Officer. The obvious allusions had stopped then, but Squalo kept on getting _looks_ that told him various members of the Squad were thinking about that episode and laughing on the inside.

Then there had been the brush with a bunch of jaguar poachers that Sarja had decided he didn't like and had challenged Yai to a killing contest over, so the Storm and Cloud had spent the next twenty-four hours taking it in turns to pick the men off in creative yet plausibly accidental ways, with Wanhope acting as judge because he was the best at long-distance observation and was agreed to be not remotely biased. Wanhope had puppeted the entire band of poachers to ensure he didn't miss anything, then had Fuseau create screens he could 'project' what the men were seeing onto so that everybody else could enjoy the show too. It had been fun for everyone involved, even the new recruits who had seemed a mite disturbed by the Varia interpretation of what counted as fun. Yai had won after enlarging a napping Andean mountain cat and setting it on the three remaining men, as Wanhope had deemed it 'inventive use of local superstition'. Sarja had pouted, but as the men were all dead and that had been what he wanted, he hadn't sulked for long. Sarja was an animal lover, which was probably why he'd taken offense to the poachers in the first place.

Bolla had actually videoed the entire production, muttering about 'amateur snuff flicks', then packed the tapes away with the reels from Squalo's fights after clearly labelling them. Squalo suspected that tape was going to show up at future Varia movie nights and had tried to remember what else she might have filmed; Bolla was very, very good at being inconspicuous and had taken to carrying the camera equipment with her everywhere. It was entirely possible she'd caught her Squad-mates being themselves on camera a few times. If she _had_ managed to do that then she was probably real Quality and he should start thinking of a suitable name for her.

Apprentices all got renamed, but those names weren't proper names; they were called things like 'tomato' or 'colt' or 'honey', which were pet-names. Proper Varia names referenced something about the Varia member's specialty, personality or some defining event in their career. For instance Wanhope meant 'despair', which was self-explanatory, and Fuseau meant spindle, both because the Squad Leader was as skinny as one but also because he actually spun yarn as a hobby.

What was it with the Varia Squalo was getting and their arts-and-crafts hobbies anyway? First the friendship bracelets, then the knitting and now yarn-spinning which might get used in knitting later. What next, embroidery?!

* * *

São Luís in April was wet, so wet that Squalo felt like he should be drowning. There was rain, there was high humidity and there were thick, low clouds obscuring the sun. It was also somewhere around twenty-eight degrees centigrade, which meant the wetness was warm and sticky in all the wrong ways. Squalo loathed it; he was sweating constantly, his hair was tangled for no good reason and his uniform was uncomfortable. Despite being specially made to be Flame-proof and good in all weathers and conditions, humid tropical monsoon weather was something it was _not_ suited to, partly because it was black or at least dark enough to look black in poor lighting, since pure black stood out too much to be useful for general camouflage purposes.

At least he wasn't the only one suffering; Bolla's hair hung limply from its high ponytail and her lower lip was sticking out in a pout that hadn't left her face since they reached this soggy place yesterday morning. Fuseau's fringe was sticking to his forehead, the rest of his hair bundled up in a bun on the top of his skull, and his long, spindly fingers were tapping a persistent beat against his grenade launcher, which was one of the Squad Leader's tells. Qaz had retreated inside his head and was staring blankly at the wall opposite him, hair even curlier than usual and his jacket shoved under his chair, revealing a sleeveless tank top damp with sweat. Vӧkva had stripped off both his jacket and boots and was slumped backwards, his feet propped up on Wanhope's calves since the miserable Mist was curled up sideways across three seats on the bench opposite and dead to the world. Being in close quarters with Wanhope was doing nothing for Squalo's mood, which was why he was making an effort to be irritated rather than just glum; right now the back of the van felt like Varia Headquarters did two months after Boss was put on ice and it was a reminder Squalo could have done without.

Sarja was driving the van with Vezzini sat up front next to him as decoy, since the man was very _obviously_ a proper scientist and the police were unlikely to stop the van if they looked like a minor research project rather than a criminal enterprise. Yai, the lucky bastard, was pacing the van from a distance on the motorbike, wandering a little way ahead whenever the traffic got thick then getting off and stopping until they went past before getting on again and trailing along behind. It was tedious work but the Cloud got to be far enough away from Wanhope to not feel in need of happy pills and that was reason enough for him to have volunteered this morning.

There were eight other people jammed into the back of the van, three squeezed between Wanhope and the doors on the opposite bench, two more between Vӧkva and the doors on this side and another three sat on the floor, clinging onto weapon racks and jammed between rucksacks and holdalls of belongings. In the three weeks since their last rendezvous with Luss they'd worked their way up the Brazilian coast, through all the big cities, and there were so _many_ to choose from that Vӧkva having selected just eight people to take home was actually rather conservative. They really were the best of the people available; Squalo was particularly interested in the Capoeira fighter with the dreadlocks, who didn't seem to mind having been all-but-kidnapped by a bunch of assassins intent on transplanting him to the opposite side of the Atlantic. As far as attitude and fitness went he was practically Varia Quality already, but as he only spoke four languages –Portuguese, English, German and Guarani– he'd have to learn three more before he got to try for full membership.

Squalo barely knew anything about the other seven, other than the girl who was technically fleeing homicide charges after beating her husband to death with a chair leg. She was newly Flame-active, having awakened her Dying Will while said husband was beating her up, which was how Qaz found her before the blood spatter on her apartment ceiling was even dry. The Lightning had bluntly informed her that if she came with him, his boss would ensure she never faced charges and that nobody would ever abuse her again, which had been enough for the battered, limping seventeen-year-old to hurriedly shove all her possessions and cash into a bag and follow the massive man all the way back to Squalo.

Since the newly-nicknamed Doninha was a Lightning, Squalo was willing to overlook her being a total civilian in the hope that she'd make Varia Quality and raise the baseline Quality of Lightning Division simply by existing; she'd at least know how to interact with people on an everyday basis without requiring supervision. Of course, her being an abuse victim meant she wasn't really a proper civilian and her having retaliated and killed her abuser meant she had a spine, but that was no guarantee that she'd have the necessary physical health to maintain Varia Quality for any length of time. There was also the fact that her natural personality was pretty scatty and a bit diva-ish, but she was very focused indeed whenever Squalo or Fuseau made it clear that messing around would result in them leaving her behind so the swordsman could deal. If Lightnings were usually like this it might explain why the mafia started brainwashing them in the first place…

It took them an hour to travel the fifteen kilometres from the city to Tirirical Airport, which was a good fifty minutes longer than Squalo wanted to be stuck within a metre of Wanhope for. As soon as Sarja parked the van by the plane Squalo was out and up the steps, making a beeline for the shower. The van had no air-conditioning and he really _needed_ another shower before he was up to doing paperwork and hearing all the latest gossip from Lussuria.

* * *

"So basically you have no idea," Squalo concluded as he set the last wad of paperwork aside, all of it either signed off or refused.

Lussuria's hands fluttered as the Sun Officer made a show of tidying up the piles. "That's _not_ what I said, darling!"

"You said that Bel had calmed down again since Sekti got back and that he was back to how he was before Christmas," Squalo pointed out, "despite the blood sample Bulldog managed to get showing that he's still in the thick of Flame-induced maturation. That suggests that whatever was setting him off wasn't actually puberty-related."

"It still could have been a rat problem!" Lussuria huffed, folding his arms and sticking his nose in the air.

"If so, where was the rat and why haven't we found the body yet?" Squalo asked, perfectly reasonably in his own opinion. It wasn't like he or anybody else in the Varia or indeed the rest of the Vongola would care that Bel had offed somebody who was selling the Famiglia out; the pre-teen Storm Officer wouldn't have killed anybody without proof of their misdeeds so it wasn't like he couldn't justify his actions.

Except there hadn't been a body and no report had been submitted in Bel's distinctive and idiosyncratic style alongside a demand for payment. It was rather unnerving. Lussuria sagged.

"There haven't even been any reported disappearances lately," the Sun Officer admitted tiredly. "At least I'm actually managing to stay on top of things now the brat's calmed down a bit."

"And concerning Sekti's stint out here?" Squalo inquired.

Lussuria huffed. "I know there's _something_ at Headquarters that's bothering him, as he's taking more missions than usual. Bel is tagging along on most of them so I know _he_ knows, but beyond that nothing."

"Well, at least this proves that Sekti does in fact find _something_ irritating enough to be motivated to avoid it if not the existence of his temper," the Rain Officer pointed out with a snort, grabbing his sword and heading towards the door of the plane. "Have we changed chefs recently? Who're his new neighbours on the residential floor? Is one of the newbies making a pest of themselves?"

"One of the first things I checked, Sekti's on the veterans' floor so his neighbours are the same as ever and no again, because Bel would put a stop to it," Lussuria sighed as he followed the swordsman out of the office and down the corridor to the steps pushed up against the outside of the plane. "I wish he'd just _say_ something, but he won't so I can't fix it. It's _dreadful_."

Considering that Lussuria saw it as part of his role in the Varia to be everybody's 'big sister' and make them comfortable, Squalo could tell the Sun Officer wasn't going to let this drop until he had an answer. It just wasn't in his nature.

"It'll work itself out," Squalo said firmly, because he really had no idea how to be comforting. "If Sekti hasn't said anything that means he's dealing with it, or at least intends to deal with it. He's got a brain so leave him to it."

"Squalo-sweetie, you _do_ care! You're so _darling_!" Luss cooed, spinning the swordsman around at the top of the steps and fussing over his bangs.

"Voi! Stop that!" Squalo yelled, taking two steps backwards so he was out of reach, careful not to overbalance backwards down the stairs.

The Sun Officer pouted. "But darling, your hair's a mess!"

"It's _fine,_" the swordsman insisted, shaking his head so his hair fell in its usual fashion. "I can see and that's all that matters." Of course, that was just _asking_ Lussuria to start off on a spiel about proper hair-care, fashion and how hopeless Squalo was, but the okama enjoyed that kind of thing so it was the swordsman's way of saying that he appreciated the other man's efforts.

Luss understood, because he pulled a faux-outraged expression and took a deep breath so as to properly berate the Rain Officer for his ignorance, when Squalo suddenly had a feeling that he was being watched. He spun around, scanning his surroundings and trying to pinpoint where the feeling was coming from. Were the terminal buildings high enough and close enough for a sniper?

The Squad gathered down by the van had noticed his alarm, Vӧkva hustling Vezzini into the back of the van as Yai wandered wide of the plane for a better view and Fuseau woke Wanhope from his nap; Squalo _felt_ the man wake as the humid air suddenly felt colder and more oppressive.

Then there was movement behind him and Lussuria kicked him down the stairs just as Sarja roared in fury and Bolla vanished before Squalo's eyes in a flash of indigo. The swordsman was still airborne when Wanhope barrelled out of the van and the feeling in the air shifted abruptly from grim despair to boiling fury as the stocky Mist blurred away and out of range in an instant.

Rolling safely down the stairs was a piece of cake, but as soon as he was on the ground Squalo turned and dashed back up the stairs to where Bolla was kneeling over Lussuria's crumpled form, blood spattered all over everywhere but no obvious injury except to the Sun Officer's uniform trousers.

"His kneecap's gone," Bolla said shortly, faintly glowing hands gripping the okama's leg immediately above and below the exposed knee. "Severed an artery too, but I've patched that." Meaning that Bolla was using her powers to deny the injury's existence, making the Sun Officer's body think that bones, muscles and blood vessels were still intact. So long as she could keep it up, Lussuria's situation would not get any worse that it had been at the moment he took the injury.

"How long can you hold it?" the Rain Officer and interim Varia boss demanded.

Bolla frowned. "Twelve hours; longer if I eat."

Squalo nodded sharply. "Good; you're going back to Italy and getting him into Varia Medical for emergency surgery. I'll call and let them know you're coming."

Bolla blinked, but did not object to the abrupt shift in orders. "Who's taking my place?"

"Qaz can do it," Squalo said; Yai could act as a tank just as easily as Qaz could and Wanhope was their primary scout anyway. Another Varia member whose name Squalo couldn't remember off the top of his head emerged from the door and helped Bolla carry Luss inside; Squalo followed as they moved into the plane's tiny infirmary and helped strap the groggy Sun to the bed. Denial of the injury having taken place or not, Luss had lost quite a bit of blood in those first few seconds although not enough to be anywhere near fatal; it was however enough to make him woozy despite the adrenaline of the situation. The Sun probably needed a transfusion and food with iron in it at the very least; no reason to leave Luss practically anaemic.

"Squalo?" The Sun Officer said woozily.

"I'm fine; Wanhope went after the shooter," the swordsman replied shortly. "Verwerfe here's making sure you stay in one piece until the doctors can put you back together again."

The newly-named Verwerfe blinked at her new name, but her Flames did not falter for even a fraction of a second. Squalo didn't need another three weeks to decide whether or not she was Varia Quality; her actions in the past month and a half and her decisive action when an Officer was injured proved she had what it took.

The other Varia –Raas, Squalo's brain finally supplied– giggled creepily. "Wanhope will peel the shooter's brain like an onion, right down to the pith," the man supplied gleefully, "then send him back to his employers with an extra-special gift package in his brain. It'll be _messy_."

Squalo found the prospect of Wanhope orchestrating a proxy massacre to avenge the Sun Officer's injury extremely satisfying.

* * *

Translations 

Bolla = bubble (Italian);

Doninha = weasel, as in the animal, (Portuguese);

Verwerfe = I reject/discard/abolish (German);

Raas = I rage/race (Dutch).

Translations for previously mentioned Varia names can be found in the chapters they were introduced in.

Edited for German spelling. Thanks to those who pointed that out!


	90. Chapter 90

Beta'd by the vigilant Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of the circumstances of losing one's temper **

Sekti, despite being a Storm, was not given to allowing his temper to get the better of him. It just wasn't professional for a person to allow their emotions to rule them, so he did his utmost to be civil and understanding of other people's deficiencies, even when they were being rude or irrational. They usually had reasons for acting as they did, just as he had his reasons to be civil and understanding. He saw it as being part and parcel of demonstrating Varia Quality, which while not an officially endorsed view was certainly appreciated by his superiors; Boss had certainly appreciated his reliability in those short months between Tyr's defeat and Squalo being forced to assume leadership and all of the current Officers respected him for his level-headedness.

The first –and in fact only– order Boss had given Sekti was to 'show the new Storm Officer his duties', which Sekti had not had any trouble obeying and in fact was still obeying: he did all of the non-confidential paperwork, acted as the young assassin's official guardian in public and on missions that required civilian interaction, had helped buffer the rest of Storm Squad from their Officer's foibles until they had a feel for how the Prince liked things done and had taught Belphegor all manner of useful tricks and skills when his Officer expressed an interest in learning. Bel called Sekti 'Manservant', but had made it abundantly clear that _only_ he was permitted to address Sekti in that manner. Sekti was _the Prince's_ manservant, not anybody else's.

That particular little temper tantrum had won Bel the nickname of 'Prince the Ripper', coined by a member of Storm Squad with a fondness for historical true crime. Bel had decided he liked the name and had thereafter made an effort to live up to it, much to Storm Squad's secret amusement and everybody else's dismay. That was when the nine-year-old had started hunting hitmen as a hobby, since he certainly wasn't going to kill stupid civilian streetwalkers in dark alleyways; they weren't enough of a challenge.

Belphegor was an undisputed genius with a remarkable talent for languages, a profound understanding of human nature and a fondness for politics. Not that he played politics _within_ the Varia; the Storm Officer was completely loyal to Boss and utterly disdainful of those who would honour the word of such an allegiance but not the spirit. Instead the politics Belphegor enjoyed was national and international politics, particularly around election time. Whenever an election was upcoming Bel would lounge across a sofa in one of the numerous small television rooms and engage in a wittily acidic and highly informed commentary of this or that politician's manifesto, personal foibles and dirty secrets. The depth and breadth of his knowledge was mind-boggling and despite there being no actual evidence anywhere that the young Storm Officer actually _was_ royalty, much less which royalty he was beyond the odd selection of languages he spoke when he joined the Varia, Sekti was inclined to believe he was. Belphegor's behaviour, education, elocution and views all supported his claims.

Unfortunately, not everybody in the Varia had the brains to put things together and realise that two-thirds of what Bel did and said in public was a very good front: he was the Storm Officer to an absent Varia Boss and a child in body if not in intellect, so he had to terrify everybody into submission because if it came to a straight fight against somebody who knew what he was capable of he would probably lose. He was only eleven after all, despite being a genius. If a person was familiar enough with his fighting style to counter the advantages it gave him, Bel would be left with just his Flames for personal defence as he couldn't hope to match the physical strength of an adult. The only means he had to stay on the top of the heap was to ensure Storm Squad wouldn't even _think_ of rebelling, which had worked very well indeed for the six months it had taken the Varia's Storms to get to know their new Officer and decide they actually rather liked having him in charge. Now, over two years beyond that point, the only potential challengers to Bel's position would have to come from outside the Varia and Prince the Ripper had dispatched all comers with admirable flair and panache.

That didn't mean Bel did not have detractors within the Varia; he just didn't have any in Storm Squad. None of those who disliked the Storm Officer were stupid enough to say anything to his face, but that meant that it was people like Sekti who ended up hearing them waste their breath. One particularly persistent detractor was Ottabio, the Cloud Officer, and Sekti was becoming rather irritated by the man. He could not and would not take a hint.

* * *

Admittedly, Ottabio probably thought he had been very subtle, and to begin with he actually had: looking back, the Cloud Officer had started working on Sekti right after the Cradle Affair. The smarmy blond had just gotten careless shortly after Squalo left on his world tour, which had clued Sekti in to what Ottabio was angling for.

Ottabio wanted Sekti as Storm Officer.

Sekti did not want to be Storm Officer. Sekti didn't even want to be a Squad Leader and was perfectly happy with his place in the world. He was a follower, he knew he was a follower and he _liked_ being a follower. It was even in his name: 'Sekti' meant 'to follow' just as much as it meant 'to tell a story'.

Unfortunately for Sekti, Ottabio was a Cloud with a goal in mind and obsessed Clouds were just as bad if not worse than obsessed Storms. Ottabio had _views_ about how things should be and the man did not like Belphegor at all, probably because the young Officer was considerably more intelligent than he was. Of course, Ottabio couldn't see that: he just thought Bel was a spoiled, delusional and violent little psychopath who was lowering the tone of the Varia. Sekti was much more what Ottabio's ideal Officer looked and behaved like, with the added 'bonus' that Ottabio probably thought he could manipulate Sekti into going along with his ideas. If the Cloud Officer hadn't thought Sekti would be amenable to this kind of thing he'd never have targeted him in the first place.

Sekti may not have acted like a typical Storm, but that did not mean that Sekti didn't _think_ like a typical Storm. He just had enough experience and control not to let his thoughts show on his face and to look hard before committing himself. However once he was committed he never looked back, and Sekti had committed himself to Boss and to his Officer.

Ottabio wasn't going to get anywhere with him.

* * *

By the time the January marking the fourteenth month of the Rain Officer's recruitment tour came around Sekti was firmly resolved to get on the next outgoing Squad, by hook or by crook. Ottabio hadn't given up; in fact he'd gotten _worse _over the past year, both in hunting down the Storm while he was trying to decompress and in the things he was saying. Yes, the man was a slimeball and utterly blind to things that didn't fit into how he saw the world –a terrible thing for any Varia member, let alone an Officer– but there was a limit to how many times Sekti could listen the man air his offensively narrow and disrespectful views without feeling the urge to silence him permanently.

Of course Sekti wasn't about to kill the Cloud Officer –it wasn't his place and it would be a stupidly impulsive thing to do– but he'd caught himself fantasising about it lately so he really did need to remove himself from Ottabio's vicinity before he did something he later regretted. Missions just weren't cutting it right now and with Bel staying close to Headquarters at the moment he could afford to spend a few months on the opposite side of the planet.

Something was bothering his Officer too, but the young prince seemed to have it well in hand so Sekti didn't pry. If Bel wanted his help, he would ask. In the meantime however Sekti was perfectly willing to do busywork if it meant getting a long break from a certain irritating Cloud.

* * *

Sekti realised the fallacy of his decision to get away from Ottabio for two months as soon as he got back to HQ: after nine weeks of blessed peace and quiet, the Storm had got out of the habit of tuning Ottabio out and nine weeks of exposure to Squalo Superbi meant that Sekti currently had a little voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like the interim Varia boss which was telling him to do something violent and final to Ottabio so he'd stop. Being. Such. A. Smarmy. Git.

The Storm ignored that little voice; it would only lead to him embarrassing himself with a loss of control. He managed to go on ignoring both the urge to permanently main the Cloud Officer and Ottabio himself for a further six weeks, but then Lussuria was rushed back from South America and directly into medical for emergency surgery and Ottabio was nominally in charge of the Varia the following day as Squalo was in Venezuela, the Sun Officer was unconscious, Levi and Bel were unsuitable and Mammon was… elsewhere.

This unfortunate series of events led to Ottabio having the unmitigated _gall_ to approach Sekti in the main hallway under the front staircase on the ground floor of Varia Headquarters as he was accompanying Belphegor out for a shopping trip, four of his sycophants casually spreading out so he couldn't force his way past.

"Ottabio," Sekti said flatly.

"Sekti," Ottabio said with a slick smile, ignoring the Storm Officer standing beside Sekti in a blatant show of unforgivable rudeness. "Have you reconsidered yet?"

Sekti decided then and there that dignity be damned, the man needed to be taught a _lesson_.

* * *

Lussuria opened his eyes, blinked, fumbled for his prescription sunglasses on the bedside table and determined that no, his eyes hadn't been playing tricks on him; it really _was_ Kuchisake sitting at his bedside, an angry red curve of inflamed tissue arching out from the right-hand corner of her mouth almost to her ear and held closed with thick black stitches. How had that happened to her pretty face? And what cack-handed fool had done that dreadful stitchwork?

"What happened, darling?" He demanded instantly. She's been sent to back up the CEDEF on a mission to pacify some stupid Famiglia who'd thought Massimo's very theatrical murder was a sign that the Vongola was losing its touch; she shouldn't have got an injury like _that_!

"They hadn't bothered to invest in bulletproof glass," Kuchisake sighed, making a show of examining her cheek in a hand mirror conjured up out of a flare of Mist Flames, "yet felt that a gunfight in a building with glass partitions was nonetheless a good idea." The side of her mouth not carved open and crudely stitched widened in a cruel grin. "I showed them the error of their ways."

Luss had to smile; Kuchisake was a horror movie fanatic and inclined towards using her favourite films as inspiration for her physical illusions. However the fight might have been going beforehand, Kuchisake had most definitely ended it on her own terms. But while that explained why the Mist Squad Leader had visited Varia Medical, it did not explain why she was still here and sitting by his bedside.

"So, what brings you here cupcake?" the Sun Officer asked.

Kuchisake's eyes brightened and she sat bolt upright on her chair, pulling her knees up so she could hug them to her chest. "You know there was a running bet on whether or not Sekti has a temper?" She said.

"Yes," Lussuria said warily.

"Well, _apparently_ Orphnaeus won the pot," Kuchisake said, pouting, "but nobody will tell me what happened!"

"Sekti lost his temper?" The Sun Officer couldn't picture it. Sekti was just… he was so calm. He never so much as snapped at people, not even after a week of sleep deprivation, mud everywhere and crap half-rations. Those sorts of conditions would make anyone cranky but Sekti had remained civil and unflappable, always. "What was Orphnaeus' bet again?"

"That Sekti did have a temper, a really _awful_ one, but that he also had a very, very long fuse," Kuchisake reminded him. "He exploded at ten twenty –I felt it from right across the grounds– but by the time I got here it was all over and nobody will tell me _anything_! Oh, and there's an empty skin and a large puddle of goo in the front hall that used to be Vector along with a crumpled but intact uniform."

Vector was a Cloud and one of Ottabio's favoured subordinates. "Sekti _melted_ Vector?"

Kuchisake shrugged. "I've never seen Sekti use Flames at all, you know, but if he can melt somebody from the inside out like that then he's better than most of Storm Squad."

"Sekti doesn't like the idea of leadership," Luss said dryly. "He's perfectly happy as a follower and as Bel's 'manservant'."

Kuchisake sighed, letting her feet drop back to the floor and folding her hands in her lap in a parody of demure girlishness. "Do you think Bel would tell me what happened?"

"He might," Lussuria conceded, "but he might equally _not_ tell you just so he can hold it over your head for the rest of his life."

"True," she admitted with a pout. "How best to get Bel to tell?"

Lussuria tuned her out when she started muttering movie titles he didn't recognise. If the Sun Officer didn't hear the contingency plans he could honestly say he didn't know what she was doing should anybody ask. As it was he had no clue what the plots of those movies involved and wasn't interested in finding out, never mind witnessing a real-life version via Mist-Flames.

* * *

The Sun Officer was released from Varia Medical four days later, with a warning that his new kneecap was made of metal and therefore rather more vulnerable to temperature extremes than his original one had been. Lussuria's first order of the day was to catch up with the paperwork, although he was also very curious to find out what, exactly had happened when Sekti lost his temper.

Achieving the first was easy; everything was piled up in Squalo's office waiting to be done. The second proved more… problematic.

"Nothing happened," Hawkeye said firmly, fiddling with his bow as he dumped the report from his mission ten days previously on the desk. Hawkeye was the Cloud belonging to Marvel Squad, the Varia's most eccentric Immortal Squad whose names were themed after comic-book characters.

"Sekti never loses his temper," stated Tsue, blinking winsomely at the Sun Officer as she dropped by to collect the mission details for her Squad Leader. "Everybody knows that."

"Hn? Did you say something Officer?" Varg, only recently named and inducted into the Varia proper, mumbled as he fled the room after handing in his Squad's mission reports unusually early.

After about a dozen encounters along these lines –when Lussuria knew full well that there had to have been at _least_ thirty eye-witnesses to Vector's melting earlier in the week– the Sun Officer went and hunted down Ottabio to get a proper version.

"Nothing happened."

The Muay Thai specialist folded his arms and _glared_ at his fellow Officer. "You and I both know that's a load of shit, darling," Lussuria said with acidic sweetness. "Try again."

"Really, Lussuria," Ottabio said, meeting the Sun Officer's eyes with a fervent desperation that was almost sincere. "_Nothing_ happened!"

"Then why did housekeeping have to mop up a puddle of liquid human remains from the front hall four days ago?" Lussuria demanded tartly, unfolding his arms so he could place his hands on his hips. "Not to mention the empty human skin with Vector's tattoos on it that is being used as proof of his demise, which incidentally looks like he ran into that cockroach alien from the 'Men in Black' movie!"

Ottabio went green, then white, then grey, swallowing hard several times. Luss watched the physical cues the man was broadcasting, reading the tells easily: the Cloud Officer was repressing. Repressing _really hard_. As the blond's face returned to normal and he opened his mouth, the Sun Officer knew what the other man was going to say before he even spoke:

"Really, Luss, nothing happened at all."

"Fine." Clearly nobody was going to tell him what had gone on, which was telling in itself; it took some serious skill to traumatise this many Varia into silence, all of them with different mindsets and unique foibles. That Sekti had managed it was rather impressive really, no matter how frustrating.

* * *

Translations 

Kuchisake = a Japanese urban legend, the slit-mouthed kuchisake-onna with a Glasgow grin;

Varg = row, range, file or chain (Albanian); wolf (Swedish).


	91. Chapter 91

Beta'd by the adorable Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of music and memory **

Blaise walked along the first floor hallway of Potter Manor's eastern wing, Luna gliding along beside him on silent rollerblades. Between them they'd finally managed to decide upon a suitably sited plot of land in Sicily and persuade the owner to sell it to them, so the two of them were back in Britain with the plans of the decently-sized house already on the property and a variety of options on how that house could be expanded, fortified or replaced depending on Rhea's personal preferences. The range of proposed modifications ranged from the conservative to the downright eccentric, including a ridiculously gothic castle with fake ruins surrounding it, as Luna had insisted that a princess guarded by a dragon should have appropriate ambiance available to her. Blaise didn't think Rhea would agree to build that one but it would hopefully make his oath-sister smile. She didn't smile nearly often enough these days.

"Music room," Luna said quietly as they turned around the sharp corner at the end of the wing to double back along the second, parallel corridor that only existed due to the extensive Magical expansion of the mansion's interior. Blaise nodded an acknowledgement, wondering what, exactly, had led Rhea to retreat to this particular music room. Potter Manor had four, all different sizes and locations, and this particular one was the furthest from the central residential area and peculiarly shaped so that the person seated at the piano was the one who heard the music played most loudly and clearly; it was clearly designed for solo practice rather than playing as part of a group activity.

Pietro, the younger of the two footmen, materialised out of a niche as they approached the end of the hallway. "She's playing that song again," he said flatly, clearly uncomfortable with the state of affairs. "Gaetano and Miss Daphne are with her."

Blaise winced; 'that song', as Pietro had called it, was the result of a profoundly misjudged trip to the cinema the previous Christmas. In retrospect he really should have researched the movie more thoroughly or at least gone to see it on his own _before_ cajoling Rhea into going along with all of them to celebrate the holidays. But he hadn't, so they'd all gone to see _Titanic_ and he'd spent the last third of the movie with Rhea in his lap, face half-buried in his shoulder as she Harmonised with his Flames so as to prevent herself from having a very messy public meltdown. By the end of the movie both his jacket and the shirt underneath had been soaked through with tears and his sister had been _wrecked_. Blaise hadn't thought things could get any worse, but then the credits started rolling, the song started and Rhea froze like a deer faced with a wolf. Blaise had tried to get up and carry her out of the theatre, but she'd wrested control of his own Flames from him –probably not consciously or deliberately but that had been one of the scariest moments of his life– and so they'd both sat there, unmoving and barely breathing, until the song was over and they were the last people left. Then and only then had she let go, enabling him to stand up, wrap an arm carefully around her middle and guide her out of the building so they could call an elf to take them back to the Manor.

Since then, a sure sign of the Lady Potter missing her husband severely enough to mope was her wandering into a music room and starting to play Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On'. Blaise was quite honestly sick of the damn song; he knew it by heart and sang along automatically now. Not that it was a _bad_ song, per se, but it was a bit too romantic and naïve for his tastes and Rhea only played it when she was feeling miserable and wistful, which didn't help. If anything it made her more miserable.

Pushing open the music room's door, Blaise paused on the threshold as Dee's magnificent soprano washed over him, Dorea's superb piano playing and Gaetano's virtuoso violin providing a simple yet elegant accompaniment.

"Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go on…"

Blaise couldn't help humming along; the song was just that damn familiar now. Luna joined him, humming little riffs and arpeggios that distracted him enough from the heavy and emotionally painful connotations this piece of music now carried for him. He caught her eye and managed a grateful smile before turning back to look at his sister bent over the piano, smooth, straight bangs obscuring her face as her hands danced across the keyboard. He'd never understood how she could sit so still and pour out all her turbulent emotions into music; if he was that unhappy he'd scream and rage and throw things, not play music. But it was part of what made her Rhea and he loved her for it, although it hurt as well. Seeing her sublimate raw emotion into music never got easier.

When the song came to an end Dee caught his eye and smiled. "Welcome back, Zee."

Rhea was still communing with the piano, but it was just random riffs and the occasional chord, not any particular song, so Blaise saw no reason not to start a conversation. "Yes, I am returned from the wilds of Sicily with my lovely assistant Luna-bell!" The tall Italian said cheerfully, grinning at his blonde friend. "We've bought a nice big plot of land –well, we're in the midst of buying it anyway– and since it already has a house on, we thought we should come back to see whether our lovely lady Rhea wants the house preserved, modified or torn down and rebuilt completely different." He waved the bundle of plans. "We even have pictures!"

Rhea glanced up, face slightly blotchy and rimmed eyes red. "Show me," she requested raspily, hands stilling on the piano keys. Luna immediately snatched the plans off Blaise and rolled over, coming to a stop by the piano stool with a neat pirouette and handing over the various maps of the land they had decided upon.

"It's got a small population of Wyverns living over here, in the cliffs, but they shouldn't be a problem since you're a Parselmouth," Luna said brightly as she pointed to a specific location on the map. "That's probably why the Muggles haven't seriously tried to build up there, due to all the Notice-Me-Nots and Muggle-Repelling Charms around their roost. Whoever built the house never actually lived in it for more than the occasional week."

Blaise remembered those Wyverns. Their cryptic colouring enabled them to blend in with the rock and bare, sandy earth of the hillside right up until they moved and then they were impossible to miss. Fortunately his being able to throw fire at them –even if it was just blue, paralysing fire– had made them wary enough not to attack him as he retreated, dragging Luna with him. She really was far too inquisitive for her own good…

"The house?" Rhea murmured inquiringly. Luna moved her hand to point to another point on the map.

"Here. It's pretty, but boring and rather small; you'd never fit even half of a family gathering into it," the silver-eyed blonde said earnestly. Blaise knew she meant that literally, since both of them had considered numbers and the internal dimensions of the building were just too small, even if Rhea invested in barracks-style dormitories. "Blaise and I had a few ideas for what you might like to do with it, but since it's your house you should do what makes you happy."

"Thank-you, Luna-bell," Rhea said with a small, sad smile as she accepted the stack of parchment and drawing paper. "I'll take a look at these and consult the elves before making any decisions."

Luna gazed thoughtfully at Rhea for a few more seconds. "You need cake," she declared abruptly, spinning on her wheels and shooting out of the door, presumably in search of cake. Rhea snorted, smiling a little more genuinely.

"Never change, Luna," the seventeen-year-old muttered fondly, unfolding the topmost plan as her bangs acquired a little more bounce.

Blaise nodded at Gaetano, who was fiddling with his violin so as to convey at least the illusion of privacy, and wandered closer so he could add his own commentary to the various plans he and Luna had come up with. Some of them were rather serious, but he'd had a few silly ideas as well since Luna brought out his whimsical side and most of Luna's designs were very odd indeed.

* * *

Generally Padma's weekends could go two different ways: either she spent them with Hermione, keeping her friend from working herself into irritability and exhaustion, or doing something for herself if Jerry showed up and distracted his girlfriend from her obsessiveness. When she got a weekend or part of a weekend to herself Padma had a range of things she liked to do, depending on the circumstances and the weather. Sometimes she went shopping in Wizarding or Muggle London, sometimes she visited her mother and sometimes she just sat around at Potter Manor and enjoyed not having to do anything in particular.

Padma and Hermione both lived in Potter Manor. It was convenient, which was how the Indian teen had sold the idea to her more uptight best friend, but the real reason Padma had wanted to live in Dorea's home after graduating was that it meant she got to see everybody regularly without needing to set time aside to socialise with them. At Potter Manor breakfast was communal, held in the building's Great Hall and attended by everyone other than Dorea, her children and whoever was attending on the Lady of the house at that particular moment, as the twins were too young to eat in the Great Hall and Dorea preferred to join them in the nursery rather than leave them to Nanny Sofia. Padma had got to know all of the Zabini staff over the past year, become somewhat acquainted with nearly fifty other Zabinis and managed to keep up with Odile, Tracy, Daphne, Luna, Theo, Blaise and the Prewetts. She'd also made an effort to get somewhat acquainted with Barty, despite Hermione's reservations on the matter. He had after all been an excellent teacher in their fourth year despite his political leanings and he was Rhea's Thrall now, so he was perfectly safe to be around. Well, as safe as anyone else in the house was; this wasn't all that safe really as they were all fighters to a greater or lesser degree, but it was Dorea's house and nobody wanted her upset and since fighting would upset her, people didn't.

This weekend however Padma was doing something different. Jerry was busy in Sicily, helping some of the house-elves and a Zabini contingent with the surveying of the newly-purchased estate in the interests of rebuilding and extending the house on it to meet Rhea's needs, but the dusky Ravenclaw alumnus had enlisted Blaise to keep Hermione busy and distracted rather than do it herself. Instead Padma intended to spend some 'girl time' with Rhea and delve into a matter that needed dealing with. It was an emotional matter and somewhat delicate, so would be best investigated by a Rain. Blaise however was a guy, so not really suited to delicate inquiries into feminine emotional states, and Dawn while capable was both part of Dorea's family and a Seer, which made things more awkward. Dawn had also declined to involve herself, which left Padma. The Indian girl knew enough about Seers of varying talent to know that was everything short of a gilded invitation for her to get to the heart of the matter; not that Padma minded. She had a feeling she knew what the problem was, considering her own cultural background, family experiences and the arranged marriages she and Parvati had thankfully managed to escape.

Getting into Hogwarts had been a godsend, one that Padma had repeatedly offered prayers of thanks for as it had convinced her father that it was better to keep his daughters unattached at least until they graduated. Her and Parvati's continued association with Dorea and through her the upper echelons of British Magical Society had further convinced him that they would make excellent matches without his assistance, so their freedom continued. Padma was looking for a suitable husband, if not as determinedly as her twin was. She was more patient and Rhea was more than influential enough to protect her should her father start getting ideas.

Pausing outside the music room that Dorea had decided to hole up in _this_ time, Padma took a moment to properly place what tune was filtering through the not-quite-soundproof doors in front of her. This was the second-most-accessible music room, so Rhea was in a pretty good mood today but not really wanting boisterous company. The tune was Savage Garden's 'Truly, Madly, Deeply', which Padma could work with; Rhea was feeling wistful but not melancholy. Lately melancholy involved Celine Dion, which Padma privately considered to be far too drippy and defeatist. It wasn't like Dorea's husband was actually _dead_, so she should try to think positive, especially with Theo recently getting to the point of moving down to Sicily permanently under a coherent false identity and getting himself a bar job in Vongola territory. Padma knew that Theo was up to _something_, but had no proof of what exactly that was. That was likely a good sign though, as it indicated that the quiet Slytherin was in no rush and fully committed to making whatever he was doing work for him.

Padma knew rather more about what the rest of Dorea's personal constellation were getting up to than Hermione did because Hermione got obsessed with the details where Padma preferred to keep track of the big picture. Together they made a formidable team, but each was perfectly capable of keeping things secret from the other, both accidentally and on purpose. Details mattered after all, but so did keeping track of the wider circumstances.

As was generally the case on weekends, Dorea's husband-double of the week was off doing his own thing and Rence was on stalker duty rather than Barty. It being Rence, he was perfectly happy to sing for his Lady while she played piano in addition to being her bodyguard of the hour, so the piano playing Padma could hear was accompanied by the Green Knight's very pleasant tenor. Letting herself into the music room, the Rain codenamed 'Secretary' quietly closed the door behind her and wandered over to sit next to her friend and technical employer on the large piano stool. All of Potter Manor's piano stools were long enough for three people to sit on without rubbing elbows, so even with Rhea right in the middle there was still room for Padma to settle on one end, facing away from the ivories.

Dorea finished playing the song, segueing into chords and riffs before settling on a Beethoven piano sonata she knew by heart.

"So, how're things?" the green-eyed Lady Potter asked as her hands danced gently over the keys.

Padma smiled. "The legislation overhaul will be complete by December, so the settling-in year can start then." The 'settling-in year' had been Percy's idea, a full twelve months under the reformed legislative system to work out the kinks and give everybody time to familiarise themselves with the new bureaucracy before ending Dorea's rule as dictator and despot. As the first Thralls were starting to have their sentences draw to a close, this would also enable the government to oversee their reintegration into society and ensure they could all find work despite being banned for life from holding any political or administrative position. It really would not do for the former Thralls to find themselves completely ostracised to the point that overthrowing the government started to look like a good alternative to starvation.

"How are you, Rhea?" Padma went on. "I've not really had a chance for much girl talk recently; we should get together and make a night of it with Dee, Tray and the others."

"Maybe in July, once Hogwarts has finished and Millie, Parvati and Ginny are available?" Dorea suggested. "We could make it a graduation party."

"I'd like to have something sooner, but a party sounds like a great idea," Padma agreed. "Tell you what; let's go tell the house-elves about the party idea and get some tea and scones, then sit in the Sun Room, enjoy the view, chat and eat cream tea."

Dorea laughed, hands settling on the piano ivories before lifting them up to lower the lid of the keyboard. "Lead on then, oh empress of secretaries!"

* * *

Once they were settled in the Sun Room and Rence had been persuaded to lurk _outside_ the door rather than inside it, Padma waited a few more minutes –so Rhea could eat her first scone in peace– before broaching the subject she'd been sitting on for most of a month.

"Rhea-bear, why do you insist on playing that Celine Dion song when it just makes you _more_ miserable?" It very carefully was not an accusation; Padma had moderated her tone to one of profound concern, so it appropriately reflected her inner feelings on the subject. Just _listening_ to that song had been a wound to the Lady Potter's heart, and keeping the tune in her mind was just making the wound worse.

The younger brunette flinched. It was subtle, limited to the skin around her eyes, but visible and rather easily detectable to Padma, who was using her Tranquillity to keep her mind sufficiently clear that she could detect and process what she was seeing.

"I…"

"I may not be Blaise," Padma said quietly, "but I am still your Rain. Will you tell me so that I can help you wash away the pain?" Padma generally preferred to be more prosaic about things, but when Rhea was feeling fragile poetic allusions were frequently more effective in getting through to her without provoking defensive manoeuvres. Daphne, Blaise and their years of friendship proved it.

Dorea took a deep break and set her teacup down with trembling hands. "I haven't told you much about my husband, have I."

It wasn't a question, but Padma still shook her head and kept her face attentive, exuding what little Flames she could considering the paucity of her reserves.

"It was an arranged match, for all that I arranged it myself," Rhea mused, eyes fixed on her wedding ring and its large, orange jewel. "But as soon as the moment of introduction was over, he _loved_ me. Without hesitation or reserve. Just like that, he _wanted_ me; _demanded_ I marry him, in fact, before I could say so much as a word. How is… I experienced it, yet I can barely believe it. How is it possible to _trust_ like that, without a single scrap of proof that things won't all go horribly badly?"

"Love's hardly rational, Rhea-bear," Padma murmured gently.

"I _know_, I do, and I _do_ love him. Just… not like that. He's very attractive and he respects me, he's given me two beautiful children, a massive family and his Flames have supported me all this time. But I'm not _in love_ with him. Not like he is with me. I just…"

"Rhea," Padma reached out and clasped her friend's hand tightly. "You have _nothing_ to feel guilty for. Just because your husband fell in love with you as soon as he set eyes on you doesn't mean you're in any way at fault for not doing the same. Yes, you're married, but you've not yet had the chance to _know_ your husband, not really. You've not gone on dates, negotiated domestic arrangements or clashed on proper methods of child-rearing. You're a bit more cautious in trusting and there's _nothing_ wrong with that."

"The song says love is enough, but I never loved him like _that_," Rhea mumbled, tears welling up. "Will I _ever_ love him like that? I _want_ to."

Padma got out of her chair and hurried over to the loveseat Dorea was sat on, wrapping an arm around her friend as she sat next to her. "And I'm sure you _will_, as soon as we find him and rescue him so you can actually interact with him a bit. Everybody's different; some people fall in love just like that and others need a little time to slide into it. There's nothing wrong with being a more slow-moving sort of person, especially when you have so much riding on the decision."

Dorea didn't reply, simply resting her face against Padma's shoulder and shaking as she cried. The Secretary let her; this had been a long time in coming.


	92. Chapter 92

Beta'd by the artistic Insane Scriptist.

Insane Scriptist also has a comment on my previous chapter, as it is felt that some of my reviewers may have missed the point:

_Dorea is coming to terms with the differences between 'in love' and 'familial love' and unfortunately the English language lacks words to specify the differences/nuances. Plus emotional issues are never perfectly clear and Dorea's feeling a lot of guilt and stress. She's actually handling her emotions better than a lot of people._  
_ She has reasons to cry and reasons why she hasn't dealt with these emotional issues before is that between the twins, running Britain and adding her input to Sabina's issues she hasn't had time to really feel and deal with them. Now she does have the time, so she's dealing with them, including some self-destructive emotional masochism caused by relentlessly playing love songs since she doesn't feel 'in love' with Xanxus when she thinks that she should be/feel so._

Now that's cleared up, on with the show!

* * *

**Of clarity and cunning **

Squalo lounged comfortably in his chair on the Varia aeroplane, working methodically through the accumulated paperwork as they sped across the Atlantic back towards Europe. It was over a year and a half –twenty months in total– since he'd left Italy on his training and recruitment drive and he had succeeded in accomplishing all the goals he had set himself as well as a few more he'd picked up along the way. The Varia was back up to the size it had been before Xanxus has taken it over and would probably get even bigger as apprentices were released from Tyrant's clutches into the mook pool, for one; missions were also up as his world tour had introduced many more criminal enterprises to the idea that they too could hire the Varia for so-called 'impossible jobs' and there were now people in the Varia who spoke the languages of the places their new clients were calling from.

On a more personal level, Squalo had fought –and beaten– one hundred swordsmen in single combat, got to know over sixty members of the Varia's veteran elite and helped pick out almost two hundred new recruits who would form the bulk of the new Varia elite that would be making names for themselves over the next few years. He'd also got a new and much more effective prosthetic hand, grown another two inches in height and was physically even fitter and more attuned to his surroundings than he'd ever been before in his life. The seventeen-year-old had also become fluent in four new languages, acquired a basic proficiency in a further twelve, gained a much more accurate understanding of how terrain, climate, infrastructure and local politics affected journey times and was confident that his wilderness survival skills would enable him to complete missions on every continent except Antarctica.

But most importantly, Squalo had worked through his 'Boss or Omertá' dilemma and managed to find a solution he was not only happy with, but which would withstand even Vindice scrutiny. Or should, if it came to that; the swordsman was pretty sure the matter would not come to Vindice attention as he wasn't stupid and he didn't think the Zabini were either. A person could never be too careful though.

* * *

Bel twitched in his seat, eyes darting from the Shark sprawled across the back passenger seat across from him to the peasant driving the car and back again. This really _hadn't_ been what he'd had in mind to do this weekend, but Squalo hadn't given him a choice. In fact, the prince had been ambushed by the swordsman that morning and bundled into the back of the car along with a bag that turned out to contain six uniform changes –how had the Shark got into his rooms?! – and only _after_ they were moving had Bel been informed that they were going to Rome so Squalo could get in touch with the Zabini.

The prince really, really wasn't looking forward to that. There was no way whichever diplomat had been tasked with being the Shark's contact would fail to recognise runaway Prussian royalty –even if Bel took his crown off and he _wouldn't_–and there was a really _good_ chance that the Zabini had made good use of Squalo's long months of indecision to establish precedent so as to justify fully lifting the European Statute for him. Probably by listing the swordsman as 'a vassal of the Zabini Family', which was technically accurate since Squalo had won the Varia then handed it over to Boss, which was vassal behaviour even without Squalo being officially Boss' Rain Guardian.

So the Shark –whom the rest of the peasants had started calling 'Captain' so as to distinguish him from Boss– was going to find out about magic. That would probably piss him off, especially when he found out that Bel had known and hadn't said anything. The Statute was like Omertá, so the prince would probably get away with his omission, but the Shark would still be in a mood for a while. Bel would probably get lumped with writing briefs on every last Magical Nation in Europe and the Mediterranean, both as punishment and so those members of the Varia whom Squalo decided needed to know would have something to work from. Bel could probably drag a few of the Varia's other Squibs into helping him, but their knowledge would inevitably be far more limited and provincial than Bel's own as they lacked his royal education and genius.

Bel was pretty sure that there was nobody outside the Mist Squad who was actually Magical; he'd identified three other Squibs in the Varia by their vocabulary and mannerisms, but that was all. Who of the Mists had magic was trickier to determine, since Mist Flames let a person mimic just about everything that could be done by Magic and if a Mist didn't realise they had magic it wouldn't work for them except to subtly boost their Flames. Mists were odd like that; things only worked for them if they believed in them. It was highly likely that any Magical in Mist Squad was untrained, considering their ages, known history and how wimpy the local magic schools were. He hadn't finished his investigation into the latest batch of recruits, but most of them were young enough that if they _had_ been magical, they'd have been part-way through their education and would have resisted recruitment.

Bel twitched again; it would take two days to drive to Rome, but Squalo had wanted them to have a Varia car at their disposal so the train had been vetoed. He did have his portable CD player, plenty of CDs and an entire box of batteries, but currently the prince was a bit too nervous to be willing to block out the ambient sound like that. Oh, he had his headphones on –it was the best way to avoid conversation after all– but no music playing. Not just yet.

Squalo on the other hand was comfortably slumped in his seat, breathing heavily and dead to the world. Inconsiderate peasant; couldn't he at least share some of the prince's misery?!

* * *

Squalo wasn't actually asleep; instead he was cheerfully abusing his Flames' Tranquillity to ensure he _looked_ and _felt _like he was asleep so as to monitor Bel without the pre-teen royal noticing. It was pretty obvious that the prince _did_ know something about the Zabini and it was significant enough to make him nervous, which was unusual. Not much short of Tyrant made Bel truly nervous, which rendered what Bel knew about the Zabini far more interesting and something that Squalo likely needed to know. Well, the swordsman still had time to find out before the meeting. If Squalo had been feeling kind he would have stopped faking sleep and ordered the Storm Officer to tell him what he was hiding, but the swordsman wasn't feeling kind. Bel had been really acting up since December and been cheerfully unrepentant about all of it, so he deserved to stew for a while. It wasn't like it would kill him.

Taking care to keep his distinctly vindictive amusement at Belphegor's misery well out of sight, Squalo went back to going over the current Varia roster in his mind and pondering what sort of temporary Squads to set up for the next batch of milk runs. They had lots of newbies in, so they needed to go on missions to acquire seasoning and so the _actual_ members could see what said newbie mooks were good at and whether they were worth integrating into the Varia proper.

* * *

Costanzo felt his wallet vibrate and disentangled himself from his Principe's children as smoothly as he could, apologising and citing 'boring work-things' as he left the room and fished out the card that was causing the fuss; it was the one twinned to the coin he had given Squalo Superbi.

Despite being in charge of the force responsible for tracking down their wayward prince, Costanzo was _not_ cleared for high-level negotiation; that was Blaise's job. Fortunately said cousin was currently _in_ Potter Manor, so it didn't even take the green-eyed body double two minutes to find him: the eighteen-year-old was playing chess against Barty and losing.

"_What's up, 'Stanzo?_" Blaise asked amiably in Italian as his rook was pounded into oblivion by one of Barty's pawns.

Costanzo held out the card. "_Contact,_" he explained succinctly.

Barty's eyes narrowed. "_I will accompany you,_" he stated firmly, rising from his chair and hurrying out of the room towards the armoury. Blaise sighed, studying the chessboard for a moment before knocking his King over.

"_Check and mate; that's one's just relentless._"

"_Not getting your sword?_" Costanzo asked.

"_Don't need it, seeing as Barty's coming,_" Blaise explained. "_I'll ask the questions and he'll do the threatening._"

"_Good enough,_" the financial inspector conceded as Barty hurried back into the room, sword at his hip and a duelling robe that looked like a Muggle leather coat covering his casual suit. Blaise nodded agreeably and waved at Costanzo, who recognised his cue and led the two men out towards the Floo.

* * *

Barty dressed like it was still the nineteen twenties, but most Magicals did anyway and the Mafia was very much a place where smart clothing mattered, so Blaise didn't mind it. At least Barty's choice of dress matched and wasn't eye-searingly garish; only Luna could pull that kind of thing off. He himself was wearing dressy trousers, Chelsea boots and an untucked dress shirt under a leather jacket, which put him at the height of fashion.

Thankfully mainstream fashion had moved _away_ from the hip-hop look lately, because even _looking_ at people dressed that way made him wonder whether they'd had their sense of taste surgically removed; they had no _class_! It was a travesty! Not that the current trend for sportswear everywhere was much of an improvement, really. Blaise recognised he was a clothes snob and didn't care. There was such a thing as dignity and dressing fabulously made a person feel so much better than looking like a slob, so he wasn't about to change when it was obvious that he was right and everybody else was wrong.

Costanzo of course was wearing one of the fabulously expensive tailored suits that were the standard form of dress when being body-double for Dorea's dragon, the tie shoved carelessly in one pocket of the open jacket and the neck of his shirt unbuttoned to better show off the feathers hanging behind his ears. He was also wearing what _looked_ like fashionable pointy-toed shoes but were actually calf-height duelling boots, which were as close to protective footwear as Magical society got. He would be able to withstand a rhinoceros standing on his feet without getting as much as a bruise.

Not there were any rhinoceroses in Sabina, or in Rome for that matter, not even in the _Bioparco di Roma_. Sabina had a well-cared-for royal menagerie that housed a number of 'extinct' mundane species and a wide variety of magical ones, having been set up by a Principe of a zoological bent several centuries previously. However there were no rhinos; they did have elephants and hippopotami there though.

Blaise banished the abrupt mental image of elephants in ballet shoes and hippos in tutus in favour of calling to mind how the incredibly sneaky Ward on the fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastavere actually worked.

Sabina's currency, like most Magical currencies, was enchanted to be both almost indestructible and strongly spell resistant. The indestructibility was to prevent tampering such as coin clipping, defacing or melting the metal down for other purposes, while the spell resistance was designed to foil any idiot wizards getting the bright idea of cursing coins for whatever reason. Cursed jewellery was enough of a problem without having to deal with all the despicably devious things an unprincipled person could do with cursed money. Costanzo likely had a few interesting stories on that subject from his work but Blaise didn't need to hear them to guess at how terribly effective a few minor spells could be if placed on currency, even before curses were brought into play.

However no matter how much effort went into making currency spell-proof, the fact remained that precious metals held magic very well indeed, so well in fact that any coin a person had been carrying around for more than a few seconds picked up a spiritual and magical impression simply from proximity. This was unavoidable and was what the Ward on the Santa Maria in Trastavere fountain relied upon to work.

Everybody, Muggle and Magical, threw money in fountains. It was a throwback to the days of sacred springs, when making an offering to the gods for health and good fortune was a common thing. Few people believed in the little gods anymore, but people still threw coins in fountains for whatever reason. Muggle coins were for the most part made of nonreactive alloys in the present day, but even they could pick up and hold an impression if they'd been sitting in a person's pocket for a week. If the Ward had reacted to _all_ the impressions that passed through it, it would have been constantly active and completely useless.

So, in order to keep the Ward streamlined and functional, it ran on a reference system. Impressions registering within it were checked against the collection of captured signatures in the catacomb directly beneath the fountain, which were in turn enchanted so that a match would set off a discreet alarm via Protean Charm. This meant that over a hundred different people could use the fountain to get in touch with over a hundred different other people at any given time without any overlap or misidentification.

However the Ward did more than simply identify people: it actually covered over three square miles centred on the fountain and once a person's impression was registered as being 'listed' it marked that specific individual with a 'tag' that was only discernible to those people who were carrying an item connected by Protean Charm to that individual's captured signature. The 'tag' then remained until one of the people with the Protean Charm called that person by name in their hearing, no matter how far they went beyond the Ward itself.

Most of Rome's fountains were connected to a wider and much less intricate network that referenced magical samples from criminals and other persons of interest currently at large, but the Santa Maria in Trastavere fountain –and a handful of others– were specifically tailored for meeting with informants, diplomats, spies and other individuals who were granted instant access to the higher echelons of Sabina's government hierarchy. The coin Costanzo had given to Squalo Superbi was not actually significant; what mattered was that the swordsman had thrown something holding his spiritual impression into a Warded fountain beneath which was hidden a matching sample, a sample Costanzo had obtained by sitting on a Warded rooftop with the teenager for nearly ten minutes while the financial Inspector had a recording device hidden in his jacket.

The Zabini hadn't kept their position on the top of political hotbed that was Magical Italy for the past two millennia by being straightforward and overly trusting.

* * *

Squalo was sitting at a table outside a café about ten minutes' walk from the fountain into which he'd chucked the coin Zabini had left him and treating Bel to an ice cream sundae when a letter _appeared_ on the table in front of him, his name written on the front in the same Italic cursive that the first letter had been written in. More interesting than the letter was that Bel actually flinched when it showed up. Squalo wasn't sure how it had been delivered but he suspected there was a Mist out there really _enjoying_ their job in 'communications'.

After taking a moment to check the letter for traps, Squalo opened it. Like the previous letter, it contained a single sheet of creamy handmade paper with a handwritten address and time in black ink:

_Park on Via del Monte Oppio, Rome, twentieth of June at eight thirty in the morning_.

That was the following morning, first thing. Squalo realised he'd have to buy a map off a news stand in order to find the street, or else ask the locals for directions. He liked the idea of having a map better; then he could scope the place out later today, book himself and Bel into a nearby hotel while their driver got on with his mission over in Fiumecino and then start the journey home late tomorrow or early the morning after once their driver got back.

The swordsman glanced at Belphegor again, noting with interest that the eleven-year-old was actually squirming in discomfort despite attempting to devote all his attention to his melting ice cream. Maybe this impending meeting would persuade the Storm Officer to finally divulge what he knew about the Zabini that he'd been keeping to himself for the past two years, now that the driver wasn't here to overhear them talking.

* * *

Squalo lay on his bed in the small, bare twin room he'd rented for himself and Bel and listened to the Storm Officer toss, turn and occasionally swear in various obscure Germanic and Saxon dialects. The swordsman's gut told him that the prince's fluency in obscure, near-dead languages was oddly akin to Zabini's casual usage of an unfamiliar Latin dialect and he'd since them made a few more suspicious correlations, such as the Varia's continued inability to locate either the kingdom Bel was supposedly a prince of or the kingdom Zabini was related to the royal family of, despite considerable efforts on the part of Mist Division. Two unfindable kingdoms; what were the odds of _that_? Squalo had a feeling that if there were two, there were probably more…

"_Hai_," Belphegor said eventually, the German word for 'shark' crossing his lips in a resigned grumble.

"_Ja?_" Squalo responded, opening his eyes just enough that he could see the pre-teen Varia Officer slumped face-down amongst the untidy sheets of the other bed, his pillow clutched against the back of his head.

The eleven-year-old sighed again before continuing, speaking in the clipped, aristocratic Low German that Squalo suspected as being possibly the Storm Officer's first language. "_You wanted to know about the Zabini. I could not tell you before, but now that you have been invited to meet them I may break Secrecy without incurring reprisal._" The way he said the word for 'secrecy' –which strictly translated meant 'secret-keeping'– suggested it was capitalised, in much the same way as 'Omertá' was, which was interesting. Very, very interesting… in a distinctly Chinese kind of way. Squalo made a vague sound indicating that he was listening and that Bel should get on with it.

"_My people… we have power. Not Flames, which are of the soul and the mind, but gifts in blood and body,_" Bel went on, voice low and tinged with resignation. "_But the spread of Christianity and the rise of the Catholic Church led to our persecution, so we hid. Behind barriers made of power and illusion, to keep out those lacking in our gifts. We are many nations, as diverse as we are powerful and considerably more given to squabbling amongst ourselves than taking an interest in the affairs of those lacking our advantages. It is foolish short-sightedness, but no less common for that; peasants are foolish beings who desperately need royals looking out for them in order to prevent them from going extinct._" The eleven-year-old huffed. "_Power makes less of a difference than they think it does._"

Squalo could understand that. Flame-capable or not, people were all people and most of them were trash. Beyond that, the mention of the Church was rather suggestive, as Squalo had a feeling he knew why these hidden nations had initially withdrawn themselves from the world in general. The Church did not have a glorious record of tolerance for that which they did not approve of.

"_The Zabini are a family, but they are also a nation,_" Bel went on. "_They are the ruling family of the Principality of Sabina, which has dominated the politics of the Italian peninsula since the collapse of the Roman Empire. Those bearing the name and lineage number in the thousands, but the royal family carry a strongly pronounced resemblance to one-another and many of them can conjure fire. I knew that Boss was a royal Zabini from the moment I first saw him, but thought nothing of it; Zabinis go where they please, do as they wish and never settle for anything less than excellence. It is in their blood, along with the fire and the ability to bedazzle others into following their lead. They are the oldest and purest royal bloodline in Europe by over a millennium, setting a standard that all others aspire to match._" The eleven-year-old snorted. "_Which is, of course, why I chose to follow him; he was clearly within a few degrees of the _Principe_ and thus a perfectly acceptable choice of leader for another prince to bow to._"

That explained a hell of a lot while making Squalo want to laugh at the irony: his Boss, who was barred from being Vongola Decimo through not being related to Nono, was a member of an ancient and highly-regarded royal family with a history of producing powerful and charismatic leaders. It was slightly hilarious that Boss, by wanting to be Vongola Decimo, had been aiming relatively _low_ by his family's standards. After all, what was one Mafia Family when you were a close cousin of the ruler of an actual _nation_?

"_How large is Sabina?_" The swordsman asked curiously.

"_The Prince of Sabina rules over about two hundred thousand souls,_" Bel said shortly. "_It's not the largest community but it is one of the most powerful and influential ones in Europe._" That was… forty times the size of the Cavallone Famiglia, which was one of the largest Famiglia's in the Mafia. Belphegor had been right to call Sabina a nation; it was certainly considerably larger than most of Europe's other city-states. Lichtenstein for instance only had about thirty thousand people. Hell, there were less populous island nations in the Caribbean!

Two hundred thousand people, hidden away so well that no Flame-users had ever found them and it wasn't like the Varia hadn't being trying hard to locate them; that spoke really, _really_ well of their security. And that was just 'Sabina', wherever that actually was geographically; there was also Bel's home county to consider and who-knew how many others. A planet-spanning secret society even more reclusive than the Mafia…

Tomorrow was going to be _interesting_. In the meantime, he should probably take advantage of Bel's uncharacteristic helpfulness and ask more questions.


	93. Chapter 93

I was unexpectedly very ill last night, hence the delay in updating this.

Beta'd by the inspired Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of insight and irritation **

Squalo showed up at the park at seven thirty, Bel grumpily but silently in tow, and set up a watch of the area from the conveniently flat roof of the primary school on the opposite side of the main roadway behind the park. It really was a very nice view: the coliseum was right there at the end of the road, he could see just about the entire park from his vantage point and despite the entire street being full of little kids it was actually a pretty easy stakeout. In fact, all the kids hanging around made it easier to spot the adults. Specifically, the adults wearing unusually formal suits who walked briskly into the park, up the path to the top of the small hillock… then vanished while Squalo wasn't looking.

The swordsman had no idea _how_ that kept happening; _every single time_ somebody in an old-fashioned suit walked to the top of the path he somehow got distracted by something else and when he caught himself and looked back again the person had vanished. It was damned _frustrating_ and suggested there was a very sneaky bit of Mist-work –or some similar equivalent– at work there, especially since Squalo couldn't quite remember how many of those people he'd actually seen: the facts kept slipping his mind. It was a subtle and insidious bit of work and if Squalo hadn't been told last night by Bel about how these people hid in plain sight he might actually have overlooked it. This whatever-it-was genuinely did not register to him as irregular or threatening, which was pretty disturbing really. How many times had he and other Varia walked right past places like this without ever realising what was going on? Thankfully Bel didn't seem to have that issue –although he wasn't explaining how or why– and Bel was definitely keeping notes. Possibly even chasing targets into or through them.

Setting aside the issue of _where_ the people were going, Squalo instead chose to focus on what they were wearing. That was easier to keep in mind and actually far more informative than most people would think; clothing said a lot about a person, both as an individual and as a reflection of the culture they belonged to. His world tour had hammered that home for him and made the swordsman much more aware of the subtleties of how people dressed, regardless of whether they were civilians or would-be professional criminals. He wasn't a clothes horse or a snob about it, but clothing choices said a lot of things about a person that he'd learned how to read.

The most curious thing about these people was that they all wore suits, despite it being late June and already more than twenty degrees Centigrade even in the shade. The women all wore elegant hats, had skirts no shorter than mid-calf –and generally about ankle-length– had low-heeled shoes and wore pale gloves. The men all wore suits –with _waistcoats_ even– and over half of them wore hats and gloves as well. The suits were pretty varied though: materials ranged from plain charcoal grey through pinstripes and various types of woven woollen tweed to mint-green silk, which was rather unusual suit material. The waistcoats were all brightly patterned in sometimes garish colours, which drew the eye away from noticing that most of the men actually wore stock ties or ascots rather than modern ties. What was it with the early twentieth century dress code? People had been wearing ties since the mid-twenties!

"What's with the clothes?" Squalo asked his fellow Officer, never once taking his eyes off the influx of smartly-dressed civilians vanishing into the park.

"We're a very traditional people," Bel said shortly. "Those peasants are actually wearing unusually modern clothing, considering they work for the government."

"That's modern?" Squalo questioned further. That was distinctly and rather alarmingly old-fashioned.

"A significant proportion of the European part of the population never made it far past the early nineteenth century," Bel said dryly. "Certain aspects, such as various official and military uniforms, never even made it _that_ far." The prince sounded torn between pride and wry amusement, as though such rigid adherence to tradition was both a source of pride and something of an embarrassment.

As time ticked on Squalo noted that all the people he was seeing were dressed well but not overly expensively, suggesting they all fit into a range of niches in a certain bureaucratic stratum. These were secretaries, legal experts, clerks and various other office workers, if ones who worked somewhere important enough for their wages to allow them to wear tailored suits every day.

"Bel, who are we meeting?" The Rain Officer demanded abruptly.

There was a pause. "Probably a mid-to-high-ranking member of the royal family with diplomatic experience," the eleven-year-old said slowly. "But I _think_ this is the primary external entrance for Sabina's Foreign Office. However as most movement between communities is entirely internal, that doesn't mean much: generally it is low-to-mid-ranking employees, not guests, who use the external entrances as they're for commuting, not official visits."

Well, that _did_ explain why the 'entrance' was in a tiny park opposite a primary school; most of the people he'd seen probably lived locally. Bel had mentioned that a good number of people lived outside the hidden communities, hiding their houses individually or just blending in with the locals. This was in fact what those Zabini swordsmiths did, now that Squalo thought about it, along with the handful of other specialists the Vongola was aware of.

* * *

When half-past eight finally came around Bel led the way up the path onto the small, deserted open space at the top of the hillock in the middle of the little park. Squib or not, he could still see things that Muggles like Squalo couldn't, like the carved stone lurking under an illusion of old tarmac and the transference Runes that marked the spot as a modern equivalent of the old stone circles that were supposedly gateways to 'Underhill'. Rather than having to show up at a specific time of day and move around the stones in a specific sequence in order to reach your destination, modern transference circles simply responded to a person's innate magic and intent to reach a pre-arranged destination. As soon as Squalo was inside the runes' range Bel was about to call up the appropriate determination to be elsewhere when the circle activated automatically in a subtle flare of gold, resituating them in a marble-floored atrium with a high, frescoed ceiling.

The Shark reached for his sword, eyes darting this way and that in search of potential threats, but the only person in the open, airy space other than them was a peasant in a tweedy pink suit behind a desk next to the double doors directly opposite them. She seemed to be in her fifties –meaning she looked about thirty by normal non-Magical standards– and appeared completely engrossed in whatever was in front of her. Bel sauntered over to her and was rather gratified that she looked up as soon as he was within ten feet of her.

"_Can I assist you, young Sir?_" she inquired with impeccable formality in Sabino, glancing briefly at Squalo but keeping the bulk of her attention on the blond prince.

"We have an appointment," the eleven-year-old said briskly in Standard Italian. The peasant looked down at the desk in front of her.

"_Squalo Superbi and associate, I presume?_" She inquired. The Shark glanced at her sharply when she said his name and she moved something on her desk. "_A footman will be with you shortly to escort you to your destination._"

A few seconds later a teenager in fawn trousers and a dark brown tailcoat heavily embroidered with gold trotted into view. "_If the gentlemen would follow me?_" He suggested in Sabino, a white-gloved hand waving down the corridor as he bowed politely. Squalo advanced silently so Bel fell in behind the Captain, glancing around at the décor as the servant led them along the hall to a grand staircase and up to the first floor before opening a large door and standing just inside it.

"_Master Suberbi and associate,_" the footman announced as the two Varia Officers entered the room, before stepping back outside and closing the door behind him. Bel did not give the lush furnishings more than a cursory glance; he was too busy trying to work out why the son of Sabina's Crown Princess was one of the people waiting for them.

"Squalo Superbi," prince Blaise said affably, in Standard Italian rather than the Sabina dialect the staff had used. "I am Blaise Zabini, a prince of Sabina and this is my cousin Costanzo, who is in charge of the task force responsible for locating my missing relative. A pleasure to make your acquaintance and that of your associate… Ramiel of Prussia?"

Bel just _knew_ that Squalo was never going to forget this, but he still made the appropriate bow of a younger, guest prince to an older, host one. "Likewise, prince Blaise, although I go by Belphegor now."

"Am I to assume that You are also an associate of Our missing relative?" the Zabini royal inquired politely, walking around the table to offer his hand to the younger prince.

"That is the case," Bel agreed as he shook the hand, recognising that this his presence was probably going to instigate some official political manoeuvring. "I trust my presence is not unwelcome."

"Not at all; Your family have made public Your exclusion from the succession, political exile and the confiscation of Your physical assets, but have stated that they will be providing suitable monetary recompense for Your inconvenience upon Your being located," the Italian royal said calmly. "Your association with the Zabini entitles You to an account with our bank to which the money will be transferred; would guardianship and citizenship papers also be appropriate?"

Bel grinned; it seemed things weren't as bad as he'd feared they might be, considering he had killed his own brother and all those peasants. "They would," he agreed.

"And concerning Your education?" the elder prince asked. The eleven-year-old scowled.

"I am not currently attending school," he said shortly, "but have been provided with private tutors as appropriate to my position and station."

Blaise clearly picked up on all the things he outright refused to say in front of the peasants and simply ordered one of the other Zabinis in the room to go and arrange things. This left the two Varia with just three people to keep track of: prince Blaise himself, an English-looking wizard with a short sword at his hip and another Zabini. Both the prince and the other Zabini really did look just like Boss, the only differences being Costanzo Zabini's green eyes and the other royal's dark brown eyes, darker skin and curly hair.

"Please be seated," the second-highest-ranking individual in Sabina said politely, gesturing to the comfortable chairs to his left which had a good view of both the door and the room's large windows. "Refreshments will be served presently and then we shall talk."

Bel did not intent to talk; he intended to listen. But then again the prematurely greying blond peasant with the gladius whom Blaise had conspicuously failed to introduce probably wasn't going to talk either, so the Zabini were unlikely to comment.

* * *

Squalo was distinctly less than pleased with the current situation. Partly because he didn't know where the hell he was –his mobile phone wasn't getting any signal either– and partly because his having made a decision or not, he was still intending to thoroughly violate the spirit of Omertá, but right now he was mostly pissed off because these people knew Bel well enough to recognise him on sight and use what was apparently his actual real name. Not that Squalo had ever heard or seen Bel referred to as 'Ramiel' anywhere before; he wasn't even certain if Boss knew the actually-a-real-prince's name _was_ Ramiel. So far as Squalo was aware, the kid had shown up, taken the introductory tests, killed the previous Storm Officer and gotten named by Boss. No other names had been mentioned anywhere and the paperwork indicated that Bel had made a royal nuisance of himself while constantly referring to himself in the third person as 'the prince'.

However he was currently a guest of Xanxus' family and they were being genuinely hospitable, so the swordsman took up one of the offered seats, made sure his sword with within reach down the side of the chair and took a more thorough look at his and Bel's hosts as they waited for the promised refreshments.

Both Zabini looked a hell of a lot like Boss; Costanzo the auditor was no longer all-but-identical, having noticeably matured in the past two years, but he was still uncomfortably similar beyond those piercing jade eyes. In fact the man looked even _more_ like the portrait of Secondo hanging in the Iron Fort, the one painted not long after he made Vongola Boss despite the mottled brown feathers the auditor had fastened at his nape. It was disconcerting.

Prince Blaise –not _the_ prince but still _a_ prince– on the other hand had exactly the same bone structure and build as Boss, right down to the shape of his ears and nose. His skin was a shade darker in a way that had nothing to do with having a tan, his hair curled, he had black and white feathers hanging down from behind his ears and his eyes were dark brown rather than red, but other than that Boss and this prince could have been twins, right down to the way their eyelashes curved and the individual shape of their fingers. It was profoundly unsettling and Squalo wasn't certain what the feathers meant beyond have a gut feeling that they did mean _something_.

However there were a few major differences as well, more profound and noticeable than anything as superficial as colouring. Auditor Zabini for instance was as much a Cloud as he was a Storm despite obviously being able to call up Wrath Flames any time he wanted, which was interesting and implied that Wrath Flames had absolutely eff-all to do with being a Sky and everything to do with being a Zabini, which tied in with what Bel had said the previous evening. Something which the Vongola didn't know, as they seemed to think it was all to do with Secondo being Vongola rather than his mother's heritage. On that note, did that mean that Primo had taken the Vongola name from the father he and Secondo shared? It certainly implied it as otherwise Secondo would have been out of the running as heir.

Prince Zabini on the other hand was as much a Rain as he was a Storm, with potentially just a smidgeon more Rain. He was Flame-Active as well, which Auditor Zabini was not. He was also one of the calmest Stormy Rains Squalo had ever come across, the Storminess giving him intensity and focus rather than impulsiveness or easily-provoked anger. Then again, that could easily be a product of having the pure-steel arrogance that being raised royal seemed to instil in a person if Bel was anything to go by. Bel wasn't easily angered either, despite being a pre-teen Storm with strong theatrical tendencies.

The third man, the one who had very conspicuously not been introduced, was actually harder to place than the two Zabinis; Squalo wasn't entirely sure why he was there at all. He looked to be in his forties, with greying blond hair and clear, deep lines etched in his face that suggested he didn't smile much. Much more curiously he was a strongly Rainy Lightning; an Active Rainy Lightning at that. He also had a much smoother and more precise control over his Flames than a good half of Lightning Division did, which was extremely irritating as it implied that the Lightnings in the mafia were so abominably sub-par that only the Varia Quality ones could reach a level usually achieved by Lightnings who weren't subject to strong mental conditioning almost from toddlerhood.

He needed better Lightnings, or failing that to get a better Lightning Officer. Even just from _looking_ at this guy Squalo could tell he had a better handle on himself than Levi did and was about six times smarter. If it turned out he spoke more than seven languages then Squalo would be strongly tempted to make him an offer, dubious Zabini connections or not.

The refreshments arrived: a pitcher of iced water, another of iced tea and a plate of amaretti biscuits that still had a wisp of steam rising from them, indicating they were freshly baked. Bel snatched a biscuit even before the maid had set the plate down on the table and bit into it, humming happily as he chewed.

"I have _missed_ Zabini baking _so much_," the eleven-year-old mumbled around his mouthful. "What flavour is the tea?"

"It is peach tea, Highness," the maid said quietly, setting out glasses and plates from the trolley then moving the two jugs onto the low table as well. Both jugs were clear glass and contained ice cubes and lemon slices, with the tea jug having diced peach mixed in as well.

"I will have a glass of tea then," Bel said firmly, taking another bite of biscuit and picking up his plate so as to avoid spilling sugar on his jacket. "It has been too long since I have drunk peach tea that didn't come out of a can."

Squalo nearly smiled at this blatant and almost complimentary snobbery; it was so Bel it was funny. He didn't though, keeping a keen eye on the maid as she poured tea for Bel and the Prince Zabini, water for the Auditor Zabini and then water for the nameless Lightning before she turned to look at him, still holding the water jug. Squalo tilted his head slightly and glanced at the tea pitcher, cues which she responded to perfectly. Well these Zabinis certainly had good-quality staff. Sipping his newly-poured tea, Squalo amended that thought; they had Quality staff. He'd never tasted cold tea this good anywhere!

The other men had taken biscuits as well –the Lightning had taken three– so Squalo helped himself also, taking a single small bite as Bel pilfered another four from the serving plate, leaving it looking distinctly bare. The taste was _divine_: warm, rich and not too sweet. No shop-bought macaroon would ever taste more than half-decent ever again and the Varia chefs would have to make a serious effort to top this.

"So, to the matter in hand," Prince Zabini said after eating an amaretto and sipping his way through half his tea. "Would you like to start, _Signor Superbi_, or shall I?"

Squalo inclined his head towards the Zabini and took another sip of his tea. He wanted to hear what they had to say before he started spilling his guts on Boss' behalf.

"Firstly, you have been noted and recognised as a vassal of the _Famiglia Zabini,_ enabling us to share certain secrets with you," the dark-eyed prince stated. "However, should you reveal those secrets to anybody who has _not_ sworn service and devotion to your Boss we _will _know and there _will_ be consequences. Both for them and for you." The smile was a Boss smile, all teeth and shameless predatory intent. "We would appreciate it if you told as few people as possible, as we have more lives on the line than you do. Conversely we also have more people available for enacting suitable retribution, but that's life for you."

Squalo could appreciate a good threat. This was a prosaic, straightforward and eminently acceptable one. "I can keep quiet until we get Boss back;" he offered, "then he can decide who to tell what."

The royal Rain smiled. "An agreeable compromise; Swear it?"

Squalo could _hear_ the capital letter there. "I Swear it," he said firmly, holding close his devotion and dedication to Xanxus. Something changed; he wasn't sure _what_, but there had definitely been _something._

"Excellent. Now, to business: what do you know about the Zabini?"

* * *

Three hours later –the room had a clock so Squalo could see what time it was– and the Varia Rain Officer's mood had gone down the tubes again. Partly because of what he'd been told about the Zabini –_magic_, seriously?! – which they had been able to back up very solidly in ways that very definitely had not involved Mist Flames. That had been severely upsetting to his world-view. That there was a hereditary energy-manipulation skill out there that he was unable to sense for himself because he lacked the genetics for it entirely was bloody frustrating, although Squalo suspected he _might_ be able to employ his secondary Mist affinity so as to make up for that deficiency, similarly to how it was possible to get around Mammon's Esper abilities. Mist Flames were pretty damn versatile.

However that had only taken up the first half-hour of the conversation; the rest had been Auditor Zabini asking questions about the general mafia, the Vongola and allies and the Varia that Squalo had needed to find ways to answer or refrain from answering so as not to violate Omertá. Questions he had outright refused to answer had then been rephrased and adjusted until he could give some kind of answer and all manner of seemingly irrelevant questions had also been asked; who cared which way the Iron Fort faced, or how old the building was? Never mind all the questions about the layout of the grounds, what drinks Don Vongola liked to drink at what times of day and the tea service the retired Ottava liked best. He'd had to seriously delve into his memories of tea-time gossip with Petronilla to answer that one.

It was those seemingly-irrelevant questions that really irked Squalo, as they would not have been asked if the Zabini didn't consider the answers to be worth knowing and not knowing _why_ those answers were relevant was making his Varia instincts itch. He was _missing_ something here. He just _knew_ it. It might have been some sort of magic business or possibly just a discreet way of double-checking that he was being truthful, but it felt like more than that.

He managed to keep his cool through a whole slew of questions on what the Vongola knew about the Zabini and when Secondo's birth and death dates had been, but the questions about the birthdates of Secondo's children –other than Terzo of course– had been something Squalo hadn't known. That this was somehow _important_ and he couldn't _answer_ made the swordsman pissy enough to snark back.

"_Does all this shit really matter?_" he complained, in Hungarian because it was a rhetorical question and he really wanted to put these people on the back foot for once.

"_Do you really think we'd be asking you all these questions if it didn't?_" Came the reply in impeccably accented Hungarian in a voice Squalo hadn't heard yet today. The swordsman stared at the aging blond Lightning who had answered him, feeling his irritation tick higher.

"_Fine, keep asking then_," Squalo growled, still in Hungarian. They would see how long it took for this guy to get left behind in the language stakes.

The still-unnamed Lightning smoothly took over the questioning, consulting the list Auditor Zabini had been working from and easily refining and rephrasing those questions Squalo refused to answer. The Rain Officer soon switched from Hungarian to Portuguese, then on to Farsi, back to German, on to Japanese and then to Canadian French. The Lightning kept up with ease, although his choice of German was slightly more archaic than Squalo's own and he spoke Francitan as opposed to the standard Metropolitan French or the swordsman's own Quebecois.

Seven languages. Damn the man for demonstrating sufficient skills to be considered Varia Quality and for being a Lightning with more cunning and intelligence than Squalo was yet to see in any other Lightning anywhere, Ganauche III included. The Rain Officer switched to Russian just to see what would happen –the other man kept up easily, demonstrating an unusual Pomor dialect– then to Greek where the Lightning demonstrated a truly impeccable understanding of the Classical language as opposed to the modern one. The damn man even knew Chinese and Spanish!

Then Squalo's next question was asked in English, followed by a few in Danish, two in Polish, one in Latin, four in Arabic, two in Yiddish and then one in a language Squalo was damn-sure he'd never even _heard_ before, which was saying something.

"I didn't catch that," the swordsman admitted in Italian.

"I asked if the main Vongola Headquarters has a basement," the middle-aged blond replied in the same language.

"What language was that?"

The Lightning smirked. "Late Egyptian."

Squalo fumed silently for several seconds before answering the question. Why was it _everybody_ had better Lightnings than he did?! Don Vongola had Ganauche III, he'd managed to steal a handful of half-decent ones from the Triads and even the previously-civilian one who was still an apprentice was better than half the Varia Lightning Division. Now he could add Sabina to the list.

After that most of the questions were in Italian, French or English, in tacit recognition that those were the languages in which Squalo had the widest vocabulary. Now that he knew at least one of his listeners was unfairly polyglot the swordsman stopped making an effort to keep his answers confined to any one language, picking and choosing his words according to which meaning was most appropriate rather than bothering to remain coherent.

Then the Lightning started asking the odd question in completely unfamiliar languages, generally after Squalo had churned out a particularly mishmashed answer. After being forced to admit he couldn't speak Thai, Basque or Icelandic and couldn't even _recognise_ Inupiaq, Greenlandic, Kanuri, Lagwan or Wati, Squalo realised that the Lightning had noticed that Squalo was deliberately being obtuse and was being difficult right back. Most people didn't even _notice_ when the Rain Officer was taking them for a ride, so getting indirectly called out on it by a _Lightning_ was unexpected and deeply frustrating. Mainly because Squalo was getting the impression that this guy could easily take out Levi and make it look like an accident yet was vanishingly unlikely to agree to join the Varia.

It really wasn't fair. How was he supposed to improve the Varia if the Quality people didn't want to join?


	94. Chapter 94

There's going to be two more chapters after this one, so I'll be updating on Monday and Tuesday. That will fully use up my backlog though, so after that there will be another break in updates.

Beta'd by the stalwart Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of honesty and subterfuge **

Gian-Carlo Torretta was not specifically a mafia man; he just happened to be a civilian whose family had lived in Vongola territory for so many generations that they technically predated it. He'd always been vaguely aware of mafia things going on in the background, to the point that he didn't actually notice it because it was normal. He'd grown up in a village about 10km from Palermo, done so well at middle school that his parents had sent him to high school in the city then proceeded to do so well _there_ that he had been offered a grant to go and study at university.

Gian-Carlo had chosen to study Law at Rome university, not because the course was any better there than at Naples but because he wanted to see the capital. His parents had certain reservations, but he had persuaded them that this was his big chance to go up in the world so they had supported his decision.

While he was in Rome Gian-Carlo had met Emilia Maccari waiting tables in her parents bar and had fallen madly in love. He had married her before finishing his degree and by the time he was fully qualified and heading back to Palermo to accept a junior position in a solicitor's office that had been offered to him by virtue of the owner being a cousin of a friend of one of his uncles he was the proud father of a little boy.

Then when his precious little Stefano turned eleven he was offered a scholarship at a private school near Rome and Gian-Carlo learned that the odd things that sometime happened around his son were completely different to the odd things that sometimes happened around Vongola Mafiosi. That didn't change the fact that his baby boy would be getting the best possible education and would get to make powerful and prestigious connections, so Gian-Carlo was all for it. It was difficult to miss out on so much of his son's life but he and his wife could send and receive letters, which would have to do. At least Stefano came home every summer for three months!

But when Stefano graduated at eighteen he confided that he wanted to stay on at school and attend the Sabina University to study further, which made both his parents a little sad. They had already missed so much of their son's life and now it seemed he would be moving away for good; Gian-Carlo had no illusions about the lack of opportunities available for his son in Palermo. Still, the people who had come and visited from the university had been very kind and very effusive about Stefano's dedication and skills, so their son was at least appreciated.

Then, a few days later, one of those people visited Gian-Carlo again, asking if he would be willing to assist the Zabini by supporting a young man in need of work in the 'real world' for a few years. The young man would pose as their son Stefano, both so as to help allay suspicion concerning their son's continued absence and to protect the young man staying with them. Gian-Carlo guessed this was witness protection, like in American television series, so both he and his dear Emilia willingly swore the appropriate oaths and welcomed the young man into their home.

He really did look a great deal like their Stefano, so calling him that really very easy. Their relative estrangement from their son also made it easy to accept the young man's unexpected quirks; after all, their Stefano was also likely to have developed some unexpected habits in his seven years away from home.

* * *

It is always easier to impersonate somebody you know than it is to create a new identity from scratch; similarly, it is always easier to impersonate somebody to people who are less familiar with them than to those who know the person best. Theo knew this, which was why he'd spent a month living with Stefano Torretta before moving to Sicily to live with the slightly younger man's parents.

Stefano Torretta had a keen mind and a strong interest in the study of time, specifically how it could be sped or slowed through the use of runes and rituals. He had a keen understanding of what the Muggle world would call theoretical physics, a remarkable imagination and a keen drive to do well. He was also intensely hard-working and socially competent enough to do well in any low-level customer service job he undertook to pay the rent.

Theo was impersonating Stefano in his home village, pretending to have graduated from school but not yet having the necessary funds or connections for university. Once his mission was over he would inform people that he had saved enough money and managed to secure a university place back in Rome, thus tidying up any loose ends. He would also visit Stefano again; sharing enough of his memories of his experiences that if Stefano ever did go home he could react as though it really _had_ been the younger wizard who had been there rather than Theo.

Stefano had agreed to all this of course, was even eager to have a way to pursue his education without feeling like he was neglecting his family, so it all worked out. This arrangement couldn't have happened without Stefano's complicity, but his refusing wouldn't have been an insurmountable obstacle.

Theo and Stefano were actually very similar in terms of build and even skin colour –Theo's late mother had been half-Italian and he had her complexion– but where Theo's eyes were hazel green and his hair mouse brown Stefano had dark, ruddy brown eyes and black hair. Eye-Dye and Hair-Flair took care of those differences very handily, as did a bit of rune-anchored transfiguration for minimising the differences in bone structure, so then all that was left was suppressing his Mist Flames… or at least appearing to suppress them.

Being Flame-Active gave a person the potential to sense other Flame-Active people, provided they worked at it. Being a Mist meant that any and all Mafiosi who were also Flame-Active and noticed his Flame-type would immediately suspect him of being a spy or at the very least up to something dubious. They'd also do their best to recruit him and take a refusal as proof that he was up to no good. So, Theo needed to hide his Flame-type and that it was Active. He'd been working it with Trish and they'd come up with a Ward that was a variant on the Fidelius Charm. It was nowhere near as sophisticated though: it simply made his Mist Flames impossible to detect while they were inside his body. This meant he registered as an extremely underpowered latent Rain rather than an Active Mist, so Theo was taking a few behavioural cues from Padma as well as from Stefano –who was more of a Sun than a Rain but fortunately had exceedingly low potential for Flame Activation– for verisimilitude.

By September Theo had settled into a job in the main bar of the town he was now living in, taking orders and waiting tables. There had been a few fights between Mafiosi –the area was full of them– and no shortage of people behaving in ways that suggested they were Flame-Active, but Theo had kept his cool and maintained his authority. As junior barista he was a representative of the bar's owner, so had the authority to kick people out if they were misbehaving. His lack of fear when faced with drunk mafia men making threats had got him noticed, but Theo felt it was a good kind of being noticed. Good for his plans at least.

The Vongola Headquarters was a mansion and every mansion needed staff in order to function. He'd had a Mist-clone assigned to hitch-hiking in the minds of other Vongola staff members for over six months now, so he had a good idea of the qualities looked for in prospective recruits. It wasn't even that hard for him to demonstrate those qualities; the hard parts were not hunting irritating customers down after his shift was over and enacting karmic vengeance via Mist-orchestrated 'accidents' and not looking like he could understand when people spoke in languages other than Italian and Sicilian.

"_Are you Torretta?_" Theo quickly turned his head just far enough to see who was asking and spoke a quick affirmative before turning his attention back to the two coffees he was monitoring and the hot chocolate he was making. Working in a bar was all about multitasking.

"_Un caffè corretto!_" Paolo, the main barista who was the owner's youngest son, called out from the till.

Theo swiftly made another espresso, adding a few drops of grappa to it before pushing it across the bar towards the middle-aged man who had just asked him his name. People only received their drinks after having paid for them –that was how the system worked in Italy– so Theo didn't have to worry about collecting money.

He was then bombarded by eight more orders from the till, so the man who had asked for him by name got pushed to the back of his mind. Not right out of mind though, not even when he had to go break up a building argument and then politely inform another two customers that if they continued to harass the waitress the bar owner would castrate them, since she was his granddaughter. This was in between making drinks, serving food and offering polite conversation to the regulars, so it wasn't so surprising that it was nearly two hours later when Theo glanced around for his probable next customer and saw the man again, this time with a woman aged somewhere around forty wearing a very smart suit that was definitely tailored, which put her several income brackets above the rest of the bar's clientele.

"_Un caffè e un macchiato_," Paolo told him. Theo made them and then slid both onto the bar top.

"_Il macchiato?_" He asked. The woman caught his eye, so he slid the espresso with the dash of milk added in front of her and placed the other coffee in front of the man from earlier.

There was a lull in customers, so Theo busied himself with collecting empty cups off the bar top and stacking them in the dishwasher, then switched the little machine on before heading out to collect more cups and glasses from the tables. The dishwasher ran on a short, intense cycle so it would be finished in twenty minutes and he could empty out the clean dishes.

"_Stefano Torretta?_" the woman asked once he was back behind the bar.

"_Yes ma'am,_" Theo said politely. "_Do You need something?_" he was using the most polite form of address possible in Italian, the third person feminine singular.

"_Would you be interested in another job?_"

Theo immediately shook his head. "_I couldn't leave Mr Lucci without a barista, not after he's been so good to me._"

"_Ah, so it's you Maria-Chiara was after!_" said Antonio Lucci, the aging owner from behind Theo, prompting the Mist to fake surprise at his stealthy approach. "_Don't worry about that, Stefano; I have plenty of relatives I can call on. This is an opportunity for you to move up in the world!_"

Theo swayed slightly as the man slapped his shoulder hard and looked back at the woman –Maria-Chiara was clearly her name, but her surname was unknown to him– with a small smile. "_Well, in that case I should like to know what the job would entail._"

"_Off you go then Stefano; it's calmed down now so you can go home early,_" Mr Lucci said magnanimously, handing Theo a wad of notes and shooing him out from behind the bar. Theo bowed to the inevitable and followed the two people in suits outside so the conversation could continue in relative privacy.

* * *

A scant two weeks after getting scouted at the bar by the woman who turned out to be the Head of Vongola Housekeeping Theo had a smartly tailored new uniform –several smartly tailored new uniforms in fact– and was getting inducted into Vongola Housekeeping's domestic service division. This meant he helped with the cleaning, served food and ran in-house errands for the Iron Fort's inhabitants. It also meant nobody could order him to actually cook food and he wasn't allowed to work in the gardens, not even to pick flowers for the mansion's many vases. He also wasn't allowed to drive the cars, go shopping or get dragged out of the building by any of the Vongola's Mafiosi and if they tried it he should invoke his new Boss's name so they stopped.

Theo had signed his contract as _Stefano Torretta_, meaning that he was not bound to obey any of it, but he still intended to be a model employee because that was what Stefano would do and because being a well-behaved and reliable subordinate encouraged your superiors to overlook you. He was Stefano Torretta on the outside, but on the inside he was Theo Nott, spying on the Vongola on behalf of the Lady Black so she could steal her husband back from them. If the Wards on the Vongola Mansion had been working as they should then he'd never have got in the door, but the Wards were old and decaying, having gone without maintenance since the mid-eighteenth century and at least one of the Ward Stones had been destroyed at some point, leaving the defensive structure a fragile, shattered shell of its former self.

The only reason the Far-Seeing Wards were still in good condition was that the later Mist-defences erected by various paranoid inhabitants had accidentally co-opted them, meaning that anybody attempting to use a telescope or telephoto camera lens to look in through the building's windows was doomed to abject failure. The only way to look into the Vongola Mansion was to be invited inside in one way or another.

Theo's Mist clones had got in because he had first gone in himself with guests, as an acknowledged part of the visiting group. Dawn had known he was going along and as leader of the guest party all her guests had been accepted as Vongola guests. That invitation had never been rescinded, so the Mist clones had been able to come and go as they pleased without the Wards interfering. They'd only wanted to _see_, so even more sophisticated Wards would have ignored them anyway.

Theo on the other hand was entering the mansion under false pretences, so had the Wards been in full working order they would have either evicted him outright or sounded an alarm. However they were in such a pathetic state that the attempt to raise the alarm simply led to the more delicate and damaged parts of the Wards quietly collapsing, their last frail wisps of magic unravelling and dispersing into nothing.

The Mist-defences on the other hand were a mess, a mind-boggling tangle of Gordian proportions. There were pale, fading nets designed to alert the Mist who had erected them of the identities of everybody entering the building, although that particular Mist was at least two hundred years dead. There were nodes buried within the building's foundations, at least three generations old, so that the Mist who had laid them down could easily rebuild destroyed internal walls exactly as they had been. There were semi-sentient _things_ by all the main entrances, awaiting their dead master's command to emerge and savage intruders. Theo reckoned he could co-opt those, given a little time and a pinch of magic. Flames were very personal things but magic was more cosmopolitan; using both at once opened up whole new vistas of opportunity.

Then, of course, there were the tendrils of Flames belonging to all the buildings' various living inhabitants, some of which prodded at his latent Rain Flames in a very rude and overly familiar manner. The delicate Misty gauze that conformed briefly to the shape of his face and body was far more subtle and elegant a security measure; really, some people!

Theo didn't have a timetable to work towards as he had with Umbridge and her descent into insanity; even getting recruited into the domestic service had been something of a long shot and he hadn't expected it to happen quite this quickly, no matter how he had fiddled the odds. Now he had personal access to the mansion he could use his Mist-clones to eavesdrop on those staff members who rarely ever left it, which would expand his awareness of the building itself and progressively rule out places where Alexandro Zabini –Xanxus of the Vongola– might be being kept. Once the man was found Theo could then let Dorea know and matters of timing could be left in her capable hands.

In the meantime, he just had to be good enough at his job that nobody considered firing him.


	95. Chapter 95

Beta'd by the precious Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of impatience and making progress **

Dorea sat at the piano in Potter Manor's main music room, her back ramrod straight as she hammered out Beethoven's fifth symphony with passionate vehemence. It had been all very well showing patience when she didn't know where her husband was, or even if he could be recovered at all, but now the Zabini had secured the assistance of her husband's most influential vassal and the Seers had been able to confirm all the information he had provided Dorea was starting to feel distinctly _impatient_. It had been over three years since Xanxus' imprisonment and she wanted him back as soon as possible; she _missed_ him and it was clear by now that the Vongola weren't going to be letting him out of their own accord.

Of course, her impatience was compounded by the simple fact that the planned 'settling-in year' was due to start soon, which would signal a relaxing of the restrictions placed on the newspapers in reporting on the personal lives of members of government, and with her Black twins being two years old there was bound to be explicit speculation on when she was going to provide the Potter Family with an heir. Dorea had hoped that she would have her husband _back_ before the speculation started, but it looked like it wasn't going to happen. That was worrying, because the speculation would encourage greater scrutiny and increase the likelihood of somebody discovering that her husband was missing.

Which made it depressingly likely that she'd have to take matters into her own hands and use the 'sample' Luna had placed in stasis after Dorea's wedding night to brew a Virgin's Child potion. It would be perfectly legal, seeing as Xanxus was her husband and had actually stated that he wanted lots of children as part of their engagement agreement, but just because it was legal didn't mean Dorea wanted to do it when there were much more enjoyable ways of conceiving. Marius and Cassie were proof of that, as would her probable next child as the 'sample' had been taken upon her return to Potter Manor after her wedding night. She'd been so blissfully happy and full of hope then; so much had changed in the time since.

However given that the choice was between brewing the potion and infidelity, the potion was the only option Dorea was prepared to contemplate. If in another three years time her husband was _still_ in stasis with no hope of recovery, _then_ Dorea would contemplate the necessity of siring an alternative heir for the Zabini Family. However as Costanzo had already informed her that there _was_ hope, lots of it, and that he really didn't think it would take them more than two years –on the outside– to get their Principe back, Dorea was happy to relegate that awful possibility to the very back of her mind and the very bottom of her contingency plan list.

Nonetheless, she had been forced to accept that her next child would be conceived artificially and had started reading her mother's potion journals so that she could begin the preliminary preparations, such as acquiring specific ingredients or locating reputable and reliable suppliers for those ingredients she would need to have fresh. As Potter Heir, it would be best for the child to be born in Britain, but Dorea fully intended to leave the country as soon after the birth as was possible. The Wards for the house in Sicily were already being laid and the building itself would probably be completed by next spring, with the furnishings and landscaping due for completion by the end of the summer. As her baby would hopefully be born during the autumn, she would be able to up sticks and relocate around the same time as the Settling-In Year came to an end, so as to be well out of the way when the public outcry started.

Dorea knew she had made enemies, or would do once certain details came out. Nothing so severe as to send the Hufflepuffs into revolt, but a lot of usually laidback and lazy purebloods would be howling at the loss of certain Traditional privileges and assurances. Magical Britain was now much more meritocratic, if still rather skewed towards Hogwarts graduates. There were limits to what she could do in that respect. Still, it would be better to be out of the country so the Minister of Magic Gabriel Truman could dedicate his efforts to running the country rather than attempting to reconcile her with the public. Gabriel's wife Sally-Anne was expecting a baby now, so forcing the poor man to work overtime once he had a small child at home would be cruel.

Hopefully said outcry would have died down by the time little Marius and Cassie were due to start at Hogwarts, but even if it hadn't, the new laws protecting children from being persecuted for the political leanings of their parents would at least shield them from the worst of the fanatics. Those laws were unlikely to be repealed, as doing so would make the Wizengamot and Minister look like they wanted scapegoats and the Press would pounce on them.

Really, to write _good_ laws you had to think so ridiculously long-term it got a bit silly sometimes. It was tricky but perfectly doable provided you approached it right and it wasn't like the twins couldn't attend Beauxbatons or La Scuola Sabina if it came to it. Dorea preferred it not to come to that though, because they'd be deferred to and treated as the royalty they were at both continental schools and the Lady Potter wanted a slightly less privileged education process for her children.

* * *

Two weeks later Dorea was attacking the piano again, this time with a semi-improvised transcription for piano of Verdi's Dies Irae. Across the room Blaise and Gaetano were watching helplessly, flinching every time she ramped the volume up while Barty was standing so closely behind her that she could almost feel him breathing.

Thankfully nobody was being presumptuous enough to suggest that she 'calm down'; she _was_ calm, damn it! Nobody had died yet, had they?! Okay, fine, a lot of ornamental china had been sacrificed to the cause, but that was what it was there for! It had been ugly anyway, so who cared?

The reason Dorea was so very, _very_ upset was that Costanzo and Blaise's second meeting with Squalo Superbi had led to the revelation that her husband wasn't just in stasis, he was _frozen solid_ in great big block of _actual ice_! She hadn't needed Blaise's minor explosion of concerned outrage to tell her that boded really badly, but his explanation of _why_ it was so bad had pushed her out of 'worried' and into 'irate', hence her retreat to the piano and choice of tune after breaking plates proved inefficient.

Most people thought the Zabini Family Magic was strongly fire-orientated, which was only half the truth; there was a distinct fiery element, but that had been a later addition. The original Zabini Family Magic, the part derived entirely from their Siren heritage, was their ability to draw energy from their surroundings. Specifically, to leech magic and life-force from any living thing in their vicinity, be it vegetable, animal… or human. The Sirens of Greek legend had used their voices to captivate sailors, so the unfortunate mortals remained on the Siren's island and were gradually killed through overexposure.

Modern Zabini could still entrance people with their voices, if not as easily or as completely as their Creature ancestors, but they only stole energy when they were literally starving; it was a survival mechanism not a choice. However as Heir Zabini Xanxus had inherited the bulk of the Family Magic and was therefore naturally sensitive to atmosphere, able to consciously drain energy from people and decidedly charismatic and alluring even without singing. He was also much more strongly fire-natured than any other Zabini alive bar his father the former Principe –who remained in legal limbo if under house arrest due to her Alexandro being the primary aggravated party and having first claim– leading to a higher baseline body temperature and a weakness for ice-based magic. That would only get worse once her father-in-law Timoteo Zabini died, as then her husband would have access to _all_ the Zabini Family Magic as opposed to just the Heir's portion. Dorea was currently holding onto that Heir's portion for him so she likely shared that weakness, or so Blaise had explained.

The 'zero point break through' ice might not have been magic, but it was still ice and her husband being powerfully fire-natured meant that rather than being instantly flash-frozen he had probably been able to resist the process for a few seconds, which was very likely to have had adverse physical affects on him. Dorea didn't know much about Cryonics or Cryobiology beyond that they existed and some Muggles were putting themselves on ice in the hope that they would be defrosted at some point in the future, but while Magicals might have investigated the field at some point she had no information on the subject.

What it boiled down to was, while her husband was technically alive _now_, defrosting him could easily kill him. Which meant that, despite their now knowing _exactly_ where he was, Dorea couldn't _do_ anything about it until a great deal of research into cryonics and its effects on living creatures had been carried out to the satisfaction of the medically capable members of the Constellation and those Zabini interested in medical research. She didn't want to kill her husband by accident while attempting to rescue him!

Currently the most medically adept people that Dorea had on call were her Auntie Andy –who was a licensed Healer– and Draco Malfoy –who really wasn't any kind of Healer but had a great deal of more dubious and experimental medical knowledge available to him. Since graduating in July Draco had spent five weeks learning to access and control his Sun Flames and a further two months helping Trish push back the borders of ignorance concerning the possibilities offered by his Flame-Type. The young Lord Malfoy had also made an effort to learn the Muggle scientific method, which he was now applying to his own experiments in combining healing magic and Sun Flames with occasionally odd and frequently surprising consequences. Draco was at least careful enough to always have a House-elf on hand to whisk him away if an experiment went pear-shaped, which was more than could be said for the Prewetts. Then again, the Prewetts were sticking to magical experimentation –mostly– and Mist Flames didn't usually explode anyway. Dorea had heard mutters about Sun Flames prematurely catalysing potion ingredients with predictably explosive effects; Dorea was getting consulted more on potion mastery by Draco than by the Prewetts these days, but then again Fred was now a Potions Master in his own right which Draco was not. The Prewetts only consulted her when they were well and truly stuck.

Dorea finally gave up assaulting the piano and sighed deeply once her emotions were somewhat ordered. "Blaise, fetch me Draco and Tracy; Gaetano, can you call Graziano and have him send over Sabina's six top experts in stasis recovery and ice-damage, if there even are that many?"

"Of course, Principessa," Gaetano said with a relieved smile as Blaise left the room. "Eh, I'll also have him send over the new body-double candidates; Stanzo and I don't really look sixteen anymore."

"That would be practical," Dorea conceded. Hopefully she wouldn't need a body-double for too much longer…

* * *

Draco hadn't told Dorea anything about his Family Magic other than mentioning it was medically based. His cousin, being a cunning and thoughtful Slytherin, had immediately grasped the implications and destructive potential of such a specialty and suggested he spend some time with Trish. Discovering that Muggles had rules concerning experiments had been surprising, but learning how to make his experiments reliably repeatable had been well worth his elder cousin's mania and fondness for throwing him headlong into impossible situations based on the flimsiest of theories. Yes, he had learned a lot; he'd even improved a lot. However that didn't mean he wanted to do it again. If Trish wanted a Sun to play with she could call on her baby brother Leo.

Draco wasn't a Healer; he was never going to be a Healer either. Healers had to take restrictive Oaths that limited their actions to those that would benefit their patient. Even Muggle Healers took those oaths, despite not being bound by them and only having disgustingly primitive techniques available to them. Cutting people open, seriously? That was torture, not healing!

Then again, not being bound by Healing Oaths meant that Draco was free to investigate Muggle medicine as much as he wished, which was always good for a laugh and occasionally even inspiring. Cursed wounds couldn't be healed, for instance, but if you cut the Cursed tissues out _then_ attempted healing… would that work? He would have to experiment, but preferably not on himself.

The Lord Malfoy was not the only person taking advantage of the recently relaxed laws on what exactly constituted 'Dark Magic' to experiment a bit with his Family Magic; although Draco was not exactly a social butterfly he was aware of Millie's resolute determination to become even more dangerously capable in combat and Parvati's foray into sculpture. The Gryffindor girl had a good eye; Draco had bought one of her puzzle-balls as a birthday gift for his mother.

Then there was Susan Bones, who had taken to visiting Daphne Greengrass twice a week and was always calling her on the mirrors concerning something or other; Hannah Abbott's recent interest in _blacksmithing_ of all things; and the Weaselette's rather disturbing affinity for duelling. She was good enough to give Barty a challenge, magic-wise, the last Draco had heard. It was really a very good thing that he'd got his head out of his own behind a few years back and was learning that sometimes people didn't want to hear the truth; if he hadn't the youngest Weasley might well have hexed him senseless at some point since.

Of course, there was also Leo Black's interest in Japanese peasant magic; Creevy's expanding blackmail network and disturbing enthusiasm for Magical politics; Roger Malone being appointed as Longbottom Steward while Neville was in Brazil; Terry Boot getting accepted as an apprentice by a prominent Warding company; and Tracy Davis was being in the second year of her Healing qualification. Everyone who had been part of the Constellation was making considerable headway after graduating, if not always in directions Draco considered worthwhile. Parvati Patil for instance was more interested in finding herself a wizard to be trophy wife to than pursuing the sculpture career she was proving to have the talent for, which was a shame.

Getting summoned by Dorea had been unexpected and her news concerning her husband was most displeasing, but Draco could not deny that the missing Zabini's predicament opened up whole new avenues of interesting research.

Ice magic wasn't very common in Britain. The only countries it _was_ common were those where it was icy and cold all year around or else in desert communities where it was used to augment Refrigeration Charms. However most of the world never used more than a few freezing spells and minor hexes but those weren't really ice magic any more than Warming Charms were fire magic. Actual fire magic saw considerable more usage than ice magic, even without including dark or cursed fires like Fiendfyre, possibly because there wasn't anything quite as cool as being able to throw a fireball at somebody. Draco had read a lot about how to create, use and treat damage created by fire, but there had been almost nothing on ice. This would be considerably more challenging than treating frostbite.

"I will investigate the effects of freezing on skin and muscle tissue," the young Lord Malfoy said as soon as the Lady Potter had finished explaining the situation. "Once I have some results we can then start looking into ways of reversing those effects."

"I'll do some research into past freezing cases at St. Mungo's," Andromeda Black-Tonks said, getting to her feet. "No need to re-invent the broom after all."

"I need to focus on coursework and helping at the hospital as I have to write my thesis next year," Tracy said apologetically, "but if you keep me up to date I'll do what I can."

"We'll look into what we have in Sabina and see about sponsoring some human testing once we have some preliminary data," one of the Zabini in white coats said. The Zabinis present were either wearing Healer's green or white, so Draco got the impression that the white-coated ones were the ones who did the experimental research, being unencumbered by Oaths.

"Sponsored human testing?" Aunt Andromeda inquired dryly.

The Zabini in white shrugged. "Some wizards are lazy, not wanting to put in the effort of working six days a week to earn money. So we offer them the opportunity to be medical test subjects, which they are paid for and benefits the wider community more than their slothfulness would otherwise."

"And if they die?"

"Then their family is compensated and they are cited when the research is completed, receiving posthumous honours for their contribution to the profession," the Zabini said callously. "They know the risks."

Draco had never before considered that it might be possible to ask for volunteers. Well, paid test subjects anyway. You'd have to write a contract where the risks were spelled out, but if the money was good enough then a lot of wizards probably wouldn't care. There were a lot of people out of a job now the Ministry had been streamlined and most of them lacked the ingenuity to set up in business or the qualifications to be hired elsewhere. Hmm… something to think about while he was investigating ice magic more deeply. He'd have to see about learning Greenlandic, since Greenland was the magical nation where almost all ice-related magical research went on. It was almost embarrassing that Draco could not remember a single ice spell more advanced than the Chilling Charm he'd learned in third year. Then again, that was part of why ice magic didn't get used much: it had limited utility because it inevitably melted unless spelled otherwise and managing _that_ was more trouble than it was worth.


	96. Chapter 96

This is the last chapter I have finished, so more updates will take some time.

On an unrelated note, I appear to have written the longest Harry Potter/Katekyo Hitman Reborn! story on the site. When did that happen?

Beta'd by the ingenious Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of incredulity and coping strategies **

It was November and Squalo was… twitchy. He was hiding it as best he could, but he was having to keep himself firmly in check so he wasn't looking over his shoulder every half-hour or so, expecting there to be a pair of Vindice about to drag him away for violating Omertá. Which he hadn't done, technically, but Squalo seriously doubted the Vindice would care that he'd kept to the letter of the law when he'd twisted the spirit of it so atrociously. Nothing directly violating it, of course, but he had talked about some mafia secrets which were less secrets and more conventions and ways of thinking. Some questions he'd been unable to answer and had said so, but others he had deflected pointedly; pointing in the direction of the answer he couldn't give.

It hadn't happened yet though, despite two meetings with Blaise Zabini and his minions, and they'd told him that they wouldn't need to see him again for at least a full year –although if he wanted to come and talk to them before that he was free to do so. Squalo fully intended to stay far, far away from the Zabini for as long as possible because after those two brief meetings the swordsman had the impression that the Zabini were a kind of creepy all their own. Never mind that looking at them was awkward for Squalo as he couldn't help comparing them to Boss; as Bel had told him that the Royal family all strongly resembled one-another, it left Squalo wondering exactly how close Boss was to the throne and what exactly had happened that resulted in him being left in the slums of Palermo with a mother whose mind was 'irreversibly damaged' with 'half her memories gone, forever', to quote Costanzo Zabini. Squalo had decided it would be unwise to inquire further because he had a feeling that the mind damage was not-an-accident with a heavy sprinkling of politics and bullshit; Boss' mother had been a cousin to royalty so there had to have been a search for her when she first went missing or at least a believable lie as to why she wasn't in Sabina. Might have been something to do with the nature of the Zabini as described by Bel in the Prince's lecture the night before Squalo learned that magic existed, along with a lot of hidden nations, communities and kingdoms.

Squalo had since ordered Bel to do reports on all said kingdoms, communities and nations, even if all the report contained was a name, a vague indication as to its general location and the language probably spoken there; just because Bel was a genius didn't mean he knew everything.

The basic reports about Europe's Magical nations had only solidified Squalo's desire to keep his distance from the Zabini, as none of the other hidden nations had a princess known as 'the Black Widow' who was by all accounts very beloved in Sabina despite the number of husbands she'd put underground. Staying away probably wouldn't be all that hard as he now had to manage the Varia full-time and there were twice as many of them as there had been when he left on his recruitment drive. Morale was also up, which meant that mischief was rampant and people were constantly going in and out of Headquarters for missions, field trips and milk runs. It was chaos, but the good kind.

Squalo was deciphering reports and rearranging Squads in the wake of a couple of deaths and three newbies being awarded proper names when the door of his office was flung open and Kuchisake _bounced_ into the room, dragging a spitting, struggling barely-teenage boy and her Squad-mates hovering worriedly outside the doorway behind her.

"What the devil?" the silver-haired swordsman demanded. Kuchisake was morbid, moody and melodramatic; she did. Not. Bounce!

"Shark!" Kuchisake gushed giddily in Korean, hugging the thrashing teenager to her chest. "I've found a new recruit! Isn't he _darling_? I want him as my apprentice!"

Squalo stared flatly at the skinny, unhealthy-looking boy of vaguely Slavic origin who was cursing foully in at least five different languages and kicking at Kuchisake's shins. "Voi, is this some kind of joke?" he demanded in Japanese; while the swordsman could vaguely understand Korean, he couldn't speak it at all well. Best use a language he could make himself properly understood in.

"Captain!" Kuchisake pouted, eyes wide and stricken behind her tangled hair. "Look at him! How can you say no to this face?"

Squalo suspected she meant the boy's face rather than her own; the Mist Squad Leader's scarred half-Glasgow grin was completely shudder-worthy, especially with the thick black stitches she had insisted upon keeping. The boy really didn't look like much… Squalo paused, eyes narrowing as he picked up on the Mist Flames in the room. They weren't Kuchisake's.

Now he was paying attention, the Captain of the Varia could see that Kuchisake's abductee was missing more than half of his left leg; in fact that leg ended about three inches above where his left knee should have been. It was hard to notice though, as the nameless trash was using Mist Flames to fake his having a complete and undamaged leg. It was a trick that worked very well, particularly since the trousers, socks and shoes he was wearing were all real rather than illusory. The only reason Squalo had noticed the difference was that he was in a sceptical mood and had paid extra attention to the brat.

The scrawny teen let out another torrent of swearwords, but in different languages to the previous ones. Despite the slight incoherence of the profanity, Squalo still got the jist. He sighed heavily.

"Kuchisake," he demanded, "did you _ask_?"

The Mist Squad Leader paused, tilting her head forwards for a moment. "Ano…"

She sounded slightly embarrassed; whether it was genuine or not Squalo had no idea, but there was a definite increase in pink around her face.

"Sorry Captain, I didn't so he probably thinks I want him as my boy-toy or something, could you sort it out please thank-you?" She spat out in rapid-fire Japanese before dumping the brat on the floor and running out of the door, slamming it behind her. Squalo groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Voi, brat," he said in Italian, getting to his feet and stalking around the desk, "how do you feel about killing people?"

* * *

It turned out the brat didn't have any hang-ups about killing people as he'd done it before, in fact had been doing it for some years now. He didn't even care that Kuchisake and her Squad had slaughtered his previous 'employers', as they'd barely been paying him and had treated him like a child rather than a fellow professional. The Varia would at least pay him in full for the work he did, unlike the idiots who hadn't realised that a Flame-Active Mist was somebody you probably shouldn't patronise or fail to pay properly. What the brat had been given for his efforts had barely qualified as pocket money despite him doing the work of at least three Flame-Latent adults.

Idiocy dealt with and misunderstandings straightened out, Squalo located a pack of induction paperwork in a language the brat could read and had him fill it out –then ordered him to work on his handwriting in the future– while the swordsman explained the basics of how the Varia worked. As the brat had no idea how to fill in the health-related parts of the paperwork Squalo took it and the brat to Varia Medical and dumped them on the first person inside the door; the kid looked unhealthy and had no memory of ever visiting a dentist. After the brat had been hustled away into the depths of Medical, Squalo told the guy on door duty –a post which existed to discourage escape attempts before patients were back at full strength– that they were to dump the brat on Kuchisake once he was checked out. She'd wanted him as her apprentice, so she could deal with him.

Squalo had given the brat the preliminary nickname of Kasar, but had noted on the paperwork that if –when really; Kuchisake had a good eye for talent– he made proper Varia Quality he was to be called Hoax. It fitted, both with how Squalo had met him and what the brat had given away about various past kills.

Having dealt with that unexpected addition to his workload, Squalo decided that, fuck everybody else, he needed a break. As it oh-so-conveniently happened to be the beginning of the month, that meant he could go visit Petronilla without it looking like he was skiving or breaking routine. All of the Varia knew that Squalo left HQ twice a month, minimum, but they didn't know where he went; or at least if they did, they weren't telling. The Rain Officer was pretty damn sure Mist Division's intelligencers knew where he went because they were nosy like that, but they were also damn good at keeping things secret, so he didn't have a problem with their knowing. He'd been very clear in making sure everybody knew that interrupting his downtime was something he'd kill people for, so as yet nobody had.

Of course Nilla wasn't exactly a restful person, but a change was as good as a rest, right?

* * *

Squalo took it all back; Petronilla Paternó Castello had clearly gone completely mad since his last visit.

"Voooi, how is it _my_ fault that you have Federico Vongola shackled to a chair in your front room?!" the Captain of the Varia demanded loudly, but not _so_ loudly that the neighbours would be able to hear him through the walls. This was _not_ a situation into which he wanted to involve third parties.

"You suggested I and the rest of the Harpies find a reasonably non-damaging way of testing the vigilance of Federico's Guardians, did you not?" Nilla said matter-of-factly, pouring Squalo a cup of tea and setting it down in front of the swordsman's usual seat. Squalo reluctantly took his place at the table, resolutely not looking in Federico's direction. "Well, we have clearly proven that they are not being attentive enough without actually harming the Family Heir: your concerns were well-founded and will now be addressed."

"Please, _please_ tell me that you cleared this with Housekeeping _first_," Squalo groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He'd thought Nilla was smarter than this… but then again, she was a Mist and all Mists were utterly insane. With a preference for kidnapping people, apparently.

Petronilla looked offended. "Of course I did, Squalo-dear; what kind of idiot do you take me for? Madam Vongola gave me the go-ahead and promised that, if my concerns proved to be valid, she would take the matter to Don Vongola personally."

Squalo relaxed a little; he wasn't about to get lynched for complicity then. That was good. He took a sip of his tea before continuing.

"Okay, so what did you do exactly?" He asked, "And how hard was it, on a scale of civilian to Varia?" That scale had surfaced multiple times over the years in his conversations with Nilla, so they both knew what the other meant. Squalo didn't care that Federico was listening; it would be educational for the idiot and this was a test for his Guardians, not for him.

"Meh," Nilla said, pulling a face. "I'd say… low-level mafia in difficulty. We're only using Flames to make him impossible to sense; if we'd wanted him dead we'd just have killed him once we got him alone."

Squalo stared. That was _pathetic._ "How, exactly, was it that fucking _easy_ to isolate and neutralise the proposed Vongola Decimo?" He demanded quietly, setting down his teacup with exaggerated care.

"Honey trap," Nilla said succinctly, her expression one of sympathetic dismay. "I know, Squalo, I _know_," she said gently as the swordsman lowered his head to rest on the table with a thump. "There, there." She patted his shoulder. "At least it was us and not an actual assassin?"

"That," Squalo said, voice slightly muffled from his face resting on the table, "is a _very small_ mercy." He lifted his head up and turned to glare at Federico, who at least had the good sense to be embarrassed. "Why is it we want you for Vongola Decimo again?"

Federico mouthed the words, 'because I'm all there is now', then shrugged and grinned sheepishly when Squalo glared at him.

"Why isn't he talking?" the swordsman asked his host.

Petronilla smirked, inclining her head towards Teresa, Giulia and Chiara, who were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a triangular formation around Federico's chair, facing outwards with their eyes closed and their hands braced against the floor. "We've worked out how to work cooperatively with our Flames," the eighteen-year-old said smugly, "so we can do bigger and more costly things together than apart."

Mists working together. The world was _doomed_.

"So, they're holding a Territory?" Squalo clarified, drawing on what he'd picked up from the Varia's Mist Division on how Mist Flames worked. "One with Federico inside, so he can't use Flames and where he can't communicate with the outside world?"

"Exactly," Nilla smiled. "You're such a perceptive toy, dear."

Squalo rolled his eyes. "I still say I'm not your toy," he said flatly, "but it's not like I can change your mind, is it?"

"Not at all," Nilla agreed sweetly. "Although I really do wonder how long it's going to take his Guardians to realise he's missing. He's already been here an hour."

Squalo turned to Federico again. "Are your Guardians really that pathetic," he demanded, "or do you _regularly_ ditch them to hook up with women?"

Federico looked embarrassed rather than offended, which suggested it was the latter.

"Well, fuck," Squalo said in English, not really believing this was happening. "Either you stop thinking with your dick and develop a bit more awareness of your surroundings or else Nono's going to be burying you too."

_Now_ Federico looked offended, but that was probably because the surviving Vongola heir was forty-three to Squalo's seventeen and the Rain Officer had been so utterly tactless he'd been outright rude. The swordsman ignored the indignant mouthing in favour of serving himself another cup of tea.

"I came here in the hope of getting a break, but I can see that's not going to happen," Squalo said wryly after finishing his tea. "Good luck with your mission, all of you Harpies."

"I'll be sure to let you know how it ends!" Nilla called after him as he left the apartment.

* * *

Translations  


Kasar = disrespectful, impolite, rough (Indonesian).


	97. Chapter 97

Beta'd by the triumphant Insane Scriptist.

Yep, I'm updating again... for a week at least. Also, please check out my new Black Sky side-story co-written with InsaneScriptist! It's called 'Parenting is not a Varia Quality' and features several of our Varia characters. It's part of the Black Sky continuity too, so may get referenced later on.

* * *

**Of unexpected conquests **

"Will you weed us a 'tory tonight, Mama?"

Dorea set her quill aside and turned to smile down at her little boy. At nearly three years of age, Marius now had his grandfather's shining grey eyes set in a face that would probably come to greatly resemble his father's as he grew. He was also a rather serious child and highly articulate for his age. There were still some pronunciation issues, but that was normal and if they didn't correct themselves she would just have to arrange for elocution lessons, rather like had been done to correct her own stutter at a similar age.

"Well, I've nearly finished my work for the day, poppet, so I think I will," she told her son. "What would you like me to read?"

"The free brothers!" Cassie piped up, hurtling around the doorframe and almost knocking her twin over in her haste, "tell the 'tory of the free brothers, Mama!"

Dorea smiled at her red-eyed spitfire of a daughter, then looked over at her son. "Well, Marius?"

"The free brothers," Marius agreed firmly, nodding.

"Very well," Dorea agreed, "now both of you go with Nurse, clean your teeth and change into your pyjamas; I'll finish here then come upstairs. Remember though, if you're not ready for bed…"

"… we don't get a 'tory," Marius finished the sentence, one Dorea had uttered many, many times since her children started wanting bedtime stories. "Yes Mama." He turned and left the room at a trot, pulling his sister along with him.

Recognising that she had maybe ten minutes before her twins came looking for her again, Dorea quickly finished her calculations, made a note of where she was and set the potions' journal aside; she had already started the brewing process for the Virgin's Child potion and had almost finished working out the precise timing of adding the final ingredient. However that would have to wait until the morning; she had her children to read to.

* * *

"… _the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone and turned it thrice in his hand, To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had hoped to marry before her untimely death, appeared at once before_–"

"Mama," Cassie interrupted from where she was examining Dorea's four rings, "the 'tone in your ring has the same picture as the book. Is it Deaf's 'tone?"

Dorea paused in her reading, set the aged copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard _aside and made a show of examining the ring that her daughter was clinging onto. It was the one she had inherited from Grandpa Arcturus, the one that had been a Horcrux and was an heirloom of the Gaunt line.

"I don't know," she said easily, going along with her children's curiosity. "Shall we find out?"

"Please Mama!" Both two-year-olds chorused excitedly.

"All right then…" Dorea twisted the ring around her finger three times, not really expecting anything much.

But there was now a shadow of her Great-Aunt Cassiopeia in the room, far younger than Dorea remembered her but still unmistakeably Cassiopeia Violetta Black. Not a ghost, but not solid either; rather something in between.

'Dorea, dear girl, I'm so proud of you,' the shade said with a faintly wicked smile, 'and so flattered you named your daughter after me. I'm sure she'll live up to her name admirably.'

"Mama, it's Madam Cass'opeia! Like the portrait in the pink study!" Cassie said excitedly, bouncing out of Dorea's lap and hurrying up to the shade, who crouched down in front of the toddler.

'Look at you, so big and strong already!' the shade cooed, insubstantial fingers passing through the toddler's riotous mane of curls. 'Such a beautiful girl you are!'

Dorea was staring at her ring in shock. It was a Hallow? Like her Invisibility Cloak inherited from Uncle James… and potentially the wand that had appeared after Dumbledore's death…

"Great-Aunt Cassiopeia?"

'Just Aunt Cassiopeia dear heart; I don't look like a great aunt any more, do I?' The shade said fondly.

"Could you tell Marius and Cassie a story please, Aunt Cassiopeia? I'd like to go and check something," Dorea managed to say without her voice wobbling.

'Of course, dear heart,' Cassiopeia said, smiling knowingly at her great-niece in a distinctly worrying manner. 'Now, would you like to hear a story from my time in the Resistance, fighting Grindelwald?'

"Yes please, Auntie Cass'opeia!" The twins chorused eagerly as Dorea slipped out of the bedroom, headed for her own room. She didn't often use the wand that had mysteriously appeared at her bedside but she always kept it safe, as it had a certain inexplicable weight to it. Not a physical weight, but something more arcane. Was this was it was? A Hallow?

Dorea privately hoped _not_. She had enough on her plate as it was.

* * *

"You know, this is not what I thought I'd be doing with my evening," Blaise said mildly from his perch on the sofa, wrapped in a warm poison-green dressing gown with black slippers on his feet. Barty was standing behind him wearing thick tweed pyjamas and Dee was sat in an armchair to one side, also in her nightclothes, tapping a quill against her fingers in attentive silence. It had taken Dorea several hours to find all the information she wanted, but now she had everything lined up she did not want to delay matters until the following morning. Best to deal with them at once.

Dorea ignored her brother, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor of the green sitting room with the Cloak across her lap, the Elder Wand –as confirmed by the shade of Antioch Peverell– in one hand and the Resurrection Stone in the other. The Legend of the Deathly Hallows claimed that the person to gather all three to themselves would be Master of Death, but what that meant or how a person would check was not specified. Dorea, being a suspicious soul, had a feeling that Death, as in the story of the Three Brothers, would get the last laugh.

The stone recalled others from Death, but there was no reason why it couldn't call Death as well, especially when she _wanted _it to and held the Elder Wand.

Dorea turned the ring over three times and then there was another being in the room with them.

He was hooded, like in the story, and tall and terribly thin as well. He was also _dark_, not in magic but in his very soul. Dorea could feel it in her Flames, which hummed oddly in Death's presence. He was not alive, but not dead either; not human, but not an incorporeal entity. He was Other.

"You, little Peverell," said Death in a soft, deep voice that did not fit his appearance at all, "are far smarter than all of your predecessors together. A worthy Mistress, you will be."

"I take it I do not have a choice," Dorea said flatly, glancing from Death to her other rings and back again. She was already Lady Potter, Regent Black, Technical-Principe Zabini and Lady Slytherin; to be Lady Peverell –or possibly Mistress Death– on top of that was a bit much.

"No, you do not," Death agreed. "You have been mine from the instant you took up the Wand, having already claimed both Cloak and Stone."

Dorea did not ask whether he would ever have revealed himself to her of his own accord; the point was moot. "What does it mean to be Mistress of Death?" She asked instead.

"It means that you are to ensure all meet me when their time has come," Death said, "and in return I will not claim you until you chose to depart."

"So I've got to hunt down and thwart those attempting to cheat you?" Dorea clarified. "Immortality seekers, those who enslave the souls of others, restless spirits and suchlike?"

"Indeed," Death agreed.

"And when I _am_ tired of being your errand girl? What then?"

"Then one of your line will inherit the duty."

"No." Dorea rose to her feet, her Flames bursting into life around her. "I will not condemn _any_ of my children to such a thing; what must I do to ensure I am the first, last and _only_ to carry this burden?"

Death's hood tilted forwards slightly. "I was not always as I am," he said after a long pause.

Dorea considered this statement. "What were you before?"

She couldn't see Death's face, but Dorea got the impression that the being was smiling at her. Not a very nice smile, but still a smile.

"My people predated humanity," he said quietly, "but we were never so numerous. When humans came to be we looked down on them at first, but in time I came to admire them, for their tenacity, inventiveness and heart. I also pitied them for their brief lifespan and frailty, doing what I could to ease the passing of those who were beyond help and releasing their souls to pass on to the ever-after. Then I fell in love."

Dorea did not ask who he had fallen in love with; this was very clearly a delicate subject.

"She was human, so I knew from the start our time together was limited," Death continued, "but it proved even briefer than I imagined when her pregnancy with our child developed complications. I appealed to my people for help but they offered none; instead they scorned me for breeding with a 'lesser being' and drove me out. In my anger I Cursed them; Cursed them to experience the loss that I did, to grieve as I grieved and mourn as I mourned. Then I did my best to offer what aid I could to my wife, but it was in vain: she died in my arms."

Dorea waiting for Death to go on, but he did not. He still hadn't finished his story though, so she ventured a gentle query:

"What happened next?"

"Next… in my fury and my grief I was changed," Death said quietly, "to become what I am now. The humans of the time already worshipped me, and although I did nothing to encourage that –indeed I hid from them more often than not– their worship still strengthened me, allowing me to continue existing. But in my fury and sorrow I forgot my son, and by the time I had recovered a little of my senses I could not find him. I should have been able to, as we share blood, yet my transformation had altered me to the point that the bond was severed.

"I later discovered that the Curse I laid upon my fellows had taken root, yet despite such a curse violently upsetting the balance of our people no further signs of unbalancing were evident. I came to suspect that my son, as the primary victim of his mother's death, was acting as counter-balance for the Death Curse laid upon my people: the life taken from them prematurely went to strengthen him and keep him from my sight, as in such a state he could not die."

Dorea did not ask about the rest of Death's 'people'; his story sounded suspiciously like an insider account of the end of the age of Titans, as various historical Wizarding sources mentioned their gradual disappearance. Muggle myths were full of the ancient propaganda detailing said Titans' 'defeat' by wizards, but those were just grandiose fiction. The truth was that the Titans had never been particularly interested in humans to begin with and had quietly faded out of memory with the passing of time.

"How is this story relevant to my preventing my children from bearing this burden?" Dorea asked instead.

Death's hood turned so that he was looking directly at her and Dorea caught a glimpse of waxy skin stretched over sharply protruding bones and dark, empty eyes. "Find my son," he said, "and care for him until the years he has accumulated run out. When he passes into my care your duty will end."

Dorea did not say that such a thing might take decades or even centuries; she did not protest the impossible unfairness of such a task. She had asked and she had gotten an answer. Even so, she now knew the required task and she did not want it to pass on to her children. Furthermore, despite Wizarding lifespans being longer than Muggle ones it was now highly likely she would outlive her friends and she both wanted and needed to make sure she would have some kind of companionship when that happened. There was always Uncle Nick and Aunt Nellie, but she wasn't close to them and she wanted her happily-ever-after to last a good long time once she finally got her husband back; he _owed_ her the time and devotion he had sworn to her. Knowing more about the Mafia meant that she now knew there was a good chance Alexandro might get accidentally killed or deliberately murdered, so how to phrase her demand that she not be widowed?

"If I agree to this, will you refrain from taking my husband until my duties are complete?" She asked.

"I will extend to your husband the ability to choose when to greet me," Death said, "but nothing more. I have no life to give; I only take those whose time has come."

Meaning that Dorea would need her husband to look into ways to delay aging, provided he was interested in helping her complete this particular task. That was something for another day, or even another decade. Xanxus was in stasis at the moment and it would not be an easy topic to speak about, especially not within recent memory of his being frozen. It would also have to wait until after he'd acquired a decent magical education, which would also take time.

"I accept your terms," Dorea said quietly. Death inclined his head, face falling fully into shadow once more, and took from her the wand, ring and cloak. In his skeletal fingers they flashed briefly with black-purple Flames, reforming into a single ring of smooth, polished onyx-like stone which reflected ambient light in deep purple glimmers from its depths. Dorea accepted the ring and slid it back onto her forefinger; it was cold to the touch and fitted itself so closely to her skin that she was probably never going to manage to take it off again.

"Farewell, Lady Peverell, Lady of the House of Death."

* * *

"You know," Blaise said into the silence that the personification of mortality had left in his wake, "I am never again going to assume that there is an upper limit to the amount of trouble you can get yourself into, Rhea. Because there very clearly _isn't_."

Dorea looked from her hands to her left-hand man, brother and best friend and smiled wryly. "At least I'm not going to run out of goals after we move to Sicily," she pointed out.

"That," Daphne said dryly, setting aside her notes and quill, "is not _remotely_ reassuring, Rhea dear. Although at least we don't have to worry about you getting yourself killed."

"I like that part," Barty agreed brightly. "I don't think you're going to be very good at avoiding injuries though, so I'm not going to stop keeping an eye on you."

"I have _never_ injured myself in a fight!" Dorea protested hotly.

"No, but you still get into the most ridiculous situations and have been injured due to them," Blaise pointed out, "so Barty has a point."

Dorea sighed; she could always get back at them later. Now came the hard part though: how on _earth_ was she going to explain things to Rence without making him panic?


	98. Chapter 98

Beta'd by the sensational Insane Scriprist.

* * *

**Of routines and deathbed visitations **

Despite the communication mirrors enabling face-to-face conversation and the many, many people who were in and out of Potter Manor every week to talk to her about governance, politics, science, Flames and magic, Dorea still wrote a lot of letters. Most of those letters were to Aunt Cassiopeia's network of contacts on the continent, which was now mostly a network between herself and the children or grandchildren of the original contacts as her late great-aunt's friends gradually died or retired and handed on their various duties to their successors. Dorea had plans to arrange face-to-face meetings with some of them in the coming year, now that she no longer had to be on hand to assist in the restructuring of the British Wizarding Government, and was tentatively aiming to meet more of them after moving to Sicily. She'd actually have free time then, due to not being either under heavy safety restriction or completely overwhelmed by political responsibilities for the first time since her forth year at Hogwarts.

The other people she wrote to were Neville –since the time difference made mirror conversation awkward– Rence and Theo. Neville was her most 'normal' correspondent, which made writing to him pleasantly restful. Rence wrote her long and detailed letters that had clearly accumulated over the course of a week; he wrote to her weekly despite visiting most weekends, leaving the letters with her when he left on Sunday evenings. Dorea had a feeling that writing to her was his version of writing a personal diary, so kept all the letters in date order in their own box. Her own letters to Rence were similarly lengthy, detailing the twins' progress, various doings of friends and contacts, political problems both current and upcoming and all the details of every single personal mishap, no matter how minor.

Telling Rence that she had walked into a table and bruised her hip reassured him that she was fine and didn't need him to abandon his apprenticeship to make sure she was taking care of herself, because she wasn't hiding anything. Her letters to Rence frequently included mentions of Barty, especially when he went with her somewhere or reminded her about things. It may have been a litany of the everyday and the mundane, but Rence wanted to hear it so Dorea wrote it. She generally sent two letters a week, then spent a few hours on Saturday telling her Knight what had occurred between the last letter and his arrival. According to Uncle Nick Rence was now more than halfway to being a journeyman Ringsmith, so Dorea could see that writing letters was working to keep her vassal calm and focused.

Dorea's routine included a daily walk around the gardens with her children, which in the winter was generally just a walk with frequent detours for jumping in puddles and being pulled along to look at slugs, birds and other wildlife her energetic toddlers had found. When the weather improved in the spring there would be ball games, hide-and-seek, picking flowers and climbing trees, but for now there was just a lot of getting wet and muddy. It was fun; Dorea made a point to ensure she always enjoyed those times as much as she could, because she never wanted to be too old to jump in puddles.

Her routine also included a few hours in the potions laboratory or her private study, which was different from the study where she did Family business which these days was generally occupied by Daphne in her capacity as Black Steward, although Rence generally spent a few hours in there at weekends as well. At the moment Dorea was working on potential future applications of Sky Flames; the Virgin's Child potion had been finished two weeks previously –in mid-February, which would probably lead to assumptions and gossip about Valentine's Day– she had taken it and it had worked. Getting pregnant by potion felt so impersonal however that Dorea had then dedicated an hour every day to prayer and contemplation, because she had been feeling ambivalent about the unborn child and hadn't wanted to. She wanted to love this new baby like she had loved her twins, even while they were still in the womb. She was getting there, but it was harder than loving the twins had been.

The new baby would be the Potter heir, so to make bonding easier Dorea was taking the time to read some of the Potter grimoires and talking out loud to the baby about them, mentioning all the things she loved about being a Potter and what they would do together. It was helping, but most days Dorea really wished she was closer to getting her husband back. The research _was_ going very well, but research took time and hard work and she had been warned that there would be no real results for at least a year. It was rather dispiriting but at least now she _knew_ what was going on. That _was_ an improvement, albeit a small one.

* * *

It was Theo's day off, so he was cooking himself dinner, doing the laundry and writing to Dorea; three things at once were indeed possible when you were a Mist and could create clones. The writing to Dorea was the hard part, as there were so many little bits and pieces to make a note of, reference to previous letters –Theo kept copies of the letters he wrote to make referencing easier– and general gossip. However what he was currently wrestling with was Daniela Vongola's recent decline in health.

Theo liked the Madam Vongola, who at the grand old age of eighty-eight was rather elderly for a Muggle but still very sharp and kept herself very active, considering she was in a wheelchair. Less than three weeks after the end of his month-long training period in the Vongola Mansion the disguised Mist had found himself assigned to attending to the needs of the current Vongola Boss's mother, initially for a three-day rotation and then full-time. Theo didn't actually mind his reassignment: Madam Daniela was a proper old lady and rather reminded Theo of Lucretia Prewett née Black but with a more physical sense of humour. The Lady Prewett and her husband were very kind people who had retired from one of the most dangerous careers possible among Magicals and their having chosen Prewetts One and Two as their heirs said quite a bit about their general temperament; Theo had only met them a few times but they'd made an impression.

Madam Daniela was the kind of old lady that in Wizarding circles would be discreetly arranging her children's and grandchildren's lives for the advancement of the Family, aided and abetted by daughters, granddaughters and females friends who recognised her genius and wanted in on the action; a lot like Cassie's namesake was said to have been but with less of a blackmail habit. In the Vongola Mansion, Madam Daniela's only regular guests were her daughter –Theo's employer Maria-Chiara Vongola– and about two-dozen different ladies of varying Flame-type who came around once or twice a week for tea, coffee and gossip. The rest of the former Vongola Donna's time was spent only with her Cloud and Mist Guardian, or else terrorizing the staff in harmless but amusing ways out of sheer boredom.

Theo sympathised. If it had been him stuck in a wheelchair and seeing just the same two or three people five days a week he'd go crazy. His sympathy had led him to play along with Madam Vongola's various crazy schemes, which had probably been a significant factor in his permanent reassignment. That Madam Daniela had taken to calling him 'Accomplice' rather than by his supposed surname of Torretta was rather telling. Not that Theo cared: the old lady had a bottomless repertoire of really interesting war stories, a keen understanding of human nature and a will of pure diamond. Considering her declining health, it was probably her Will that was keeping her alive at this point.

This week Madam Daniela had gone looking for her son and made Theo push her chair; an entirely unnecessary task when she had her Mist Guardian Nebbia dogging her heels, but Theo hadn't complained because he'd got to see in person the man responsible for his Lady's distress. The reason for Madam Daniela's impromptu visit had also been enlightening:

"_Timoteo! When are you going to stop sulking and give me back my youngest grandson?_"

The middle-aged Don had cringed ever so slightly, while his Storm Guardian looked offended and his Cloud just sighed quietly.

"_I would prefer Federico to be properly established before upsetting the Family's equilibrium again, mother,_" Timoteo Vongola said tiredly, his tone suggesting that this argument had been ongoing for a long, long time. "_Xanxus deserves to have all of my attention when he is released._"

"_Oh? And when has reality ever conformed to your wishes?_" the retired Donna inquired archly. "_You said the same last year, and the year before that. No Don is ever able to give_ any_ matter their full attention; there is always far too much going on for that. It has been nearly four years Timoteo; have you not considered that forcing a person to miss so much of the goings-on of their family is a punishment in itself? When he returns my poor grandson will have his hands full catching up with all the things that have taken place in his absence. Not to mention the deaths of two of his older siblings._"

"_Mother, please leave._" The Don Vongola wasn't looking at his mother; Theo did his best to remain bland and unworthy on interest, his gaze fixed on the wall slightly to the right of the Ninth's head. There was a group portrait of Daniela as a young woman along with her first set of Guardians there; the Ninth looked a little bit like the Rain Guardian around the jaw line. Theo had heard enough of Madam Vongola's stories by this point to be able to identify her Guardians –all the ones she'd ever had– in the paintings and photographs around the manor.

Madam Vongola huffed, folding her arms. "_At this rate I will not get to see him at all before my death; you are a cruel, heartless son to do this to your aging mother. Stefano, we are leaving._"

"_Yes Madam Vongola,_" Theo murmured, turning the wheelchair around and pushing it out of the study, the former Donna's even more elderly yet still very spry Mist Guardian ambling along behind them. Theo was very, _very_ wary of Nebbia because the man was definitely a Squib or a low-level, untrained Wizard and had retained a degree of mental flexibility despite his age; the undercover Wizard had learned as much about the potential held by Mist Flames from watching the ninety-three-year-old perform party tricks as from his own stint with Trish. Having a highly capable Mist around had prompted Theo to hide himself quite deep inside the persona of Stefano Torretta that he was inhabiting, because even _knowing_ that the wards under his skin were protecting him from discovery he still felt a bit nervous.

That conversation had been both highly informative and a major contributor to Theo's current dilemma: should he suggest that Dorea find a way to meet Madam Daniela Vongola or not? Pragmatically, arranging for his newly pregnant Lady to infiltrate the Vongola Mansion just to meet a grandmother-in-law who didn't even know she existed would not be worth the effort. So many things could go horribly wrong Theo didn't even want to start thinking about how to minimise the risks.

On the other hand, the persona of Stefano Torretta in his head –closely modelled on the original Stefano– insisted that, as the only in-law Dorea was likely to be able to stand, his Lady should get to meet her adoptive grandmother-in-law and inform the formidable lady of the two extant great-grandchildren, never mind the third one that would be born before the end of the year, in November.

It wasn't his choice to make, of course, but Theo knew that Dorea valued his opinion and had faith in his ability to accurately assess relevant information. If he wrote to her that visiting Madam Daniela Vongola was a good idea, she would seriously consider it and maybe even take steps to achieve it regardless of the danger. So, to suggest or not to suggest?

In the end, Theo recommended it. Madam Vongola clearly loved her grandson and was a strongly family-orientated person, judging by all the stories she and her Guardians had shared and all the things that had not been said but were subtly hinted at; she and Dorea would get along just fine. Well, if they ever actually met and managed to get past the introductions without attacking each-other.

* * *

Dorea sat in the second-largest music room, Theo's latest letter unfolded on the stool next to her as she coaxed Aerosmith's 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing' out of the parlour grand piano. On the chairs pushed against the room's walls were sat Barty, Blaise, Colin and Ginny; stood beside the piano was Dee, singing the song that Dorea was playing.

"Don't want to close my eyes, don't want to fall asleep, 'cause I miss you baby and I don't want to miss a thing…"

Dorea rocked back and forth, eyes closed as her fingers danced across the ivories. This was her new favourite tune, expressing with aching clarity how she felt about her husband and filled with the yearning of what she had lost that she wanted back. It might not have been romantic attachment but Xanxus was still achingly precious to her and every day they were apart was a day she felt a little less than whole. She was a _wife_ now, intended to be part of a couple and having her husband far away felt a lot like failure.

"I just want to be with you, right here with you, just like this…"

Dee had a truly wonderful strong soprano voice; she could have sung opera if she'd been so inclined. Blaise also had a wonderful voice, a rich, deep and velvety bass, but Dorea had summarily banned him from singing love songs since she married because he had her husband's _exact_ voice when he sang and she couldn't stand it. Blaise's speaking voice was a good half-octave above her Alexandro's, but when he sang it dropped down and just hurt to hear. It wasn't so bad if he was singing operetta, musical theatre or Gilbert and Sullivan –or even jazz and swing– but love songs of any kind she just could not handle. Blaise accepted this without a problem and had adjusted his repertoire accordingly, with a notable preference for _Sweeny Todd_, _West Side Story_ –the unromantic bits– and _A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum_, which her oath-brother could recite and sing in its entirety, performing the female parts in falsetto.

Both Prewetts inevitably found this utterly hilarious, and could often be found singing along in an impromptu performance of 'Comedy Tonight' while visiting to enlist assistance in testing their latest products; quite a few of her legion of in-laws enjoyed participating in that. It had got to the point where everybody in the house –her little twins included– knew most of the words, so the choruses could get very loud. Little Cassie's favourite song right now was a toss-up between 'The Ballad of Sweeny Todd' and Queen's 'We Will Rock You', so both were sung frequently, the latter with suitably timely clapping and stomping. Marius on the other hand preferred 'My Name Is John Wellington Wells' from the comic opera _the Sorcerer_, possibly because it referenced magic, along with similar tongue-twisting patter songs.

Dorea blamed her daughter's early introduction to Queen on Barty, who turned out to be a fan and inclined to sing or at least whistle it while busy with things like paperwork, Flame practice and tidying up after his Lady. She didn't mind _that_ much –he had at least kept his choice of songs moderately child-friendly, a small mercy– but it was still rather disconcerting to hear her toddler belting out cheerfully about 'mud on your face, you big disgwace' as she jumped in puddles.

Although that was still better than hearing the red-eyed not-quite-three-year-old warbling about 'if none of veir souls were saved, vey went to veir maker im-pec-cab-lee shaved,' which Dorea suspected her husband would have got a kick out of. She'd got the impression he had that kind of sense of humour. Her own father would have been barking with mirth had he lived to hear it.

It wasn't her children's dubious taste in music that was the problem currently though; rather it was the contents of Theo's latest letter. Her Poet had determined that Daniela Vongola was both severely opposed to Xanxus remaining on ice and dying, so was suggesting Dorea visit her before it was too late. On first read-through the idea was utterly ridiculous, but on second and third thoughts it was Dorea's only opportunity to meet the lady who was her adoptive grandmother-in-law and clearly the only worthwhile foster-relative her husband had.

Visiting however would be complicated, no matter how threadbare the Iron Fort's Wards were. Firstly because she was pregnant, if still in the first month, because that meant Barty wasn't going to let her out of his sight unless she had Rence or somebody else equally fanatical about her safety dogging her every step. Secondly because Madam Vongola had as one of her Guardians –which were something like vassals and something like sworn followers– constantly monitoring her and that Guardian was a highly skilled Mist-user. What with fielding Prewetts One and Two, Theo _and_ Luna, Dorea had a decent idea of how versatile Mists could get and one with almost a century of experience was not an opponent she _ever_ wanted to face. Even more so because the man apparently had a sense of humour; Mists were _worse_ when they thought they were being funny!

Case in point, Luna's recent fascination with Beatles songs and attempting to some up with 'suitable' illusory accompaniment to the words…

… Dorea was never going to be able to get her Investigator's interpretation of 'toe-jam football' out of her mind, never mind 'walrus gumboot'! Luna's mind was a strange, strange place…

* * *

Rence, having arrived back at Potter Manor late on Friday evening, listened to his Lady's explanation of Theo's findings and her own feelings on the matter while eating a sandwich. It boiled down to Dorea wanting to meet her adoptive in-laws, or at least the adoptive in-laws who weren't holding her husband hostage. Which was limited to the elderly Daniela Vongola, whom Rence had taken tea with the January before last.

"She would like you," Rence said after polishing off his sandwich, "and you would like her. However ensuring she is the only person who sees you will be problematic."

"I think I have a way around that," Dorea confessed, fingers fiddling with the stone ring Death had turned the Hallows into.

"Explain."

"Madam Vongola is dying; she is also very likely to be using her Flames to delay her demise. This means that she is _technically_ cheating death, so I should be able to visit her in my capacity as Mistress of Death," Dorea explained. "The ring does all the things the Hallows did and more; getting into the mansion invisibly should not be a problem and making myself visible and audible _only_ to Madam Vongola should also be possible. Death after all is a _personal_ experience not a shared one, even if more than one person dies at once."

"You intend to just walk in the front door?"

"Death doesn't need doors; I've tried out the ring and when I'm using it I don't need them either," Dorea confessed; Daphne, Barty and Blaise had helped her test out the newly integrated Hallows, but she'd only written to her Knight about those findings very vaguely as they weren't really safety-relevant. Rence in turn hadn't actually asked for further clarification, not really considering it important when most of his time at weekends was swallowed up by his Potter Stewardship duties and the twins attempting to monopolise his attention. "I really don't like the feeling though, so I intend to use it very, very sparingly."

"What do you mean when you say that you don't need doors?" Rence asked, setting his plate aside. "Do you become intangible?"

"Nothing like that; I can… it's a bit like Apparating, but easier on the body. I just step from one place to the next without passing through the in-between," Dorea explained. "It gives me a chilly feeling though: that shiver up your spine of things not being quite right."

"So you intend to appear at Madam Vongola's bedside and say… what exactly?" Rence inquired, moving closer to lean against the edge of Dorea's desk.

Dorea shrugged. "The truth? That I'm her grandson's wife and we have two children, plus a third on the way?"

Rence considered Dorea, considered his own experiences of Daniela Vongola, former Donna Ottava and shrugged. "I think that she will believe you; she's very perceptive and she'll sense Alexandro's Flames in you right away. The question is, will she tell anyone else?"

"I'm going to ask her not to," Dorea admitted. "I think she'll agree, considering her son's procrastinating; as it stands we're more likely to rescue my husband than Don Vongola is to release him."

"True," Rence agreed. "Well, if you're sure…"

"I'm sure."

"Okay; Monday then?"

Dorea looked startled. "Why Monday, as opposed to say tomorrow night?"

"So Theo and I can be in the general vicinity if you need rescuing, of course," Rence said matter-of-factly. "There's no way either of us is going to get a full night's sleep while you're out imperilling yourself and I'll have Little Marius and Cassie demanding my attention both tomorrow and Sunday so I need to be well-rested."

"Fine; Monday it is," Dorea agreed.

* * *

Being well on her way towards eighty-nine, Daniela Vongola no longer needed as much sleep as she has when she was younger. As a result she rarely went to bed before midnight and was usually up around six, wanting her breakfast and expecting the staff to entertain her. She was also clinging to the last dregs of her mobility, because so long as she could totter to the bathroom in the middle of the night she wouldn't have to put up with having a nurse babysit her.

However despite being ancient by mafia standards –and even by Vongola standards– she was still capable of putting a crossbow bolt in the centre of a target from fifteen metres away and still had the wits to notice when there was somebody in her room who shouldn't be there.

It wasn't a Flame thing, that instinct for intruders; more a fundamental instinct honed during the Second World War. She couldn't _sense_ anybody, but that didn't mean there wasn't somebody there.

"Show yourself!" Daniela demanded, producing her crossbow from under the edge of the bed and switching on her bedside lamp.

A cloaked, hooded figure shimmered into view with a flicker of cold black Flames; Daniela couldn't help the involuntary shudder at the black fire that was the signature of the Vindice. Why was there one of the Vindice in her room?

"Greetings, Daniela Vongola," said the person quietly, revealing themselves to be female and probably not one of the Vindice; the former Ottava didn't think any Vindice could ever sound that gentle. Reaching out with her pitiful reserves, she tried to get a feeling for her uninvited guest.

"You are a Sky?" How on _earth_ had a lone Sky managed to get inside the mansion? Who had helped her? Then Daniela sensed something else, something altogether far too familiar and pulled herself upright. "Never mind that; what is your connection to my youngest grandson? Tell me!"

Because this woman had a touch of her grandson's Wrath Flames, or else Daniela had recently gone senile!

The cloaked woman stepped closer and pushed back her hood, revealing a young, pale, aristocratic face with vibrant green eyes, framed by intricately coiffed black hair piled up on the top of her head and feathers hanging down behind her ears. "I am a Sky," the girl said, "and I am Xanxus' wife."

It was the truth. A wholly unexpected truth, but no less true for that; her grandson had gotten _married_ at some point before the Cradle Affair! No wonder she had gotten the impression that he was in love!

"A pleasure to meet you, my dear," Daniela said warmly, setting her crossbow down on the covers and holding out a hand. "Please call me Grandma."

The stranger perched on the edge of the bed and shook Daniela's outstretched hand, revealing two very interesting-looking rings. One was a large signet ring, probably meant for a man, that covered most of the lower joint of her thumb with an intaglio that looked vaguely birdlike; the other was simply made of twisted gold wire, the ends shaped like snake heads with tiny gem chips for eyes and fine cross-hatching for the scales.

"Thank-you Grandma; my name is Dorea." As the girl settled on the bed her left hand also came into view; that hand had three rings on it. One was clearly a wedding ring, being on her third finger, and was set with a very large orange sapphire; her grandson probably had its counterpart on him somewhere even if it wasn't on his hand where it belonged. On her middle finger was a heavy silver ring, set with carved jet and a cabochon moonstone; probably a family heirloom of some kind. Most interesting was the ring on her forefinger, which was polished black stone and had an odd feeling of weight to it that reminded Daniela of the Arcobaleno pacifier that young Aria Giglio Nero wore around her neck.

"So tell me, how did you meet my grandson?" Daniela inquired, determined to get as much of the story as possible.

Dorea smiled. "I found myself in a difficult political and family position for various inheritance-related reasons, resulting in a rather urgent need for a husband," the young lady began, "so I investigated potential matches, putting out feelers through various contacts. I came across Xanxus quite accidentally, but there was immediate chemistry and he demanded I marry him as soon as possible." The smile turned wistful. "He was utterly compelling in his reasoning and very, very charming, so I agreed. Then shortly after the wedding he left, promising to meet me in a week's time. However when the time came he did not, and upon cautious investigation I learned of the coup. Not wanting to be targeted by disgruntled Mafiosi I kept my distance, remaining within my home and hoping for more news, but none came so I've had cause to investigate further."

"I'm terribly sorry, my dear," Daniela said sadly, reaching out to pat her newly-discovered granddaughter's knee. "I had no idea." Really, her grandson deserved a good spanking for hiding this from her!

"I just want him back," Dorea said, her voice hitching slightly. "Our children have never even _met_ him!"

Daniela was torn between delight –more great-grandchildren! – and dismay. "Oh, my poor dear granddaughter," she said, tugging the young girl closer so she could hug her. "I am so, so sorry. My son is a stubborn fool."

Dorea hugged her back, giving Daniela a much better feel for the younger woman's Flames: a very strong Sky with a full complement of Guardians plus a few extra bonded Flame-users with equally strong ties to her. After the Sky Affinity came Rain, followed by Storm, but there was also a baffling sense of Sunniness around the girl, a peculiar echo of the Will of someone who wasn't one of her granddaughter's Guardians. Most curious… Daniela's paused.

"You are pregnant?" It couldn't possibly be Xanxus' child… could it? Her Intuition seemed to think it was… Xanxus was not the sort to choose to marry someone who would be unfaithful.

Dorea nodded. "Xanxus wasn't sure he'd be able to return to me," she admitted candidly, "but he recognised I needed heirs for my own families, so we took steps to ensure I could have his children even if he wasn't there."

Artificial insemination? That was really _very_ thorough of her grandson; very few would-be bosses of _any_ kind thought that far ahead…

"Congratulations," Daniela said warmly. "How many great-grandchildren do I have?"

"My older two, fraternal twins –a boy and a girl– and the current one," Dorea said, cradling her stomach protectively, "which is only three weeks along."

Daniela melted. Three new great-grandbabies! That was double the number she had been aware of yesterday! Xanxus was _definitely_ her favourite grandson, catering to his grandmother's desire for great-grandchildren like this! "Please tell me about them," she said, making clear that Dorea should not refuse her demand for information.

And if Daniela happened to Intuit more from Dorea than the young woman intended to inform her of, well all the better. She hadn't expected a foreign spouse, although the girl was at least fluent in Italian, but her grandson hadn't appeared at all interested in settling down before being frozen so she'd never so much as mentioned marriage to him. Thus far Daniela had learned and inferred quite a bit from her new granddaughter, despite the care Dorea chose her words with. Indeed, that level of care was indicative all by itself…

* * *

Nebbia eyed Daniela warily; this latest mood was very suspect. She had gotten up at the usual time but was far cheerier than usual; generally this mood surfaced after a visit from her granddaughter's three children but Ruggero and Benvenuto had both been very busy working lately, too busy to visit, and Erica was arranging maternity cover so the CEDEF didn't collapse in her prospective leave of absence. It might have been that Daniela was looking forward to having a second great-great grandchild but Nebbia didn't think so. This was something else…

His suspicions mounted when the retired Ottava decided that her choice of morning activity would be updating her will, redistributing her personal effects among her surviving descendents. The current copy had most of Daniela's jewellery going to her granddaughter, with some of it set aside specially for her great-granddaughter, but as Nebbia watched his Sky made several drastic changes to the document. Now Maria-Chiara and Erica were set to inherit barely half of his Sky's personal adornments; the rest were specifically set aside for 'the eventual spouses of my grandsons Federico and Xanxus'.

Nebbia was of the personal opinion that Federico was _never_ going to marry and knew that Daniela believed the same, which suggested that the Vongola Heir was just a smokescreen for the intended recipient; his Sky was leaving most of her favourite adornments to her adoptive grandson, intended for his future wife.

Considering his Sky's glee, Xanxus' wife might not be as theoretical as all that; had the hot-tempered but startlingly loyal brat actually managed to tie the knot before the Cradle Affair? If so, with whom? And when and how had his Sky found out?

Glancing at Daniela again, Nebbia decided not to ask; if he didn't _know_, he wouldn't have to tell anybody.


	99. Chapter 99

Beta'd by the impeccable Insane Scriptist.

Tomorrow's update will be a chapter of 'Parenting is not a Varia Quality', so please don't be alarmed by the pause!

* * *

**Of losses, choices and successes **

Theo had fallen into a routine while working at the Vongola Mansion. Every day except Sunday he would leave the Torretta family home at five o'clock, ride his scooter to the mansion –arriving at five thirty– then hang up his coat, change his shoes, wash his hands and put on the waist apron that marked him as a member of the service staff; being the retired Ottava's general dogsbody was technically a promotion. Now, rather than transporting food at mealtimes, cleaning the mansion and performing general fetching and carrying jobs, Theo served the elder Madam Vongola's breakfast, made hot drinks for her and her guests, pushed her around the mansion and grounds and did just about anything else Daniela Vongola asked of him that didn't involve leaving the Estate. His working day began at ten to six in the morning, serving her breakfast, and ended at eight at night, when she went for dinner with her son and grandchildren. Theo also got three-quarters of an hour between one and a quarter to two to eat lunch and sit down for a bit, but for the rest of the day he was essentially on call.

On this particular Thursday however he arrived at her suite with the usual selection of freshly-baked breakfast pastries, bread rolls and fresh fruit to find the hallway full of Guardians, medical staff and high-ranking members of Housekeeping.

"_What happened?_" Theo asked the Guardian who had stepped forwards to prevent him from getting close to the suite's door.

The Guardian –Ganauche III with his hair dishevelled and shirt rumpled– looked solemn. "_Lady Ottava died this morning_," the twenty-one-year-old said quietly.

Theo groped blindly for one of the chairs that lined the hallway, placing his basket on it and then leaning heavily against the wall. He'd known she was dying –everybody had known Daniela was dying– but it happening was still a shock. She'd been no more or less lively the previous day than on any other day; in fact she'd been planning on going out in the grounds today to look at the crocuses in the woods.

"_Really?_" Ganauche said with a sad smile, making Theo realise he must have said that last bit out loud. "_That sounds like her; last year she dragged me into taking her out to see them_."

Theo then realised he was crying; or rather, Stefano Torretta was crying. Stefano was considerably more emotive than Theo was, laughing more easily, crying more readily and more inclined to lose his temper when frustrated. He fumbled for a handkerchief and scrubbed at his eyes, taking deep, shaky breaths as he tried not to make too much noise. It was so _hard_ not to though; Madam Daniela had snuck into his heart when he wasn't looking and turned into a friend. A creaky, sneaky friend who loved teasing him, but still a friend.

A friend who was dead.

"_Go home, Stefano_," said Nebbia, ghosting up behind Ganauche and making the Lightning Guardian jump and clutch at his heart. "_Take a few days off_."

"_Yes_…" Theo said dazedly, automatically handing the Mist the breakfast basket. People still needed to eat after all. "_I'll do that. When will the funeral be?_"

"_Probably on Saturday. Not this Saturday; Saturday after_," Nebbia said shortly, accepting the basket. "_I'll let you know so you can attend_."

"_Thank-you Nebbia_," Theo managed before stumbling off back towards the Service Wing, his head spinning. The staff hadn't yet known about Ottava's death when he was in the kitchens, meaning it had to have just happened or else somebody would have stopped him.

He still couldn't quite believe Madam Daniela was dead.

* * *

Theo had somehow managed to get back to the Torretta household without crashing his scooter and dashed off a quick letter to Dorea informing her of her adopted grandmother-in-law's death. Stefano's mother then noticed his confusion, asked him what the matter was and upon hearing that his employer's mother had died promptly plied him with hot chocolate and brioche, visibly concerned for his wellbeing and going so far as to fetch a blanket to wrap around his shoulders. Theo wondered sometimes if the couple consistently remembered that he wasn't actually their son; they certainly treated him like part of the family.

The undercover Wizard spent the rest of the morning in a confused daze, staring off into space in between pondering how Madam Daniela not being around anymore would change things at the mansion. His workload would certainly change, as would his duties, but it was the more subtle changes that really mattered. Timoteo Vongola would no longer have anybody badgering him to release Xanxus, so would be more likely to push his foster-son to the back of his mind. From casual exposure to various Mafiosi who treated domestic staff like furniture, Theo knew that most of the lower-ranking Vongola members thought Xanxus was dead.

About half of the higher-ranking allies thought so too, but didn't comment on it out of respect for –or possibly fear of– Don Nono. The higher-ranked members of Vongola Housekeeping knew that their Boss's youngest son was frozen solid in the basement beneath the Iron Fort because they'd seen him there, but the rest of the more powerful and influential Vongola and allies believed the absent Varia Boss was under house arrest on some remote estate, reflecting on his sins. If that had been the case Theo would not have minded so much, but keeping one's foster-child frozen in a block of ice was really shitty parenting; worse than Theo's own father, even! As far as his Lady's husband knew, it was still barely a week since he'd got married and when he was defrosted he'd have to face the reality of several years having passed without him. All his peers were older than he was, his own _wife_ would be older than him too, he had toddler-age children and two of his older foster-brothers and his foster-grandmother had died.

Theo was selfishly glad that it hadn't happened to him.

* * *

Theo was half-heartedly picking at his lunch when there was a knock at the door; Stefano's mother opened it to reveal Rence standing on the doorstep.

"_I'm here for Ste'_," the Green Knight said quietly, "_I heard about the lady and thought he might like someone to talk to_." As Theo had 'met' Rence around a few times since moving down here and had heard gossip about 'Talbot's green apprentice' at the mansion, it wouldn't be breaking cover for 'Stefano' to spend time with 'Cavaliere'. Also, as Rence was covered by Omertá due to being Talbot's apprentice, he could legitimately spill everything without worrying that his listener might get into trouble, unlike what would happen if had spilled more than the bare bones of his work or experiences to Stefano's parents.

"_Thanks, 'Liere_," Theo said, pushing his meal aside and going to put his shoes on. "_I'm sorry_," he added to Stefano's mother, squeezing her hand in thanks for her care and affection. She patted him on the shoulder.

"_Don't worry about it, dear. Go talk to your friend_."

Theo mutely followed Rence out of the house, got into the passenger seat of the tiny, ancient car that the currently-greenet was loaned the use of for trips to places further away than the village nearest Talbot's farm and shut his eyes as his friend put the car in gear and drove them off. He was safe, he was with somebody who cared about him and soon he'd be somewhere where he could grieve without worrying about saying or doing anything out of character.

He hadn't realised that he'd considered Daniela Vongola to be the grandmother he'd always wanted until she wasn't there anymore and it _hurt_. So, so much.

"We're going back to Talbot's," Rence said in English, rather than the Italian he'd used with Theo's hosts. "I'm going to work in the forge and you can do whatever you like so long as you don't damage the buildings or scare the sheep."

Restrictions Theo could work within easily. "I hear you," he mumbled a few seconds later, as he realised that Rence probably wanted some kind of confirmation.

"I don't mind the Vongola knowing that we're friends, so you can stay as long as it takes," Rence continued. "We've been seen talking in the village and I've visited the Torrettas a few times, so it won't look odd. It might even help. Though as far as you know, I'm an apprentice jeweller and my teacher is an eccentric family friend, okay?"

"Gotcha."

Theo recognised that part of why Rence was helping him was because Dorea cared about him, so for Rence looking after Theo tied in with making sure their Lady was okay: Dorea would be worried for her Mist, so by looking after Theo Rence ensured that worry was minimal. In some ways that made Theo more appreciative the Lightning's care and made it easier for him to trust it: Rence was so utterly devoted to Dorea that it was a fundamental part of his identity. To Knight betraying his Lady was unthinkable, so anything he did on behalf of his Lady was utterly reliable. Thus, Theo and his secrets were safe, because that was what Dorea would want.

It was a tremendous relief to be able to let go, even for just a little while.

* * *

Rence had heard about Daniela Vongola's death from Talbot over lunch, immediately thought of Dorea then realised that the person he knew that was most likely to be seriously mourning the old lady was Theo, seeing as he was working in the Vongola Mansion and seeing her on a daily basis. With this in mind he'd asked Talbot if he could invite a friend up to the workshop, which the canny old alchemist had agreed to on the condition that Rence didn't fall behind in his work. Seeing as both Theo and the persona he was currently portraying were both rather low-maintenance, Rence didn't think that would be a problem so he walked down to the road, got Talbot's car out of the shed and drove around to the town where the Torrettas lived.

As the twenty-year-old had suspected, Theo was indeed in a not-very-good place and had readily acquiesced to Rence's suggestion. The younger wizard was also even less talkative than usual, leaving Rence plenty of thinking space as he drove back around and up to the road that lead to Talbot's farmstead.

The green Hair-Flair was still going strong, as was the Eye-Dye, which had led to a renegotiation of terms with Jerry Prewett back in October. The Prewetts had indeed managed to create a discreet and effective piece of body armour for Rence to wear: it looked like a dark green knitted polo-neck jumper and was knife-proof, bullet-proof, magic-proof up to Unforgiveable level and Flame-proof. The shielding extended beyond the ends of the sleeves to cover his hands and up above the collar to cradle his head, and while those 'unsupported' protections were less strong than the jumper, they were still good enough that any injuries were unlikely to be fatal. Potentially messy yes, but not fatal.

What Rence had renegotiated for was several different sweaters in varying weights and colours: he now had two thin cream-coloured ones to wear under his green tunic on official occasions, three lightweight green ones for when he was working in the forge that were easy to wash and the original sturdy one that made good outdoor-wear in winter. He also had six pairs of army-style combat trousers in more subdued shades of green with the same enchantments, which he generally wore tucked neatly into his knee boots. Jerry had promised to make him some jodhpur-style trousers in the next batch, which would make it easier to wear boots without folding the trouser ends around his ankles. All the armoured clothing conducted Lightning Flames, which made them even sturdier and less likely to take damage. Without Hardening the discreet armour would act like good Muggle body armour, taking damage even as it protected the person wearing it, but once Hardened it could shrug off anti-tank ammunition without taking a scratch.

That had been a very impressive test to watch, although Rence really did not want to know how the Prewetts had got their hands on military ordinance. Those kinds of answers wouldn't do anything except make it harder for him to sleep at night. Those sorts of questions were better left unasked, so a person shouldn't voice them; something Rence knew from having been in the same school year as the former Weasley twins.

Considering how ridiculously successful the armour Rence had commissioned had turned out to be, Dorea had requested the Prewetts try to make body armour tailored for other Flame-types. Jerry had agreed at once, with the caveat that Lightning Flames were defensively orientated to begin with so making armour that co-opted that was easier than trying to somehow twist the properties of the other Flames into defensive configurations. Storm Flames for instance were entirely offensive and channelling 'Disintegration' into a reliable defensive formation was going to take a lot of time and experimentation; the Prewetts did have a few ideas, but none of them had even reached the design phase, never mind prototype testing. Dorea had accepted their arguments and still thrown money at them; Rence believed that she wanted armour for herself, so as to increase her personal independence.

Truthfully, if Dorea _did_ wear body armour then Rence wouldn't actually mind her going off and doing things by herself from time to time, so long as he got advanced notice. No need for her to endanger herself further; he would have preferred her to wield a weapon which granted more distance with a sword, no matter how good she was with it. She did have the guns gifted to her by her husband, but the ammunition limitations meant she preferred to save those for a last resort.

* * *

Of course, the Prewetts weren't the only ones keeping busy and pushing back the borders of ignorance; most of the Command Team and the other members of the Constellation who had graduated were either working or studying. Some, like Ginny Weasley, were doing both at once: the youngest Weasley had been delighted by Dorea's offer of a job as a 'trouble shooter' and had immediately accepted, relishing the opportunity for travel. Of course, hunting down squatters in several thousand acres of African savannah or Australian desert was a long job, so Ginny took books with her so she could learn new spells and continue improving her duelling skills.

Judging by her letters the teenage redhead was happier than she'd ever been, which unfortunately didn't seem to mean much to Molly Weasley, who apparently blamed her eldest son for her daughter's career choice and had retaliated by refusing to host said son's marriage to his fiancée, Fleur Delacour. As far as gestures went it had fallen pretty flat, as Septimus and Cedrella Weasley had promptly taken over the marriage arrangements and hosted the event at Weasley Hall, with the elderly couple giving the newlyweds a house as a wedding present. Rence wasn't sure why Molly Weasley was so determined to utterly alienate her children, but she had so far driven away all of them except her youngest son, and that was only because Ron shared most of her prejudices and didn't like all the work involved in keeping house, so stayed at the Burrow in order to avoid doing his own cooking, cleaning and laundry.

Leo Black meanwhile had taken a strong interest in the ninja arts, so Lady Lucretia had arranged for him to study in the Far East through some of her old Curse-breaking contacts. Rence wasn't sure all of that education was actually taking place in Japan though; the Japanese and Chinese Magical communities had never really stopped being at odds with each-other, despite the schism that had taken place between the Magical and Muggle Chinese governments at the time of the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Admittedly in the Magical world 'being at odds' translated to low-level industrial espionage, discreet support of curse-breaking expeditions in Chinese territory and cultural one-upmanship rather than the outright warfare that had frequently taken place between the Muggle nations of China and Japan, but that competitiveness was still not quite as friendly as it might have been.

Rence suspected Leo would be 'paying' the _shinobi_ of Nippon for his training by spending time in China and 'stealing' as many secrets as he could get away with, but so long as Leo knew that –which he probably had from the outset– and was okay with it, there wasn't really a problem. Magical China was not remotely uniform and the various factions were frequently at odds with each-other as well as with outsiders, so Leo would probably be joining a _shinobi_ band hiring out their services in China and doing a bit of espionage on the side. Rence didn't have a problem with any of that so long as it didn't follow him home. Rence would rather not have to protect Dorea from vengeful Chinese mages or ninja with a grudge.

Luna was currently learning to play the ocarina and recovering from the death of her father Xenophilus Lovegood in late November, which had come as a terrible shock to most of the Constellation despite the dreamy and eccentric teenager's insistence that she had been expecting this for some time now. Hearing Luna explain matter-of-factly that losing her mother had broken her father to the point that he'd only kept on going for her sake had been rather horrifying, especially when she finished up with, "but I'm old enough to look after myself now, so he stopped holding on." Of course Dorea had insisted Luna move into Potter Manor after that and suggested the younger teen pack up the Rookery entirely, but the usually easygoing Mist had demonstrated a core of steely determination and insisted on going through all her parents' possessions herself, deciding which to sell and which to keep, then moved the Quibbler's printing presses to a new location and found four Muggleborns of varying ages to keep the paper going on her behalf.

It turned out there was quite a lot of proprietary Lovegood Family Magic involved in running the Quibbler, which Rence hadn't realised. He also hadn't realised that, unlike the _Prophet_, the Quibbler was an _international_ publication. Luna had solved the Family Magic 'problem' by adopting the two Constellation members she wanted to do the actual print runs for her –Trudy Galston, formerly of Hufflepuff and Kevin Entwhistle, formerly of Ravenclaw– and spent two months teaching them how to work the press. She also adopted them legally as well as Magically, specifically as younger siblings, which was funny really when both were technically older than she was. Neither Trudy nor Kevin seemed to mind; Trudy admitted that her parents had been strict Catholics and had disowned her when she insisted on attending Hogwarts, while Kevin had always wanted to go into investigative journalism but didn't want to work for the _Prophet_. Becoming Lovegoods suited both of them and they were really enjoying themselves.

The other two Muggleborns were both older and had not been part of the Constellation, but as Luna was hiring them to arrange international portkeys and field Floo calls as well as help with the editing, that didn't exactly matter. Both were very pleased with their new jobs and the opportunity to get involved in the international press and happily signed the contracts Luna had Hermione write for her.

Upon arriving at the end of the road Rence parked the car in the shed, roused Theo from his doze and towed the younger Wizard up the hill towards the farm. Once the buildings came into view Theo wiggled out of Rence's grip and climbed up onto the roof of the workshop, sitting on the roof ridge and staring sightlessly up at the sky overhead. Rence left him to it, heading inside to continue his current project: a set of rings for the Varia. He was nearly finished, but even so he had a good three days work left before it would be time to call Squalo Superbi and write up the final bill.

* * *

Two months previously, in January, his Master had informed him that he had reached a point where further improvement could only come from experience. It was all very well for Rence to remember things and know them, but to truly make the step up to journeyman ring-smith, he needed practice. Talbot had put it very well really:

"To make a D-class ring, a person needs a good education. To make a C-class ring, a person needs a good education and access to the best possible materials. To make a B-class ring, a person needs education, materials and a natural instinct for gems and metals. However to make an A-class ring all those things simply aren't enough: you need _experience_ to forge an A-class ring."

Rence could reliably forge rings between mid-B-rank and mid-A-rank, but when his creations approached high A-rank it was more a matter of luck than skill. In order to have a chance at being recognised as a genuine ring-smith, he needed more experience so he could produce high quality A-class rings on purpose.

Unfortunately however there wasn't much of a market for flame rings in the Vongola: they were ridiculously expensive and the good ones lasted very well, so never needed replacing. It really said it all that most of the Flame rings within the Mafia were family heirlooms. Rence could have just made rings for Dorea's other sworn followers, but he wanted _those_ rings to be the best he could possibly supply, which meant putting them off for a while. He was making rings for her other relatives and allies, of course: Trish Black had a ring in the same style as Dawn's, but set with a Mazarin-cut red garnet rather than blue spinel; the Prewetts had identical rings set with Peruzzi-cut benitoite; and Roger Malone had a ring set with an small rose-cut golden beryl.

Of course, Rence wasn't just making rings for the Aetherial-orientated members of the constellation: Susan Bones now sported a braided golden band set with an amber-coloured citrine; Hannah Abbot wore a plain silvery ring set with steely-blue apatite; Neville wore a sturdy, leaf-patterned band framing a leaf-green peridot and Thora Dinnet, who had been Leo's closest female friend in Hufflepuff, wore a silvery band set with an oblong purple-red spinel.

There were many more Constellation members that Rence could feasibly have made rings for, but the fact remained that the materials that went into making a ring were expensive and they each took considerable time and effort to make. Rence couldn't just churn out six identical rings and call it a day; each gem had to be individually faceted according to its cleavage, matched to a prospective wearer and then set in a metal band, the alloy of which was also carefully tailored to the wearer's specific requirements. There were more 'generic' alloys possible, of course, but those were considerably more finicky and had to be made in much larger batches in order to work right. This meant that the main issue right now for his prospective customers was being able to _afford_ a Flame ring, because even if he cut out most of the labour costs they were still about ten times as expensive as a normal ring.

Rence had been pondering these difficulties last month when he'd run into a pair of Varia out house-hunting. The greenet had no idea why a pair of his Lady's husband's vassals would be looking for somewhere different to live when he knew for a fact they all had accommodation provided on the Varia Estate, but that wasn't his business so he hadn't asked. Instead he'd shown them around the area, including a few abandoned farmhouses in varying states of disrepair and done his best to be civil despite the duo's nosiness. Well, only one of them had been nosey really, but Rence hadn't appreciated having a stranger trying to get him to spill personal information and had been as obstructive as he possibly could without being outright rude. Of course, that had made conversation impossible so he had sung instead, and made the nosier of the two assassins twitch with his song choice. Unfortunately despite speaking as little as possible the nosey assassin had still managed to work out that Rence –and by extension his Lady– was English and had said so while passing on a generic job-offer to any of the Constellation who were interested in a career in killing people.

If the assassin hadn't belonged to Dorea's husband Rence would have killed him for that casual implicit threat aimed at his Lady; he'd nearly killed the man regardless and probably would have done had the other assassin not been right there with an expression of exasperated terror on his face that Rence had seen Hermione wearing a few times when Jerry did something almost suicidally impulsive in front of her. That look had reminded Rence that whether the Varia knew it or not, he and they were allied through their respective lieges and so he had restrained himself and instead mentioned that he had been cleared by Talbot to take on customers, if their superiors were interested of course.

It turned out that Squalo Superbi, Captain of the Varia, was indeed interested, as he had shown up at Talbot's a little over a week later with a psychic under a very powerful Curse –he _glowed_ with it to Rence's Earth-tuned senses– whom he introduced as Mammon, Mist Officer and Varia treasurer. _That_ encounter had forced Rence to make use of all his Slytherin cunning, Lightning Hard-headedness and the background business knowledge that came from being part of family that had been involved in Magical trade for five generations and gotten rich in the process; Mammon was a ruthless haggler and it had taken everything Rence had to maintain even the smallest advantage.

* * *

It had been nearly three weeks since Squalo had finally gotten to meet Talbot's infamous apprentice and the swordsman still wasn't entirely sure what he thought of the slightly older Lightning. Nilla had regaled him with the tale of the aborted tea party on his first visit to her apartment after getting back from his world tour, which had given the Captain of the Varia an initial impression of an intelligent, observant and capable bodyguard. The reports of Cavaliere having successfully beaten off an attack from Nono's Storm and Rain Guardians suggested an individual who could keep a cool head under pressure and had an innovative and unconventional fighting style, never mind very respectable Flame reserves and excellent control over them.

That Talbot had taken Cavaliere on as an apprentice was a recommendation in itself; Talbot was a cryptic old geezer with no patience for fools who had not taken on a student in living memory, no matter how much money certain Dons had offered him. Yet he'd taken on Cavaliere. Even if the Lightning's Lady was a relative of the ancient ring-smith, it was still impressive.

Squalo had still been trying to come up with some way of justifying a meeting with the unknown Lightning –if only so as to get a better idea of how Lightnings were _supposed_ to behave so he could manage the newbies accordingly– when Pýř had stopped by his office and informed him that Talbot's apprentice had offered his skills to the Varia, should they be interested.

Hell yes they were interested; however Squalo knew better than be believe that Cavaliere's services would be anything other than abominably expensive –there was a reason Talbot had so few customers despite being the best in the business– which meant that Mammon had to come along. In theory Squalo could have done the haggling over price himself, but the swordsman knew that if he didn't take the Mist Officer along then he'd spend the next year-and-change getting sniped at for his inability to get a good deal. Better to avoid all those unnecessary headaches and let the miser deal with the bargaining himself, even though setting Mammon on somebody without any warning was probably some kind of human rights violation.

Meh; they were Varia so they'd certainly done worse for human rights violations. And Cavaliere could probably take it.

Squalo had been proved correct: Cavaliere had indeed taken it. He'd even survived the experience without losing a serious amount of ground, which was something most Varia hadn't managed on their first encounter with the Mist Officer…

* * *

"How much do you intend to charge and what kind of quality are you offering?" Mammon demanded, standing on the arm of the very comfortable chair Squalo was sitting in. Both Varia had a good view of the workshop's forge, external door and Cavaliere's workstations; however in order to get that view they had to sit with their backs to the door connecting the workshop to the farmhouse. The _best_ view in the room was from the forge, which was only to be expected really. However with Mammon there Squalo really didn't think they were likely to be ambushed; the Arcobaleno _was_ the Varia's Mist Officer after all.

Cavaliere did not immediately answer Mammon's questions, instead moving around the various shelves, fishing around in drawers and cupboards and placing things on a tray. Squalo was happy to wait, as it gave him more time to observe the apprentice ring-smith in his native habitat and ponder what he'd seen already.

About three-quarters of the civilians who looked at an Arcobaleno –any Arcobaleno– saw the adult that the Arcobaleno had been before the Curse. The remaining quarter and a good two-thirds of non-civilians saw a toddler in adult clothing, which they promptly treated like an actual infant regardless of the Arcobaleno's eloquence and innate power. Mammon actually despised the latter group of people more than the former; the former were just weak but the latter were deliberately blind.

The remaining third of non-civilians saw the toddler, registered the oddity in power levels and were instantly wary. Cavaliere fell in this group, but on the upper end because he had looked _past_ the Curse and treated Mammon like an adult despite being clearly aware that the Mist Officer was toddler-shaped. That was pretty impressive, as a lot of Varia didn't manage that until the second or third encounter.

Cavaliere finally stopped browsing, came back to the low table he'd set up in front of the chair Squalo and Mammon were sitting on and laid out a row of neat little cubes of metal, then a row of uncut gemstones, then a row of cut, faceted gems.

"Labour costs will depend on what you choose to buy," the apprentice said evenly but firmly, "as different items require differing amounts of time and some items require greater personal effort than others. Material costs are fixed, but specific cost will again depend on your choice of purchase."

"Elucidate," Mammon demanded fiercely, despite being visibly pleased by the clarity of the costing being shown. Cavaliere had clearly noticed that Mammon was mostly motivated by value and money, so was tailoring his sales pitch accordingly. It wasn't so hard to work out why the perceived –by the wider Mafia– head of the Varia brought someone with him to talk rings and money, what with Mammon's opening question right after being introduced as the Mist Officer and the Varia's Treasurer.

Cavaliere tapped one of the little metal cubes. "One troy ounce of twenty-four carat gold, costing two-hundred and eighty American dollars;" the apprentice said coolly before moving on to the next little cube. "Platinum, five-hundred and ten dollars; Palladium, four-hundred and eighty; Osmium, eight-hundred and sixty; Rhenium, one-thousand, eight-hundred and thirty; Ruthenium, eight-six; Silver, four dollars ninety-five. That is the current market price and will not change. All these metals are used in different ring alloys, giving them varying heat resistance, conductivity and rigidity. The more effective alloys are also the more expensive."

Squalo was boggling at the prices; nearly _two thousand dollars_ for that teeny-tiny lump of metal? Rhenium was clearly hellishly expensive.

"The Varia has stocks of precious metals," Mammon said sharply.

"Are they of the appropriate purity and weight?" Cavaliere demanded just as sharply. "Forging a ring requires metals of the utmost purity."

"You could check."

Cavaliere nodded. "For a fee; I'd have to melt the samples down, which takes time and fuel."

Mammon sniffed, but made a note. "Something to consider later then; continue."

"Gems are the next material; a reliable Flame ring requires a gem of a certain level of purity, faceted into an appropriate cut," Cavaliere went on, "the larger and clearer the gem, the better the ring. However large, clear gems are expensive and rarely cut right by commercial jewellers, so I cut my own. That takes time and the quality of the gem is only apparent at the end of the process." He set a finger beside a small but many-faceted dark blue gem. "This is an E-class Mist gem; this," a much larger one with much clearer colour "is a B-class one. Gems don't go above B-class; it is the forging that produces an A-class ring."

"So I could pick up a B-class gem and get the same results as from a B-class ring," Squalo clarified.

"Yes, until it burned your fingers or shattered due to uneven intake and output," Cavaliere said matter-of-factly. "Gems are set for good reason."

"Get to the point," Mammon said tartly.

"I have faceted gems you could buy for your rings," Cavaliere said, not reacting to the Arcobaleno's irritation at all, "but I cannot guarantee they will be the best fit for the wearers unless I meet the wearers in person. The best way to match a person to a gem is to use uncut stones then facet them afterwards. However this produces _specialised_ rings, best suited to a specific individual or bloodline. More generic rings rely more heavily on metal chemistry than gem quality and the most versatile alloys are also the most expensive. They also need to be made in larger quantities for the chemistry to work properly."

"So I could have personalised rings for the Officers," Squalo concluded, "which won't work anywhere near as well for whoever gets them next, or more generic rings that are going to cost a load more."

"Yes."

"How much of the best alloy would you have to make?" Mammon asked.

Cavaliere shrugged one shoulder. "At least half a kilogram; more like a whole one really, to guarantee it working right."

Squalo blanched; a troy ounce was barely over thirty-one _grams_; up to thirty times as much as the prices just quoted was a hell of a lot of money and that was _without_ the labour costs!

Mammon did _not_ protest the price and try to beat Cavaliere down, which was very interesting; generally the miserly Mist Officer haggled over everything, but Squalo guessed that pure metals were not something that had variable prices on the global markets. They cost what they cost at a specific date and changes in price were entirely dependent on availability.

"How many rings would that make?"

"Roughly thirty unset rings to fit a male hand; thirty-five to fit a female one," Cavaliere said after a pause. "Rings set with a suitable gem or other Flame-medium… twenty-four male or twenty-eight female."

There were six Divisions in the Varia, each of which had an Officer, an overall Squad Leader and a General Manager, plus there was generally another Squad Leader in each division who, officially titled or not, was in the running for one of those three spots. It wasn't a hard and fast rule –Squalo didn't have _a_ Rain Squad Leader because Rain Squad shared the administrative burden between them– but if you made a ring for each position that was eighteen rings, plus one for Boss and some spares.

"What is the difference between a gem and a 'Flame medium'?" Mammon demanded.

"Gems can be found; mediums have to be made," Cavaliere responded promptly. "They require esoteric and obscure ingredients, lengthy preparation times, considerable power and tremendous focus; they are also much more accepting then gems. The Vongola Guardian Rings use mediums, not gems, for instance." Rence paused. "If you want mediums rather than gems then expect the material costs to triple and the labour costs to quintuple, minimum. I'll also need most of a year rather than just a few weeks."

Mammon nodded. "Gems then; would low-tier gems work in a high-tier alloy?"

"Small, high-quality gems in the best available alloy would result in low-to-middling A-class rings," Cavaliere said easily. "Having small gems would also make the rings easier to use for those with smaller reserves and better allow for detailed work over a sustained period of time."

In other words, rings more suited to assassins than combat specialists.

"We will pay for a kilogram of your best alloy, on the condition that after the rings we require are made, the rest of the alloy will be handed over as well," Mammon decided. "Twenty-four rings, twenty-three slightly thinner than the average masculine ring and one to fit my hand, set with small, high-quality gems in each Flame-type except Sky. Four of each type; all as close to identical as possible with a design reflecting the Varia crest in some way."

"I estimate twenty hours to prepare the alloy, ninety-six to facet the gems and seventy-two to actually form the rings," Cavaliere said carefully, "provided all my materials are of the best possible quality and I am not interrupted at any point. This is not including the necessities of sleep and food. Considering those requirements… this will take three and a half weeks, minimum. My Master has set the cost of my time at ninety-six thousand lira per hour; that is nineteen million, two-hundred thousand lira for twenty ten-hour working days."

That was a _hell_ of a lot of money even without the material costs, but Mammon seemed satisfied.

"You will produce an _exact_ accounting of all raw materials used, including fuel and wastage costs, for the final billing arrangements," the Mist Officer said firmly; "we will pay labour costs in advance, material costs upon receipt of the rings."

"Alloy costs will not be broken down," Cavaliere said flatly, "and the gems will be valued at current market price according to their carat and clarity."

"Acceptable."

Cavaliere hesitated. "In the interests of not wasting time and money, could the Varia provide a guard for the duration of the contract? I've had six female Lightnings up here in the past eight months attempting to harass me and they _always_ try and get to me when I'm working on something delicate or challenging." The apprentice ring-smith looked more irritated than harried, but Squalo suspected that was due to his finding the seduction attempts a nuisance rather than a genuine threat. "The last one tried to drug me while I was faceting a gem and it got shattered."

"What did you do?" Mammon asked curiously.

Cavaliere's eyes lidded. "Got her to tell me her Family, killed her and billed them for the damage," he said frankly, "plus a surcharge for the delay to the customer and the inconvenience."

How had the Varia not heard about that?

"They came and got the body down off the front wall yesterday," Cavaliere went on blandly, "as I refused to let them have it before they paid me and suggested they take the matter to the Vindice if they were in any way dissatisfied with my demands."

Oh, that was just _vicious_. Squalo approved.

"On a related matter, Captain," Cavaliere added, "what _exactly_ was it you were after in regards to my Lady's people? Because I do not believe for a moment that you are so short on members as to be interested in subordinates with potentially conflicting allegiances."

Fuck, Squalo _definitely_ needed better Lightnings if this was an example of their potential level of competence and sheer audacity.

Clouds liked directness; maybe Lightnings did too?

"Does your Lady have any adult female Lightnings under her command?" Squalo asked bluntly. "I've recently recruited a few women and the Mafia treats female Lightnings like shit, so they need a better model of what to aspire to. Seer's better than nothing, even if she's a teenage civilian." It really grated on him to admit this much to a stranger only loosely allied to the Vongola, but what he'd seen of Cavaliere suggested that, so long as his Lady was not threatened, he could be ridiculously helpful. That Mammon hadn't quibbled on the prices said they were getting a really _fantastic_ deal on rings, no matter how many zeros would be on the cheque.

There was also the fact that Maínomai was still alive despite having implicitly threatened said Lady to the point that Pýř had admitted that murder would have been justified; that said Cavaliere wasn't the reactionary sort.

"I'll let my Lady know," Cavaliere said mildly, "but that _will_ cost you."

"Cost what, exactly?" Squalo could tell it wouldn't be money; Cavaliere didn't _need_ money and since his Lady was paying for his apprenticeship, she probably didn't either. In fact she had probably had to pay several times over what he Varia had just agreed to spend just for the apprenticeship, never mind the materials Cavaliere had used over the past few years…

"My Lady would like the Varia to turn a blind eye to the provenance of her people, their haunts, residences and connections," Cavaliere said levelly, "to the point of gathering no more intelligence that has currently been amassed, not acquiring it from others and not hiring others to acquire it for you. Regardless of whether or not she can find a suitable Lightning willing to assist you."

"Voi, that's asking a hell of a lot," Squalo objected hotly.

"It's not a permanent arrangement," Cavaliere said with a shrug; "my Lady is prepared to renegotiate matters with your Boss at his earliest convenience."

Squalo went still. Cavaliere _had_ to know that Xanxus was… unavailable... at the moment. He likely had no idea why, or even if Boss was still alive. However, that the Lightning and his Lady _were_ prepared to renegotiate matters as soon as _a_ Varia Boss resurfaced was a good sign. It suggested that they were interested in a more long-term arrangement, possibly even an alliance with the Vongola. That this 'Lady' seemed to want to go through the Varia rather than Don Nono was also interesting: it suggested said Lady had noticed that the Vongola Boss was no longer in top form. Maybe something else… it was hard to say as Cavaliere wasn't at all easy to read. 'Green brick wall' was a very apt description.

Still, as a temporary arrangement it had promise and they'd probably be able to pick up more clues when Cavaliere's Lady coughed up a Lightning; she probably had enough people for there to be _someone_, given what she was asking in return.

"It's a deal then," Squalo said firmly, "both for the guard and the arrangement." He could make it three or four separate week-long milk run missions and rotate a load of newbies through it to see how well they dealt with boredom and stakeouts.

"I will expect them tomorrow at seven thirty," Cavaliere said with a nod. "Good day to you both."

* * *

On the matter of pricing... Rence's time has been valued by Talbot at 49.58 euros per hour (in 1999) which would have been about $62 or £38. There is no mark-up, as Rence is an apprentice and therefore officially lacking in qualifications. In comparison, as a Master ring-smith Talbot charges _by the minute_ and adds a hefty mark-up on top of that, simply for bothing to show up.

Two hundred hours is 9,916 euros; $12,400 or £7.600. Still not bad for a month's work...


	100. Chapter 100

Beta'd by the understated Insane Scriptist.

One hundredth chapter! It just so happened that it turned out as bit different, with a brand-new and very important character... so I won't spoil the surprise!

* * *

**Of routines and family responsibilities **

Squalo had been wrestling with the paperwork –why did Marvel Squad have to be so _ridiculous_ about their reports– when the phone rang. His personal phone, the one he kept for emergencies, not the landline or his Varia phone. Dropping his pen, the swordsman quickly fished out his phone and answered it.

"_Allô_?" Squalo generally defaulted to French in matters of personal telephone etiquette, just as Luss defaulted to Thai –women's diction of course– and Mammon to Greek.

"_Frère_, Ottava has died," came the distinctly miserable voice on the other end of the line. Squalo instantly shoved his own shock, dismay and grief at the loss of the former Vongola Donna and founder of the Varia aside; his little sister needed him.

"I'll be right over," he promised before hanging up, grabbing his sword and jacket as he dashed out of the room and down the front stairs.

"Captain?" asked a Storm Squalo recognised as being Okami, Squad Leader of the Pack, whose members all had names that translated as 'wolf'.

"Ottava's died," the Rain Officer said briefly, moving his name over to the board marked 'Out' by the mansion's front door; no matter if you were going on a long mission or were just slipping out to buy a comic book from the newsagent, every single Varia had to make sure the boards reflected whether they were 'In' or 'Out'. Xanxus' name was at the top of the 'Out' board and had been since the Cradle Affair; a cursory glance proved Grimm Squad were still on a mission, Dark Horse had got back either during the night or just after breakfast and there were at least half-a-dozen temporary Squads out on milk runs, including the one currently responsible for guarding Cavaliere from overly-affectionate Lightnings which was going by the name 'Kangaroo Squad'.

His declaration was followed by a chorus of exclamations of shock, dismay and sorrow; Ottava had been well-liked, much more so that her son was. The news would be all over the mansion in the next fifteen minutes so Squalo took advantage of the commotion and slipped outside, making his way to the garage and picking up his motorbike. As an Officer he was allowed to requisition a vehicle for his personal use, which had the advantage of avoiding the pranks of those wits who got a kick out of booby-trapping the car pool. Of course the disadvantage was that he had to pay for his own petrol, but he didn't travel far on personal business so having a vehicle in his own name was currently worth the effort. He hadn't been able to have one before as he hadn't been eighteen, but now he was officially old enough to ride a real motorbike he'd gone to the effort of getting one registered properly rather than under an alias.

The only reason Squalo had gone to the trouble and expense of owning a personal vehicle was that shortly after getting back from his world tour his parents had finalised their divorce and ambushed him with the knowledge that he was the only person they could agree on giving custody of their youngest child to. Literally ambushed: he'd gotten a call on his emergency phone and been summoned to his family home to find out his father was in the Canaries with his mistress, his mother had just left to visit her relatives in Canada and his seven-year-old sister would need picking up from Summer School at half-past one.

Squalo had been very _loudly_ displeased, but had refrained from taking it out on the housekeeper because it wasn't exactly her fault. Instead Squalo had spent the following three-and-a-half hours on the phone to Don Superbi about arranging a Family living allowance for his sister –there was no _way_ he was taking her to live with the Varia! – and trying to sort out somewhere for her to live; she couldn't stay at the family home since the divorce stipulated that neither parent was allowed to share her place of residence. Squalo had eventually called Petronilla while waiting outside the Mafia Academy for his sister and the Mist had agreed to take the seven-year-old in temporarily –she had been eighteen by then and could do that– on condition of hearing _all_ about the younger sibling she hadn't known he had. Squalo had never mentioned his parents and distanced himself enough from the rest of the Superbi –bar Don Superbi and his son– that most people were under the impression he was an orphan or something; learning otherwise about her 'toy' had probably prompted all manner of surprised Misty strangeness in Nilla, not that he'd been present for it.

Telling Nilla about Delfina hadn't been the easiest thing Squalo had ever done, but by the end of the week his friend had decided that the seven-year-old was 'interesting' and offered to ask if Ottava would be willing to hide her in Housekeeping. Squalo hadn't expected that and had been very grateful when Ottava's Cloud, Adriana Vongola, had decided to take Delfina on as her protégée, thus completely obscuring the fact that the little girl was the baby sister of the Second Sword Emperor and a prime kidnapping target.

That had been slightly less than a year ago and Squalo had done his best to visit his sister regularly since then, making a point to pick her up from school whenever he could and agreeing to visit Petronilla more often on the condition that Delfina would be present at the 'extra' visits. Of course that meant those visits had to be scheduled properly, but his sister was what mattered and taking care of her was more important than being unpredictable. He'd also made it clear at Headquarters than _anybody_ hunting him down in his off-time _would_ die, which was working so far.

* * *

Meeting up with his little sister involved driving up to the Vongola Manor, using the side-entrance by the Service Wing rather than the front drive, and loading the waiting seven-year-old onto the front of the motor bike, her full-face helmet obscuring her face as completely as his own did. Squalo then turned the bike around and headed out towards Corleone, the neighbouring village to the Vongola Mansion in the opposite direction from Palermo. He would use a minor illusion on his and his sister's skin and hair and that would be more than enough to get them both overlooked; the current Varia uniform fitted right in with the more extreme end of street fashion in being a punk/goth fusion with a spiked leather jacket over a close fitting white t-shirt.

Delfina was wearing dark jeans and a zip-up grey hoodie, making her indistinguishable from nearly every other pre-teen girl in the country. She might be wearing hair ribbons under the helmet, but if so Squalo could easily disguise those as well; his sister was learning to dance and fight with ribbons from Adriana Visconti and was, according to the elderly Cloud, 'a very attentive student'. Unlike Squalo, who'd never really cared what his peers thought of him and had been more interested in swordsmanship than doing well in class assignments, Delfina was more aware of her peers and wanted be seen doing well. She'd done so well in her early years –due in part to tutoring at home from the age of four– that she'd been moved up two years at Mafia Academy within months of starting classes.

Despite being not-quite eight, Delfina's classmates and friends were all nine and ten and she outperformed them most of the time. She could have managed the work if she'd been put up another year or two, but attending Mafia Academy wasn't just about academic performance: a good half of those attending weren't allowed to socialise outside their Famiglia, so the academies were a place to meet people their own age they weren't related to, socialise and network so that when they graduated they would have contacts all across the Vongola Alliance to facilitate their career, prevent isolation and resentment and keep the Vongola running smoothly. Moving a brilliant student up a year or two was fine, but more than that and the young genius would be unable to connect with their peers and that would inevitably cause problems down the line. Delfina got on well with her classmates –well some of them– and was perfectly happy doing extra assignments on the side, so why uproot her when she was doing so well where she was?

Of course any student could test out of school at any time, but generally the kids only did that when they had somewhere specific they wanted to go _to_, like Squalo testing out to join the Varia at fourteen.

Squalo parked his bike opposite a café, applied the delicate Mist-illusion to them both then lifted his sister off the bike and removed his helmet while she did the same. Delfina's only reaction to his now tanned skin and dark brown hair was a raised eyebrow when she took her own helmet off, followed by her handing him said helmet and trotting silently after him as he crossed the road. He let her pick a table to sit at –she selected one which gave them an excellent view of their surroundings and the parked motorbike– dumped the helmets on one of the seats then went to order their drinks. Delfina would have a glass of milk –she was too young to enjoy coffee– and he would have a can of something cold as he'd already had coffee this morning. His long hair got a few disapproving looks from the handful of people sitting around inside but Squalo didn't give a shit about current fashion; he wore his hair long to honour his never-to-be-redeemed promise to Boss and everybody else could just eff off.

Delfina accepted her drink with a signed thanks, so Squalo popped open his can of lemonade and took a sip; he'd used to drink iced tea, but after drinking Zabini iced tea the canned stuff just tasted cheap and chemical so he'd given up on it.

After drinking half her milk in measured sips Delfina started to 'talk', her hands dancing confidently as she signed in a mixture of the standard _Lingua dei Segni Italiana_, _langue des signes français_ and a bit of Varia Sign, the last of which she had picked up from him and was technical, specialised and was what she generally used for mafia-related terminology and creative profanity. Of course Varia sign used some of the same gestures as the two official sign languages Delfina used on a daily basis, so Squalo had to make an effort to pay attention and determine by context which term she was using. As he personally used Varia Sign much more than LSI or LSF these days, he generally thought of the Varia meaning first which could be unintentionally hilarious, especially since Varia Sign was not standardised and migrated regularly, just like spoken Varia language did. What was spoken by the Varia amongst themselves _sounded_ like Italian, English, French, Japanese, Russian, Greek or whatever else, but the actual _meaning_ depended heavily on allusions, subtext and whatever fad was going around at any given time; it had taken Squalo four months to get back up to date after his world tour and that was despite reading reports every three weeks and getting a new, up-to-date Squad every month and a half.

For instance, right now Delfina might be saying that eight missions had been practical jokes involving poison and the apprentices were now banned from overseeing training, or that Ottava's death had happened unexpectedly at breakfast time and she'd been allowed to take the day off school. Probably the latter, no matter how amusingly improbable the former might be. Squalo signed back condolences, then had to correct himself because he'd used Varia Sign and in LSI what he'd just expressed meant 'you fail'. Delfina stuck her tongue out at him for that, but accepted the sentiment in the spirit it was meant.

* * *

Delfina wasn't actually deaf; she just happened to be a very Cloudy little Mist who, upon being exposed to loud, boisterous Superbi cousins at the tender age of four, had decided that the best way to be left alone was to pretend she couldn't hear a word they were saying. This had prompted his parents to have her checked out by a doctor as at the time their parents' relationship had been better so they'd paid more attention to their daughter, but upon discovering that nothing was actually _wrong_ she had been allowed to continue to feign deafness –and muteness– so long as she communicated comprehensibly and did well in her lessons. Squalo had learned LSI and LSF for his ten-years-younger sister despite this taking place in the run-up and aftermath of the not-a-coup, because if that was the language she wanted to use it was his brotherly duty to learn it.

His sister had taken that permission and run with it: everybody at Mafia Academy was convinced that his little sister really _was_ deaf and at the Vongola Mansion Delfina was referred to as '_Signora_ Adriana's deaf little protégée'. Most of the Vongola didn't even know Delfina _was_ a Superbi despite her looking a lot like Squalo had at the same age; then again, Squalo didn't look like a typical Superbi himself, not that there was a traditional Superbi look. Squalo and Delfina got their looks from their mother, who was a Soave and half-Canadian besides. Silvia Soave was still considered a great beauty in mafia circles, with long ivory hair, porcelain skin and silver-grey eyes. Squalo was practically a male version of his mother in looks; Delfina had their father's green eyes and would probably be shorter than their mother once she was grown, taking more after their father's mother in build.

Squalo hadn't seen or heard from his parents since accepting custody of Delfina and didn't really want to; they clearly weren't interested in parenting their daughter so it was better to let his little sister find other appropriate female role-models, like Adriana Visconti and Maria-Chiara Vongola. She had him as a male relative, not to mention all the older Superbi cousins and the Family heir Pantera, whom Squalo had always got on rather well with despite the other man being five years Squalo's senior.

Delfina's aloof, dismissive behaviour also had everyone convinced she was a Classic Cloud rather than a Cloudy Mist, which Squalo had encouraged since Clouds were generally ignored and allowed to do as they pleased, unlike Mists who were always discreetly supervised and were 'encouraged' –read expected– to participate in lots of group activities so as to form bonds with those around them and reduce incidences of 'disruptive behaviour'. This of course frequently failed because Mists were very sensitive to undercurrents, would notice this and often had a Thing about living down to expectations and being _worse_ than you were expecting, so Squalo was very happy for his sister to hide her Mist-primary and be allowed to get on with being her own person. Adriana knew of course, but seemed to share Squalo's view on the Vongola's sub-par treatment of Mists so was perpetuating the deception. It was very likely that Delfina was getting a Mist education on the side from Nebbia in addition to her Cloud education from the elderly Nuvola; you really could not pay for an education like that and Squalo was confident that his little sister would more than live up to the Superbi Family standard by being exceptional in her chosen field, whatever that ended up being.

However right now that connection to the Eighth Generation was more of a problem than an advantage, as Daniela Vongola was dead and Delfina had to be worrying about when Nebbia and Adriana would follow her; the Mist was actually _older_ than his Sky had been and while a decade younger, the Cloud was still older than a lot of people managed to reach. Squalo therefore signed a question about what Delfina was doing at school at the moment; hopefully that would take her mind off pointless and morbid speculation and get him up to date with her recent successes.

The look Delfina gave him suggested that she suspected him of _something_, but wasn't quite sure what. She'd get there; she wasn't even eight yet after all and she certainly wasn't a genius of Bel's calibre –and thank goodness for that. Give her a few more years though and he'd have to be sneakier. For now though Squalo was going to enjoy learning about the recent exploits of his little sister and her classmates, which –wait a minute, who had done _what_?

His face must have been a picture, because Delfina collapsed into silent giggles. Squalo huffed, raised an eyebrow and indicated she should continue. This he had to hear about, if only so as to find out what kind of vengeance his sister had wreaked on the trash who had insulted her.

* * *

Translations 

Allô = hello (French)

Frère = brother (French)

Okami = wolf (Japanese)

In Spanish, 'canguro' means both 'kangaroo' and 'babysitter', which is the pun behind Kangaroo Squad being called that.

Lingua dei Segni Italiana = Italian Sign language

Langue des signes français = French sign language

Nuvola = Cloud


	101. Chapter 101

Beta'd by the prodigious Insane Scriptist.

I will be updating again on Monday and for the first half of next week, as I have enough chapters to do so.

My lovely beta read the reviews for my last chapter and got a bit... angry... about some of the things people were saying. Thus we have a rant, slightly edited because no matter how rude some of those people were, I'd rather not be excessively rude back. That I actually deleted a few of the anonymous reviews for the first time **ever **says it all really. So, Rant by Insane Scriptist (also known as Izzy) below:

_People really need to pay attention to the tags; they're not just there to take up space. Black Sky is not a romance. None of what Umei writes is romance. By tags alone the closest is 'Fangs of the Father' and 'Unintended Consequences.' By name another is 'Fairytale Romance.' By the way only the first two actually have been tagged as romance and that's tagged second, and the third story doesn't even have that genre added._

_ Romance is a short story, a part of people's lives, generally as they fall in love with each other. Not their entire lives, even if what happens can effect them for the rest of their lives as that's Family. So romance happens, and for the most part Life happens in Black Sky. Not adventures day after day. That doesn't even happen in One Piece, even if we frequently don't see the time involved in sailing from island to island. That's called Pacing._

_ Umei's story is/was currently tagged as Adventure/Family, so that means Adventures happen as does focus on Family and what that means and happens to other characters beyond those stated as Family to each other. Family is Everyone because even if you're an orphan you had Family, even if it's only in the friends you choose. From canon characters, minor characters with nothing more than a name and OC's alike._

_ As Family is in the tags this means a focus on family relationships, how they all effect each other including ones that the readers previously weren't aware of aka the OC-people of doom because to the people in the tags aka this person is Important to this character, so is this one, s/he is needed for Plot/show this/explain that and so on because That/This is Important to establish/prove._

[... snip ...]

_ As readers, it's not hard to be polite and leave some actual encouragement. It takes less than a minute really and reading a chapter takes less than five or so minutes. You don't have to invest an average of at least six hours per chapter, from plotting to writing to editing due to the story being as complex and character/Family-oriented Black Sky is as Umei does. I in fact spend about twenty hours on just my one-shots alone because of how I write. Needless to say that writing fanfiction is nothing less than a labor of love because we're balancing that time investment with work, school and our own lives._

_ So if you can't even find the time to look at the tags and then complain about what you think the story is about, should be about or that something's filler..._ [censored]._ You're not the author; you don't know what's planned, what's purposeful, what's bullshit and what's a goddamn red herring if it slapped you in the face._ [censored]_ We're writing this for people who aren't you._

**_ To those who left nice reviews: you're awesome and Izzy sends you hugs._**

_ (This entire 'rant' took about two hours to write. Izzy apologizes to her followers and those who favorite her stories for taking the time to make this into an actual cohesive rant instead of a mess of profanities instead of working on her shit.)_

7/11/15: Rant is edited for length.

So... on with the plot...

* * *

**Of projects and proposals**

Sitting in her laboratory, Dorea hummed along to the radio as she went over the data Hermione had given her on Vanishing Cabinets and her own notes on the same subject. Since she was pregnant –and just now starting to show– she was no longer allowed to duel, so she had been forced to find something else to do with her time; Hermione's discovery that Vanishing Cabinets relied upon Sky Flames for their Ward-avoiding effect had been very timely, as it had come at just the right moment for Dorea to take over the project. Dorea knew that Hermione was branching out a bit now that she was no longer drowning in work-related law research; however as the Vanishing Cabinets were proving to be something Hermione couldn't learn to make Dorea knew her Ward would be willing to leave it be, beyond occasional checks to see how things were progressing and to talk theory. Hermione had a few projects on the go with Jerry as well, so it wasn't like she was likely to run out of things to do any time soon.

As she was moving right across Europe, having Vanishing Cabinets to make travelling from one Estate to the next would be eminently practical, and working out how to make Runes that channelled Flames and Magic concurrently rather than having to use separate Flame Runes and Magic Runes in a single array would be well worth the effort. Of course having them as cabinets was rather conspicuous, so Dorea was hoping she'd be able to apply the Runes to door-frames and make them situational, so they could be activated at will like Sabina's transference circles. That way a person could walk through a doorway at Potter Manor while wanting to go to the Sicily house and get there in moments.

Transference circles had certain limitations, the main one being that one terminus of each 'pair' had to be outside and free of most kinds of Ward, as they drew magic from the environment to function and having that happen _inside_ Wards was just a security collapse waiting to happen. It was with good reason that transference circles were only used for accessing public buildings… if Dorea could create Vanishing Doorways they wouldn't have that problem and would therefore be highly marketable, provided of course she _wanted_ to market them. As she was currently the only Active Sky in Wizarding Britain she would have to make or at least finish all the doorways herself. However first she had to manage to create a working prototype, which was likely to take a few months minimum.

Marius and Cassie had recently had their third birthday and spring was getting properly underway, with many changes small and large affecting Dorea's various relatives and allies as time passed. In a few months Deborah's baby, Aquila Avery, would be having her first birthday, and Dorea had recently been informed that Draco was now an older brother: Narcissa had given birth to a daughter the previous May and little Elladora was finally healthy enough that her doting parents were willing to introduce her to the world. Poor Draco of course had no idea _what_ to do with a sister eighteen years younger than he was, although the Prewetts had taken it upon themselves to give him all manner of advice. Dorea hoped her cousin was taking that advice with a pinch of salt; getting older had not in any way reduced Frank and Jerry's mischievousness.

The romance bug had also bitten the Black family _hard_: her cousin Donald was engaged to a girl he'd met at Donington Park while helping out at the British Motorcycle Grand Prix; Desmond was seeing an Irish Witch; Richard had outright _eloped_ with a pretty German heiress he'd met through the French Blacs at the Winter Solstice; and Stephanie had recently been proposed to by Tracy's older brother Roger and accepted. Deborah was of course married with a ten-month-old baby; Dawn, Draco and Patricia were all too busy working to contemplate romance; Nymphadora still hadn't found a man who met her exacting standards; Gregory was buried in his History Mastery; and Leo was in the Far East studying. Both her French cousins had been married for some time now and both had children: Martin and Leonie now had a three-year-old son, Honoré, in addition to their six-year-old daughter Phoebe; while Morgane and her husband Jean-Yves had three children. There was Antoine, aged four-and-a-half, Maurice, aged two-and-a-bit and baby Désirée, who was barely three months old. The Black family was really expanding for the first time in decades.

Of course, things weren't all good: The upcoming switch from all the various European currencies to the euro was giving Sabina's Ministry of Finance a seemingly never-ending list of reasons to curse and tear their hair; they would have to alter the exchange rate, constantly coordinate with the other European Magical Nations over exchange rates into the future, get their Muggle cash funds exchanged without attracting undue notice, rearrange how the whole country priced things and overhaul the entire funding system for the Muggle sciences!

Costanzo was no longer acting as her husband's body-double these days, partly due to small changes in his appearance as he matured but mostly because he was just too busy. He'd even handed over the task force responsible for collating the Vongola and Mafia data to someone else, as he was that busy with fiscal matters. Gaetano, being a musician, was not seriously affected just yet but was also starting to grow out of his resemblance to his Principe, so he was looking for a replacement to take over his body-double duties as well.

Sebastiano Zabini was the teenager replacing Costanzo: he was fifteen, the first red-eyed Zabini Dorea had met other than her husband and wore European honey buzzard feathers at his temples; a sign that the person he had killed had literally irritated him into doing so. Sebastiano should technically have been at school, but as school was where he'd made his kill –in a legal duel admittedly– he was taking some time off and learning from tutors so the parents of the students from outside Sabina could calm down a bit. Of course the Zabini hadn't worded it like that, as it would look weak: Sebastiano had been 'rewarded' for his 'abiding by school rules in exceptional circumstances' by being allowed to join the Principe's household, with the guarantee of a job once he'd completed his education. This both provided Dorea with a new husband-double and ensured all of Sabina's neighbours were reminded that the Zabini did things differently.

Bastiano –as he liked to be called– was a perfect example of how nurture could affect a person's nature. He was as naturally predatory and low on sympathy as her Alexandro, but his upbringing had been geared towards instilling patience, empathy and morality so the fifteen-year-old was actually very gentle and considerate. Of course he still had limits, which was what had led to him killing one of his fellow students: his victim had been a bully who had mistaken Bastiano's reluctance to indulge in violence for cowardice and poor nerves.

The teenager was also Dorea's husband's second cousin twice removed, born to two parents who had only a small Zabini family resemblance, which made Bastiano's red eyes and strong features all the more surprising. Bastiano was pragmatic about it though and clearly had no complaints about how his life had turned out, so Dorea refrained from commenting on his upbringing. He was a sweet young man and very considerate in a rather hero-worshipping kind of way, which was more than a little adorable really. Cassie adored the teenager, mainly for his eyes, as Bastiano was the only person she had ever met with 'real red eyes' that matched hers.

* * *

"Dorea, oh most delectable of despots? Do you have a moment?" Dorea glanced up to see Jerry peering around the door of her study, looking faintly nervous.

"Come in Jerry; sorry, George," Dorea corrected herself. Ginger hair meant George, which meant this was probably a personal matter rather than something to do with Jerry's research.

George slipped inside, closed the door behind him and moved to stand in front of her desk; he was wearing smart, formal robes rather than one of the usual sturdy, fireproof and garish boiler suits that both twins now wore while inventing so as not to ruin their everyday clothing. Realising this was likely a formal request of some kind, Dorea pushed her notes to one side, put down her quill and gave the older wizard her full attention.

"Regent Black, I request permission to ask your Ward for her hand in marriage," George said after a moment of steeling himself.

Dorea stared at the Prewett co-Heir, considering his request. On the one hand, she'd been expecting either George or Hermione to propose to the other for half a year now; on the other, George coming to her like this indicated he wanted to do things _properly_ and actually understood the reason for the various formalities inherent to Magical Culture, which she knew he hadn't known a few years ago.

"Why should I grant you permission?" She asked instead. If it had been Hermione proposing to George getting Dorea's permission would have been unnecessary; Blacks could marry as they pleased regardless of gender. However anybody proposing _to_ a Black needed to get approval from said Black's parent, guardian or Head of House beforehand. Xanxus had only gotten around this little bit of protocol because the Ritual Dorea had used counted as proposing, even though she hadn't actually said the words.

"I love her, she loves me, we're good for each-other and I would never dream of preventing her from following her ambitions," George said promptly, proving that he'd consulted Great-Uncle Iggy on the matter of appropriate wording.

"Then I have no objections to you proposing to my Ward," Dorea said with smile. "When is this proposal likely to take place and who is going to organise the wedding?"

George beamed, then looked nervous. "Erm, I think Aunt Lulu will kill anybody who tries to stop her from arranging everything," he admitted. "I've already got rings though; Rence made them for me."

"I have no problems with that," Dorea said, her smile stretching into a grin at the prospect of Great-Aunt Lucretia bullying everyone into behaving themselves and co-opting the house-elves into arranging a _proper_ Black Wedding. "Off you go then; what are you waiting for?"

George blinked then bowed deeply, hands waving in extravagant flourishes. "Oh most bountiful and beneficent of Blacks, I go at once!" He then put word into action, vanishing out of the door at high speed. Dorea chuckled slightly at the mental image of George proposing to Hermione, possibly with a bunch of Conjured roses and a Mist-made violin serenade for added romantic ambience.

Well, it seemed that the romance bug was even more pervasive than Dorea had realised. Would Fred be proposing to Luna next?

* * *

As it happened, the next 'proposal' arrived in one of Rence's letters: Her husband's Varia vassal was requesting the assistance of a woman with a Lightning Flame, to meet with his subordinates and demonstrate appropriate behaviour. Dorea guessed Squalo Superbi meant 'appropriate social behaviour', because there was no way she could provide assassin role-models. Rence had suggested Millie, who was combat-capable and looking for something useful to do. Dorea thought it was a good idea, but Millie was nineteen and had limited life experience; she was a handy point of reference, not a role-model. Millie had after all killed before, but most of those had been executions carried out under Dorea's authority as Lady Slytherin; the other few had been people killed resisting arrest –Millie had served in the Black Militia for eight months– and the last one had been her first kill at the Department of Mysteries. Millie's codename was still 'Executioner' despite the fact that Dorea hadn't actually executed anybody in over two years, but there was a world of difference between an executioner and an assassin.

But the only truly adult woman Dorea knew who was both a Lightning and personally dangerous enough to make an acceptable role-model for an assassin was her aunt, Narcissa Malfoy, even if the woman was a latent Lightning rather than an Active one. Said lady also had a baby daughter she refused to hand off to the house-elves, no matter _what_ she was doing. Arranging matters so Narcissa could meet Alexandro's subordinates would be tricky.

Lucius might have been her Thrall but he was still an adult wizard in his own right and nowhere near as broken as Barty, so she preferred to allow him as much freedom as possible. That freedom included permission to object to any of her orders he genuinely disagreed with, so long as he was prepared to explain why. He would _not_ be happy at his Mistress suggesting his wife go and socialise with a bunch of Muggle professional killers, even if said professional killers were Dorea's husband's underlings.

Well, it _had_ been more than three years since Voldemort's demise and Uncle Lucius was doing an excellent job of managing the Black Plantation… she could frame it as a request to 'scout out' the area she was moving into, specifically the local Magical political landscape. He and Narcissa could stay at the house, which was fully Warded if only part-furnished… and maybe Dorea could point out that it was almost like a holiday. She would be sending Millie anyway, so with Millie acting as a bodyguard Lucius probably wouldn't object _too_ much to his wife socialising with a bunch of Muggle killers. Especially since Dorea was pretty sure her Aunt would enjoy spending time with women who shared her ruthless Black attitude to violence, even if they _were_ Muggles.

Still, Muggles capable of using Flames _had_ to be considered a few steps up from the normal kind, right? Flames were practically magic in their own way… they even had their own secrecy code and society. Maybe if she phrased it right Narcissa would consider it to be merely a different kind of magic?


	102. Chapter 102

Beta'd by the grammatical Insane Scriptist.

To all those **many** readers who left wonderfully kind and encouraging reviews, thank-you so much! I'm writing this story for **you** guys. Plus, I now have chapters written and ready up to Saturday!

* * *

**Of strangers and generosity **

Donna Ottava's funeral… well, it went. All of the retired Varia showed up –in civvies of course– as did half of the current members and most of Varia Housekeeping. It had been a very busy funeral, what with Nono, Federico, their Guardians and all their hangers-on showing their respects in addition to the various people who wanted to make sure the terrifying old lady really _was_ dead and all three of Daniela's fanclubs. Most of the current Varia hadn't actually attended the funeral properly: there hadn't been enough room in the church so they'd lurked nearby and along the road back to the Vongola Mansion –Dons were interred in the Iron Fort's crypt– and watched the event from a distance, aided by the various Mists pooling their resources. They could have easily expanded the inside of the church as a Territory, but a good half of the funeral's attendees weren't Vongola and showing off like that wasn't a good idea. With that in mind, it made perfect sense for most of the Varia to watch through remote viewing rather than brave the masses, beyond those co-opted for additional and intimidating security by the Vongola Heir.

It had been a good funeral though, with eulogies given by Nebbia, Tyrant and one of Nono's female cousins whose name Squalo couldn't remember; she was the mother of the current Don Prizzi though, that he _did_ remember. Ottava had apparently been very fond of all her nieces and nephews, although she had sadly outlived quite a few of them. That was the mafia for you and well, life in general.

The entire European Underworld was a bit subdued after the funeral, but missions soon picked up again and life went on, more or less as usual as much as such a thing existed in the Varia. Squalo received and paid for the rings Cavaliere made for them, handed them out to the relevant parties –no matter how much it grated on him to give Ottabio anything that might be useful to him– and about a month later came to the conclusion that the apprentice ring-smith's Lady didn't have any Lightnings she was willing to spare.

Or at least that _had_ been his conclusion until June, when the Varia had a very _unusual_ visitor.

* * *

It started out like any other morning: breakfast had gone reasonably smoothly –only three minor poisonings among the newbies– and the Rain Officer had been bawling out Patriot for painting the Main Hall blue with white stars to match his personalised uniform –Squalo didn't care that he had no proof; this was _definitely_ a Marvel Squad stunt– when the doorbell rang. Squalo immediately paused mid-rant, because _nobody_ rang the bell. Seriously, nobody did: the Varia all let themselves in, guests were always noticed _before_ reaching the door so it was opened for them by Housekeeping and would-be recruits generally tried to sneak in through the grounds.

All of Squalo's audience also stopped sniggering and betting to stare at the door in curiosity.

"You open it," Squalo said flatly to Patriot. The other Rain pouted –seriously what was _wrong_ with the guy's brain? – but cautiously sidled over to the front door and opened it.

Standing outside was a tall, curvy woman with black hair tied up in a short ponytail, brown eyes and tanned skin balancing a double-headed battle-axe across her shoulders. She was wearing a bright green, navel-baring strappy top and low-waisted white Capri's, which made the curves and the tan far more apparent. She was also wearing sturdy sandals, a rigid gold necklace featuring a pair of bulls with locked horns and a few flimsy gold bangles and had a strong, square jaw. She was also a Lightning and grinning in a wild-eyed manner that suggested she was having way too much fun, which instantly put Squalo on edge. The last person he'd seen grinning like that had been Deadpool, the thankfully retired but unfortunately still locally resident founder of Marvel Squad.

It was saying something that all of Marvel Squad put together could not equal the insanity that Deadpool had been capable of all on his lonesome. Not anything good, but all the more reason to avoid the road he lived on entirely, even if taking the other road to get to the Vongola Mansion took longer.

The young woman's eyes flew across her audience before coming to rest on Squalo, at which point her smile widened.

"Hi, you must be the Captain," she said brightly in Florence-accented Italian, sashaying inside and holding out her right hand. "I'm Executioner." 'Boia' was the word she used, suggesting she was a _legal_ killer of people who broke the law and received a death sentence.

Squalo shook the hand, grudgingly having to admire the kind of guts it took to walk into a building full of Mafia assassins and declare yourself like that. "Pleasure," he said flatly.

"I'm here on behalf of mine and Knight's Lady," Boia went on briskly, "as you did ask for a meeting."

The Rain Officer _had_ asked; he'd also thought it wouldn't come to anything. This was a surprise. "Yes I did; your Lady sent you?" Boia was definitely _not_ civilian, if only slightly older than Squalo himself, and was also the kind of person he would be happy to have Mjӧlnir –as Kayc was now called as she was no longer an apprentice– and Doninha emulate.

"Nope; I'm acting as bodyguard to the lady in question, as she's got a year-old daughter," Boia said lightly. "Fair warning, anything happens to her or the baby and, well," the axe was lifted easily and twirled one-handed before being rested back against her shoulder, "quite a few people will be finding themselves a head shorter."

"Fair enough," Squalo agreed. That axe had to weigh at least four kilograms and be very top heavy, yet Boia had handed it like it was made of balsa wood. That took serious strength and skill.

"As I clearly _wasn't_ expected," Boia's eyes sparkled in amusement as she glanced at the newly-redecorated walls, "I'll wait outside for whoever it is you had in mind to come join me on a stroll down to the village."

"No need to wait outside," came the deep, calm tones of the Head of Varia Housekeeping from _right behind_ Squalo, "we have a reception room you can use. Please step this way madam; would you like tea? Coffee?"

Squalo had not jumped in shock, but he'd wanted to. Patriot was looking distinctly grey in the face from having Tyrant materialise –there was no better word or description for that sudden appearance– so close by and their audience was all standing at least a metre further back to where they'd been seconds previously.

Boia beamed at the tall, greying Sky. "Coffee sounds wonderful; I haven't had any today." She followed Tyrant across the hall and through a door to the aforementioned reception room, the axe still balanced gracefully on one shoulder, chatting fearlessly to the dreaded former Varia Boss about how much she'd enjoyed the view of the grounds while walking up the drive.

Okay, so Tyrant approved of Boia; that was unexpected. "Patriot, clean up the hall," Squalo said shortly in Russian. "Tsue, go find Mjӧlnir and Doninha; any other Ladies want to go along feel free." Mab would certainly invite herself along, so as to determine the quality –or possibly Quality– of the woman they would be meeting, but Sumu might as well and there was no telling what Kuchisake would do.

Sumu had grown into herself very well; she was no longer Csibe the shy and retiring but well on her way to being made a Squad Leader, fearsome reputation and all. Hopefully meeting whoever Boia was playing bodyguard to would enable Mjӧlnir and Doninha to do likewise.

* * *

Dorea was the only Sky Millie had ever met, so meeting another one –especially one so superficially different– was really interesting. Also slightly intimidating, but Millie was utterly confident in herself, her Sky and her reasons for visiting the Varia so she easily ignored her nerves.

Besides, anywhere that the inhabitants could get away with repainting the front hall in such a ridiculous manner was bound to be more relaxed than it appeared to be. The coffee was also fantastic, which was another point in the 'plus' column.

She wasn't kept waiting long; barely twenty minutes later five women entered the reception room, four of them dressed in variously tailored versions of the same uniform and the fifth garbed in a more feminine version of what the middle-aged Sky who'd served her coffee had been wearing.

"Hello Boia, I'm Mab," said the petite redhead in the different uniform. "This is Mjӧlnir," she patted the shoulder of an even shorter Chinese girl with indigo hair tied up in a bun on the top of her head; the girl couldn't be older than fourth-year.

"Sumu," murmured the slim, elegant brown-haired woman with an impressive poker face; she felt a bit like Croc did, so Millie guessed she was a Cloud.

"Gwasgedd," said the tall, punkish woman with short spiked pink hair and a lazy, Blaise-ish smile.

"And I'm Doninha! Well, for the time being anyway; I'm still an apprentice so I'll get renamed at some point," the last woman said cheerily, reminding Millie of Parvati with her manner and in being utterly lovely to look at, if in a completely different way to the Indian Lightning.

"Lovely to meet you all; I'm Boia," Millie said with a smile, "or Bourreau, as we're going to be talking in French. I hope that's no problem?"

"_We all speak French_," Mab said calmly, effortlessly switching language. "_So 'executioner' is a title not a name?_"

Millie nodded; it wasn't like it was a secret. "_All of my Lady's people have titles that reflect their position in her household_," the Executioner explained easily, getting to her feet and shouldering her axe. "_Shall we?_"

"_Lead on, Madame Executioner_," Gwasgedd drawled, waving towards the door.

* * *

Mab decided before even leaving the mansion that she liked Executioner; the girl was straightforward but subtle and perfectly pleasant to talk to. Her French was also impeccably fluent to the point of being able to use slang and puns, which kept the conversation light and easy. She was also British; Mab knew British when she saw it and Executioner was not just British but well-bred British. That was something to keep in mind, even if respecting the terms of the meeting meant she never said a word of her suspicions to anyone.

"_How did you get up the drive without being spotted_?" Mjӧlnir asked, her French having a lilt to it that indicated she'd had it planted in her mind by Oversight.

Executioner grinned. "_Lightning Flames have the property of Hardness, do they not_?" she said rhetorically. "_I simply made myself Hard to see_."

Gwasgedd choked on laughter as Mjӧlnir frowned in puzzlement.

"_But… that is a different kind of hardness_," the fourteen-year-old protested.

"_If you think it is different, then it is different_," Executioner said pragmatically, "_but it you know it is the same, then it is the same_."

"_Ah! So it's about what we _believe_ to be possible_!" Doninha said triumphantly, gesturing extravagantly.

"_Exactly_!" Executioner agreed with another bright grin. "_I know that being Lightning means I can affect Hardness in any way I please, which includes making myself Hard to find. Or indeed Hard to miss_."

"_Drawing fire_," Sumu mused, giving the axe-wielding woman a calculating look.

"_Among other things_," Executioner drawled, giving the quiet Cloud an amused glance. "_It's very easy to weaponise your looks when you're a Lightning: men really _can't_ look away_…"

Doninha laughed so hard she almost tripped over.

"_Would that work with Cloud Flames too_?" Sumu inquired, eyelashes fluttering innocently.

"_Multiplying your appeal? I don't see why not_," Executioner pondered, tapping her chin. "_I know a Cloud who Multiples her projected aggression to cow people_."

Sumu made a thoughtful little sound in her throat that suggested the rest of Cloud Division were shortly going to be very, very afraid. Sumu had truly blossomed once she was in an environment that encouraged her growth. Yes, Mab really _did_ like this girl; Executioner would be good for her ducklings.

* * *

Narcissa Malfoy firmly believed Muggles to be lesser beings compared to Magicals; it was so obvious she wasn't sure how others could miss it. Finding out that not all Muggles were as impotent as they appeared had been a shock, but clearly Flame-Users were not, strictly speaking, Muggles: it was simply a different kind of magic, born of the soul rather than of the blood. More specialised but no less powerful.

With this in mind, the Lady Malfoy had been delighted to offer her darling niece her assistance: how could she _not_ help out some young ladies just coming into their gifts? Especially when they were young ladies who had pledged their lives in service to Dorea's husband, meaning they were currently vassals of the Black Family… Narcissa had always been proud to be a Black, but her precious niece had done so much to elevate the family name to new heights that the Lady Malfoy was happy to offer her advice and assistance.

That agreeing meant she got to visit Italy again was also an advantage; India was rather colonial compared to what Narcissa was used to. She had liked the quaintness, the more liberal laws and the history, but that did not mean she wanted to stay there forever. Narcissa wanted her daughter to have friends outside her immediate family and preferably her own age, so that she had people at her side when she went to Hogwarts. Childhood connections could last a lifetime with minimal maintenance after all.

There was a rustling from the Moses basket and Narcissa immediately bent over it, cooing delightedly at her tiny daughter. Little Elladora Lucia had been a surprise –Narcissa had thought she was past having children– but all the more precious and welcome for being so unexpected. Narcissa had always wanted a daughter to spoil and since her son was unlikely to provide her with a daughter-in-law or granddaughter any time soon, having a daughter of her very own was a gift.

Bright blue eyes gazed up at her and her ivory-haired daughter sat up in the basket, smiling and waving her hands. Narcissa melted, scooping up her precious baby and cuddling her close.

"_Who's a little angel then_?" the Lady Malfoy cooed in French; "_Who's her mummy's precious treasure_?"

Elladora laughed, clinging onto her mother's dress and making nonsense sounds.

"_Yes you are! My little gift_!" Narcissa said, rocking back and forth with her daughter in her arms.

"_You spoil her, dearest_," Lucius said wryly, watching from over his coffee. Narcissa snorted.

"_Don't be ridiculous; she's too young to be spoilt. And don't think I didn't see you conjuring lights for her to chase the other day, so you do not have a leg to stand on_."

"_Yes, dear_."

"_Asphodel_!" Ah, that was Millie with their guests; Narcissa rose to her feet and turned to greet the women, her daughter still cradled against her chest.

"_Executioner, introduce me_!" Narcissa did not much like Millie's title, but it was her right as a Bulstrode to wear it and Family pride was Family pride. The Blacks and Malfoys had their own points of Family pride and Narcissa was extremely pleased that her niece had granted her son the title of 'Consul'.

"_Ladies of the Varia, this is Asphodel, my Lady's aunt and her daughter. Asphodel, these are Mab, Gwasgedd, Sumu, Mjӧlnir and Doninha_."

"_And the gentleman is_?" Gwasgedd asked, looking a little like Nymphadora in having short, pink hair.

"I _am Asphodel's husband_," Lucius said, rising to his feet, "_and now that Executioner has returned I shall take my leave. Ladies_," he bowed then swept off in a swirl of coat and white-blond hair.

Narcissa promptly handed Elladora over to Millie so that she could be properly host-like and make the younger ladies comfortable. Even the petite, possibly-Irish woman was younger than she was, cunning use of glamour to hide the faint wrinkles starting around her eyes or not.

"_You are not Flame Active_," Mjӧlnir –who was an adorable little Asian girl– said curiously. "_How can you help us_?"

"_You, my dear girl_," Narcissa said, amused despite herself, "_need to learn delicacy and tact. Many people find that kind of bluntness offensive; they take your words in the worst possible way out of personal insecurity_."

"_Oh; is _that_ why_?" the tiny teenager smiled thankfully. "_I never understood why that happened_."

"_I was a blunt little girl once upon a time too_," Narcissa confided, "_until my mother showed me how much easier it was to get people to do things my way when I phrased the truth in ways that appealed to them_."

"_You are a politician_," Sumu said neutrally.

Narcissa smiled sweetly. "_Not exactly, dear: I am a politician's _wife_. I set things up so that my family can take advantage, without ever being noticed or suspected by those who believe themselves to be in power._"

"_I am in your hands_," Mjӧlnir said earnestly, bowing over her glass of juice. "_Please teach me_."

"_And me_!" Doninha begged, eyes sparkling with eagerness. "_Please Madam Asphodel_?"

Narcissa smiled at both girls. "_I would be delighted to_," she said, completely honestly. It would be a pleasure. Even though they had a different sort of magic, they clearly weren't worthless Muggles.

* * *

Translations

Boia = hangman, executioner (Italian)

Mjӧlnir = the hammer of Thor

Sumu = poison (Swahili); mist, fog (Finnish); to be completed (verb) (Japanese)

Bourreau = executioner (French)

Gwasgedd and Doninha are both mentioned in earlier chapters; 84 and 89 respectively.


	103. Chapter 103

Beta'd by the curious Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of changes and new arrivals **

The second pregnancy went very differently to Dorea's first one; part of that was that she was older, had come into her Magical Maturity and was only expecting a single child rather than twins. The rest however was entirely down to the child itself –a boy– who was already giving her more trouble than the twins ever did before even leaving the womb! No morning sickness, thankfully, but Dorea's moods were highly volatile and very potent for the entirety of the second half of her pregnancy. When she wasn't throwing crockery and fireballs in abject fury she was either cackling manically or sobbing miserably, with occasional forays into passionate enthusiasm, black depression and giddy glee. It was _exhausting_ and disconcerting to be so completely out of control.

Little Hector James proved to be no less effort after being born at the end of November: whenever he was awake he _screamed_ unless Dorea was holding him. It was utterly ridiculous and completely senseless –Aunty Andy had checked and there was nothing wrong with his health– but Dorea humoured her tiny bald baby son because at least he was _quiet_ when cradled against her chest or strapped to her back. Sometimes she could hand Hector off to someone else –usually Blaise– after he fell asleep on her, but the moment he woke up he instantly noticed it wasn't Mummy cuddling him, making him wail again and they were back to square one.

Dorea had the house-elves make a sling for her so she could strap her fussy baby to her body and keep her hands free, then went about her normal duties wearing Hector like a three-and-a-half-kilogram accessory. Neither of her twins appreciated the loud interloper, but since Hector slept most of the time she was carrying him –although he nearly always woke up when she tried to hand him off to somebody else even for a moment– she was able to devote her attention to Marius and Cassie without interruption during story-time and meals.

It's at night that things were trickiest: Hector screamed constantly when she tried putting him to bed in the cradle in the nursery, still whimpered and wailed when she moved the cradle into her bedroom out of desperation and only quieted completely when she had the house-elves jury-rig the cradle to hang over the headboard of her four-poster. It was ridiculous but it _worked_ and Dorea had been quite willing to do _anything_ to get a decent few hours sleep by that point, as it was one in the morning. She refused to place the cradle beside her on the bed; this was her _marriage_ bed and that side belonged to her husband even though he'd never seen it, let alone slept in it.

That they were preparing to move to Sicily at the same time as she was dealing with being the single mother of a newborn –again– did not make things any easier.

* * *

Bastiano was concerned for his Principessa. In the two weeks since her second son had been born she had been unable to hand off the baby to anybody else for more than a few minutes –and even then she had to take little Ettore back as soon as he woke up– and it was wearing her down. She still had not recovered fully from giving birth, yet neither the move to Sicily nor her baby son would cease their demands on her time and he did not like how pale she was becoming.

He was standing in for his Principe so that the public would not know of the man's indisposition; Bastiano however was _certain_ that no self-respecting husband would allow his wife to wear herself away to nothing as his Principessa was doing. So the sixteen-year-old decided on the most appropriate course of action, hardened his heart and approached Prince Blaise. He did not make a request.

"Prince Blaise, the Principessa _must_ rest. There is no reason whatsoever why she should be involved in the move to Sicily; all involved are perfectly capable of managing without her input. She's still recovering from the birth of her son and I won't see her continue to struggle like this." Bastiano refused to recognise any of the social and moral niceties that had been taught to him; the Principessa was the most important person in Sabina and when their Principe returned he would judge them on her treatment. Allowing her to run herself into the ground benefitted nobody and watching it happen was making him want to beat those involved bloody, so it _had_ to stop.

The prince gave him a long look, then shook his head. "Thank-you, Bastiano," he said ruefully, "for bringing it to my attention. I suppose we've all got so used to Rhea making everything happen that we've forgotten she has limits. I'll take over the move and get some more of the Principessa's people in to help her with the kids."

The teenager nodded; it was acceptable. "I'll go and distract her while you get everyone in position," he offered; the Principessa was still learning about how the Zabini did things, so it wouldn't be too hard to suggest something enjoyable but low-effort for them to do with her twins.

* * *

After Dorea's latest husband-double has left the room Blaise quietly banged his forehead against his desk before scribbling out a dozen letters, summoning a house-elf and having them sent off. They needed Rence back in the Manor supporting Rhea –he did it better than any of the rest of them– Draco could take over negotiating adjustments to business management schedules, the Prewetts could problem-solve as and when issues arose, Hermione could take a week off work to help Daphne with the logistics, Ginny and Luna could entertain the little twins and Dawn, Deborah and Hildegard could deal with the political side of things. Odile and Trish were already packing up the laboratories and the many, many volumes of notes on various research endeavours, Padma was securing the library and Barty was deciding which of the Magical Creatures would be taken with them to the Sicily Estate and which would be left behind. All of them could do a little bit more to help out since most of them were moving there alongside Dorea anyway.

Blaise was fairly sure the thestrals would follow Dorea regardless –an entire herd had showed up at Potter Manor shortly after she accepted the title of Lady Peverell– but the hippogriffs and griffin populations were more sedentary while the various winged horses needed to be stabled appropriately and there was limited grazing room at the new estate. Then there were the wyverns already living in the area and as for the Black Owls… well, Moros and his kin would do whatever they wanted and everyone else would just have to deal with it.

* * *

Talbot was perfectly happy to give Rence an entire _month_ off, which Rence really hadn't been expecting but the alchemist ring-smith had laughed and told him that he was just-about at Journeyman level now, so taking a month off was in order. This way when Rence got back, he could start on his Journeyman project straight away. Incidentally, what _did_ Knight have in mind for his Journeyman project?

Rence already knew what his Journeyman project was going to be; he'd decided that back when he started his apprenticeship, in vague terms at least. He was going to make two sets of rings for Dorea's Guardians to wear, because of course his Lady was different to the usual Sky and had _two_ of each Guardian-type, plus various others tied by lesser bonds. Rence wasn't sure why Dorea was like that, beyond not knowing she was 'supposed' to limit herself to just six, but it could just as easily be magic at work; the Green Knight suspected it _was_ magic at work, specifically Family Magic, hence his decision to make two sets of rings. The rings would be in two different designs, to signify their being tied to her Potter side or her Black side, and there'd be cadet rings as well for those tied by less all-consuming bonds. The Potter rings would match the first ring Rence had made for himself showing the stylised Potter griffin, while the Black rings would match Odile's: a thorny platinum knot around a gem. It would be a massive challenge to make so many matched rings in the best possible alloys with high-quality gems, but after it his apprenticeship would be over and he could finally return to Dorea's side full-time.

Of course in order to do all that he needed to spend time with all the people he was planning on making rings for, examine his Lady's wedding ring –so the new rings matched it and could Harmonise with it as otherwise there was a risk of shattering the gems– and find the most appropriate gems, but a month was plenty of time to fit all that into, especially when the month included Christmas. Dorea expected _everyone_ in the Command Team and the graduated members of the Constellation to drop by during the Christmas period, if just for tea and a few hours conversation. It meant that Christmas in Potter Manor –or on the Sicily Estate, as that was where Christmas would be celebrated this year– was loud, chaotic and wonderfully reminiscent of all those Hogwarts Christmases of their childhood, which was part of why nobody argued with Dorea over the arrangement.

This year Christmas had a new addition: little Hector James Potter, the Heir Potter. But as Rence discovered fifteen minutes after arriving back at the Manor, Heir Potter seemed to have made it his life's goal to drive his poor mother completely insane. Nobody had a clue _why_ the baby got hysterical the moment Dorea handed him over to somebody else, or even how he could _tell_ since he was asleep most of the time what she attempted it. Dorea was clearly having trouble bonding with her son as a result, even though she clearly _wanted_ to bond with him.

Having spent the better part of four years around Flame-Active people, working on his Earth-Sense and completely mastering his control over his Flames so that they didn't affect his alchemy work unless he wanted them to, Rence was very, very good at sensing other people's Flames, things that reacted to Flames and noticing _how_ various things reacted to Flames. There was a difference between merely having an instinct for something and fully training that instinct so that you knew what you were seeing; Rence had reached the point that he not only knew _what_ he was seeing, he knew _why_ he was seeing it. Most Flame-Active people always had a low-level burn going on: it was a tiny pilot light compared to the inferno of active usage, but it was still there. Some people kept that inner flare burning hotter than others, but few people ever snuffed it out completely.

Rence had needed to learn to snuff his own out, as some alchemical processes were so sensitive that even a touch of his own Flames could ruin them. It was much harder to reignite Flames after snuffing out that little spark, which was probably why people instinctively kept it burning, but now he could do it Rence had more control over his own Presence than most people ever managed.

Watching his Lady and her two-week-old son with that in mind, Rence noticed that little Hector actually _had_ that tiny inner pilot light already lit; he was Flame-Aware, if not necessarily Flame-Active. Possibly because his mother was Flame-Active and had been using those Flames during pregnancy to work out the 'Vanishing Door' concept and create working prototypes, which were even now being used to speed up the move. He was also a Sky like his mother, meaning he was probably resonating with her Harmony and had been even in the womb.

… That might explain why he got so loud when she got more than a metre away from him: he couldn't sense her anymore and panicked. Hector probably didn't even realise that what he was sensing _was_ his mother; he just knew that the world was suddenly colder and lonelier.

"Rhea?"

"Yes Rence?" His poor Lady looked frazzled.

"I think… could you hand me Hector for a moment?" The dyed greenet asked, holding out his hands.

Dorea eyeballed him, then sighed and gently lifted her sleeping son out of his sling and passed the baby to him. Rence carefully held the newborn against his chest and, as Hector stirred and whimpered, reached out to his Sky through his Flames. Dorea's Flames automatically reached back along the spiritual pathway binding them together that was not impeded by distance or understanding, resonating with Rence's own Flames so that her Harmony sang in his soul.

Hector settled and went back to sleep. Dorea stared.

"How?!" She demanded in an incredulous whisper.

"Hector's sensitive to your Flames; it might be because he's a Sky too. As I'm reaching out to you right now, my Flames are resonating with yours so I feel a bit like you do. Those of us bonded to you all resonate a little bit like you, but when we reach and open the connection we resonate a lot more like you do. Blaise is the most naturally 'attuned', possibly because he's with you most of the time," Rence explained, cradling the sleeping toddler against his shoulder.

"So it's to do with this 'Guardian' thing the Mafia are so obsessed with," Dorea sighed. "Well, since it obviously _works_ and we're going to have to learn to deal with it anyway…" she collapsed into an armchair. "Can you give us all a talk about how the Mafia thinks the Aetheric Soulfire spectrum works and why?"

"Of course I can, Milady," Rence said easily. It would be no trouble at all and as the discussion was bound to include Hermione and Trish, it would give him a chance to properly articulate the hows and whys of the various things he'd learned and uncover any gaps in his understanding.

"Wonderful. I'm going on a ride around the grounds; I'll take Barty with me. Let me know when Hector needs feeding?"

"I will do. Have a nice ride, Rhea."

His Lady kissed him on the cheek in passing. "You're a life-saver, Rence."


	104. Chapter 104

Beta'd by the felicitous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of propaganda and fallacies **

The audience for Rence's 'talk' on the last day before the move was complete wound up being considerably more numerous than he'd initially anticipated. Of Dorea's bonded Guardian-candidates eleven out of twelve were present –Theo was still employed by the Vongola and acquiring valuable intelligence– plus a further twelve of those less closely bonded and seven of the Earth-natured Constellation members. Not to mention the almost-complete contingent of Black cousins and the eight Zabinis who all appeared just as everyone was settling in, forcing the group to relocate to a larger room…

Once everybody was properly settled and the house-elves had brought in drinks and cake, Rence walked up to the large freestanding whiteboard the Prewetts had set up for him and tapped it gingerly with a finger. It responded immediately, stripes of colour sliding down from the top with little pictures like the BBC's weather forecast symbols appearing in each stripe except the central orange one. Jerry, for once, seemed to have done exactly what Rence had asked him to without bribery being necessary. Possibly because Dorea had requested it; Jerry was always ready to offer his assistance if Dorea needed it.

"Right, everybody ready?" Rence started, glancing around the room to make sure all those inclined towards taking notes had pens and quills at the ready. "Good. Please don't interrupt me while I'm still explaining things; we can discuss everything properly at the end." That was mainly directed at Hermione and the younger Slytherins, all of whom would not hesitate to rip apart the assumptions upon which the Mafia had built their understanding of how Flames affected personality.

"Okay; we'll start in the middle, with the Flames of the Sky. The most famous Sky Flame User was Ambrogio Selinunte, commonly called Giotto Vongola and the founder of the Vongola, which later because the most influential Mafia Family in Sicily. Giotto was a bastard son of Raphael Maltese, a wizard who raped a young witch called Maria Selinunte back in sixteen-eighty-one. Maria was then taken in by a couple who belonged to a minor branch of the Potter Family and left her son with them when she went on to marry Christopher Potter, the then-Heir Potter, five years later. Giotto grew up in rural Sicily, founded a vigilante group to protect the locals from the gradual collapse of law and order and took on the name 'Vongola' aged eighteen, naming himself after the group he had founded."

Rence paused. All the information so far had been dug up by the Zabini researchers and Dorea's forays into Potter Family history and was factual. Now it was time for him to move on into speculation and extrapolation. Tapping the orange stripe on the board, a colour sketch –provided by Theo– appeared, showing a tall, blond-haired, orange-eyed man wearing a white cape.

"Giotto Vongola is still considered the pinnacle of everything a Sky is and should be: calm, strong and accepting with a keen intuition and considerable natural charisma. The Sky Attribute is therefore considered to be Harmony: a Vongola Sky understands, accepts and influences those possessing any other Flame-type. Vongola Skies are also expected to have one Guardian of each Flame-type, who collectively assist with the running of the Famiglia and the protection of their Boss. In the Mafia Skies are therefore expected to lead, to reach out to others and put others at ease by accepting them as they are."

Rence tapped the screen again, making the sketch vanish. "However, as well all know, being a Sky does _not_ mean a person is automatically a gifted leader and it certainly doesn't make them a pacifistic live-and-let-live doormat." He paused until the chuckles had died away. "Being a Sky does not make a person charismatic, although the Harmony attribute does grant them a certain level of insight into others' motives and behaviour. It also does not force them to accept the actions and motives of others; rather the Harmony attribute makes a Sky into a natural diplomat, enabling them to explain people's behaviour and motives in terms that others can easily comprehend. A strong Sky can also use their Attribute to subtly push their own agenda upon others through the Harmony aspect, forcing those others to resonate with them rather than changing their own resonance to fit others' expectations."

"Therefore a more accurate summation of the role of the Sky is that of Comprehension: a Sky's Harmony enables them to immediately understand the position and intent of those they encounter. What use they put that understanding to depends on their own situation, personality and agenda." Dorea had effected great changes in those around her in the pursuit of her agenda in Hogwarts, partly deliberately but largely incidentally.

"Next are Storms." Rence tapped the red stripe, bringing up a sketch of a pale, magenta-haired and red-eyed man with a red tattoo covering the left side of his face up to just under his eye and a rather sullen expression. "This is Luigi of no known family, called G; a childhood friend of Giotto and later his right-hand man. He was hot-tempered, street-smart, impetuous, fiercely loyal and relentless against his enemies, but also a bit naïve and not particularly subtle. Vongola Storms are therefore expected to be 'continuously at the heart of the attack, a furious storm that never rests'. Regardless of this Storm Guardians are also frequently tapped to be right-hand men or women of their Boss, which isn't always as good a fit as it might be."

Another tap had the sketch of the pink-haired Storm vanish. "Our research shows that Storms tend to be persistent; it may possibly be their attribute of Disintegration manifesting to drive them forwards in spite of hindrances. They stick stubbornly to their chosen course of action until they have cleared all the obstacles from their path. They are driven, sometimes to the point of obsession, and have little patience for those who are less dedicated or lacking in vision. Rather than relentless fury, a Storm is actually most gifted with Motivation or Ambition: they set goals for themselves and will not rest until those goals are fulfilled. They are also willing to work incredibly hard in the face of continual opposition to pursue those goals, disregarding the opinions of others and meticulously exploring all possible avenues of advancement."

"I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that both the Black Family and the Zabini Family tend towards producing Storm-natured witches and wizards in the main line of inheritance."

That last comment prompted a sustained murmuring among Rence's audience, which the Knight took advantage of to drink some water.

"Next up are Clouds," Rence said clearly after setting his glass aside, silencing the whispers as he tapped the screen to bring up a sketch of a distinctly Malfoy-ish blond with a scowl wearing a black coat. "This is Alaude Le Tellier, high-ranking member of King Louis XIV of France's covert intelligence group and a minor wizard trained from childhood to serve his king. A loner of considerable personal power and deliberately emotionally distant from anyone that might compromise his loyalties, he is considered to be part of Giotto's Guardians despite never actually aligning himself with the Vongola's interests. His operation in Sicily was definitely sanctioned by the French King, as Louis XIV had a claim on Sicily through his wife and with the gradual fall into ruin of Spanish territories under Charles II of Spain, gaining goodwill with the local powers and maintaining order was certainly worth keeping an agent in place for."

"Most of that however was unknown to the Vongola; they simply believed Alaude was as loyal and devoted to Giotto as the rest of the Sky's followers despite his preferring to maintain an emotional distance and the appearance of independence. Therefore a Vongola Cloud is expected to be 'aloof and drifting, protecting the Family from an independent standpoint and whom nothing can ever bind'. Again, a fallacy founded on the unique personality and circumstances of a single notorious individual. Research suggests that rather than Detachment, the primary Cloud quality is Loyalty. Specifically that each Cloud decides fairly young what is they wish to devote their lives do and then spends the rest of their life defending it. It might be a specific location like a town, a concept such as justice or even a faith. However in defending whatever they have pledged themselves to Clouds are single-minded, ruthless and relentless. They have a lot in common with Storms that way, except that Storms _pursue_ where Clouds _protect_. Clouds are generally more given to thinking their way around obstacles than ploughing through them, which is another major difference from Storms."

Rence made the picture of the medieval Cloud vanish with a tap, then tapped the indigo stripe on the left-hand edge of the screen to bring up a picture of a well-dressed, indigo-eyed aristocrat with blue-green hair. "This is Daemon Spade, Spanish-Italian aristocrat of the minor Spade family" –Rence pronounced it 'Spar-deh' as the surname actually meant 'swords' rather than having anything to do with gardening tools or card suits– "and probably the most infamous Mist in Mafia history. He underwent a drastic personality change after his lover was murdered by enemies of the Vongola and is believed to have forced Giotto Vongola to step down in favour of his younger and more militant half-brother, Ricardo Zabini. However before then Daemon was the epitome of a well-bred, well-educated and reasonably moral aristocrat who despised many of his fellow nobles for being utterly useless wastes of space and failing to do their duty to their vassals and society."

"The Vongola ideal for Mists is 'to create something out of nothing and nothing from something; thus bewildering the enemy, to render the Family's true form intangible with deceit'. Mists are therefore considered deceitful above all, as likely to betray an ally as destroy an enemy and are subject to constant low-level suspicion. None of which does the Mafia any favours, as being treated like that would make anybody act out. A more accurate term which Mists embody is Belief: anything a Mist believes in, they can Create. They are shaped both by their own beliefs and the beliefs of those around them, making them volatile and occasionally unbalanced, but above all Mists are artists and like artists everywhere, they are temperamental and given to strong emotions because it is in expressing themselves that they create masterpieces."

Another tap vanished the portrait of the Mist and Rence took another sip of water before walking to the other end of the whiteboard. "After Mist comes Rain, which is where things get interesting." This sketch showed a Japanese man in traditional samurai dress of the Edo period. "This is Ugetsu Asari, or Asari Ugetsu as he is properly called in the Japanese manner; a man who somehow managed to leave Japan around 1695, violating the Sakoku Edict of 1639 which banned Japanese persons and ships from travelling abroad. Most amazingly he them managed to get back _into_ Japan twenty-five years later with Giotto, two fellow Guardians and a few family members of said Guardians despite foreigners being banned from entering Japan and Christians being heavily persecuted, although by that point the laws concerning foreign literature had relaxed a bit." Rence with great difficulty prevented himself from going more in detail into Ugetsu's background; that was more personal interest that strictly Flame-related.

"Ugestu was friendly, easy-going and soft-spoken, with a calm manner that made him an excellent peace-keeper within the Vongola. He was also a musician and preferred to avoid violence whenever possible. The Vongola ideal for Rains is 'to square the accounts and wash away the blood spilled; the Requiem Rain'. This a very limiting perspective, as it implies that Rains are only useful _after_ everything has gone wrong when their skills and Tranquillity make them the best people to send in at the beginning, to prevent things going wrong at all. Rains are sensitive to undercurrents, particularly emotional undercurrents, enabling them to find the path of least resistance to a desired goal. A Storm will power through obstacles, a Cloud will strictly follow the route their priorities sets before them and a Mist will create a whole new way, but a Rain will meander casually through a political minefield without ever faltering." Rence had watched Dawn and Blaise do it and it wasn't any easier to believe in person.

"Rains embody Empathy: they are aware of the emotions of others and act accordingly, either to calm and put others at ease or to provoke and enrage. They are less aloof than Mists, who while sensitive to others are more self-contained. What a Rain does with that Empathy is a matter of personal choice, just as a Cloud chooses the focus of their loyalties and a Sky may put their Comprehension to any purpose their see fit."

The portrait of Ugestu vanished at a tap and touching the green stripe brought a very different sketch up. "This Lampo Ruffo, fourth son of Domenico Ruffo, Prince of Scaletta who was a member of the Sicilian parliament and a very wealthy land-owner. Lampo on the other hand was a spoilt coward, utterly ignorant of life outside his father's estate and very lazy." The sketch showed a rather handsome young man with green hair, blue eyes and a winning smile. "Records suggest he ran away from home because he was bored, got rescued from bandits by Giotto's group and then joined the Vongola because he didn't want to return home in disgrace. However Giotto made him fight on the front lines, which Lampo did regardless of never having been trained.

"Records say Lampo fought 'with hidden ferocity', which suggests he was terrified out of his mind and acting on instinct in the hope that he'd survive to the end of the fight." Rence took a quick sip of water; he really did not approve of this little slice of Vongola history. "Since then the Vongola has described Lightnings as 'taking the damage to the Family like a lightning rod', which has prompted the Mafia to train their Lightnings as meat shields, suicidal berserkers and sacrificial lambs. The way they are treated is barely a step up from cattle and is definitely a step _down_ from how they treat their pets: brainwashing from early childhood is the norm and female Lightnings are taught that their value to their Family lies exclusively in their ability to produce a good number of Lightning-natured children. Most die before ever reaching thirty."

Rence paused again, breathing slowly through his nose. Ranting would not solve anything. "The truth is that Lightnings have incredibly quick processing of sensory inputs; in any situation where a mixed group are surprised, the Lightning will react first, not out of impulse but because they have already taken in all the facts. Their choice of action may be more or less sensible, but that is a personal matter. If the Lightning _knows_ that it will take their fellows a little while to catch up, it only makes sense that they will draw hostile attention to themselves: they are aware and prepared, which the others are not. However a more violently minded Lightning may simply attack rather than stall for time.

"Therefore the primary quality of Lightnings is Responsiveness, which they can apply in any way they see fit and to whatever field pleases them. Of course speed is no guarantee that the response is appropriate, or even that they've drawn the right conclusions, but that is beside the point."

"Last but not least, Suns." Rence called up the sketch of a large, burly black-haired man wearing a cassock and a red stole. "This is Padre Maeleachlainn Benítez Ní Lochlainne, better known in Mafia circles by his prize-fighting name of 'Knuckle', a Spanish-Irish priest and former bare-knuckle fighter. A powerful athlete, he killed an opponent in a fight aged seventeen, was instantly appalled and entered the Catholic Church, eventually becoming a priest and being sent to Sicily to serve. The church he was sent to was in an area under Vongola protection and he fought alongside them on numerous occasions, although never for more than three minutes at a time." He had also used his old stage-name rather than 'Father Malachi', which was what he was referred to in Church records and correspondence. That it had gone unnoticed was pretty unbelievable.

"The Vongola states that 'by destroying the misfortune that attacks the Family with their own body, they become the Sun which shines brightly upon an area', which implies that any Sun disinterested in physical combat is somehow inferior. However the true quality of Suns is Persistence, which is somewhat helped along by their Attribute of Activation: Suns don't generally get bored with whatever it is they have chosen to do with their life. They apply this gift to everything and anything, which means that Suns are likely to do well even in areas that don't come naturally to them, simply because they refuse to give up. Many Suns go into athletics because poorly-managed Flames in their bodies make them energetic, but that does not mean that physical combat is the only way they can serve their Families. The same goes for healing, which is frequently considered to be the only other acceptable method for Suns to 'destroy misfortune'."

Rence tapped the screen for the last time, making the sketch vanish. "The various Flame-types all share some attributes with those adjacent to them on the colour spectrum, although Sky is the odd one out as it shares aspects of _all_ the other types. However Flame-type, Attribute and Quality are only a small part of what makes a person an individual, so generalisations should be avoided. Cultural background, family history and early experiences all shape a person as much as their innate personality does, so putting people in boxes based on their Flames is a really poor strategy. Now, questions?"

* * *

'Giotto' is a common diminutive of 'Ambrogio', but Giotto's surname and the names and backgrounds of the other Guardians belong to Insane Scriptist and I.


	105. Chapter 105

Beta'd by the frivolous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of flirting and unexpected gifts **

Christmas in the Varia Mansion was always utterly insane, because you couldn't have so many brilliant, powerful and slightly cracked people in one place without things going a bit sideways. Generally little things, like Territories under the mistletoe that trapped you in them until you snagged somebody passing by and kissed them, low-level contact poisons on the door handles, carol-singing Curses on the stairs and variously adulterated food left lying around, but the little things could add up if you weren't paying attention. Apprentices and mooks were the ones worst hit by the festive season, but the worthwhile ones learned from the experience so Squalo couldn't see the point in attempting to get everyone to rein themselves in. It was the holidays, they were allowed to kick back and cut loose; letting the Varia have its fun was better than becoming the target of the ire of everybody that celebrated the holiday and it wasn't like Squalo didn't enjoy the holiday madness as much as the next person.

The Rain Officer was returning from a trip to the Vongola Mansion –being interim leader of the Varia meant having to deal with Nono on a semi-regular basis, sadly– and had so far avoided three cunning tripwires, four Territories, six casual poisoning attempts and three Curses, all situated in the Front Hall and around the Main Staircase. Squalo dodged two more traps, another Curse and pointedly ignored a jug of eggnog on the way to his office, the door of which was exactly as he'd left it. Opening the door, the swordsman stepped inside–

–and was promptly glomped by the Mist Squad Leader, knocking him flat on his back with the horror fanatic straddling him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders like steel bands.

"Squalo!" Kuchisake crooned, snuggling against him and breathing hotly against his ear. "I've got the most _delicious_ gossip to share."

Squalo could feel his face heating up as her breasts brushed his chest and the insides of her thighs gripped his waist. His hormones had abruptly and unfairly started to make his life hell three weeks previously and the Mist Squad Leader had instantly made it her mission to get him to blush, trip and stutter at every possible moment. She wasn't the only one doing it either; all the Varia Ladies found his affliction hilarious and were making an effort to embarrass him to death. So far he'd managed to keep some pathetic semblance of control over himself but his reactions were getting _worse_ and his own mind was gradually turning against him. It was horrible!

Lussuria was no help –he thought Squalo's condition was _cute_– and Bel would just laugh at him when he found out, so the swordsman was attempting to keep things under wraps for as long as possible. He knew Nilla had noticed as it had been at one of her tea parties that his hormones had first surfaced, but she hadn't made a move yet to either take advantage or offer his succour; she was probably enjoying the show, damn her.

"What is it, Kuchisake," Squalo gritted out, muscles uncomfortably stiff in an attempt to get his body to do what _he_ wanted it to rather than what the crazy chemicals running amok in his bloodstream wanted it to do.

The creepy Mist giggled, which made her body quiver very _interestingly_. "Ooh, you'll _love_ it, _Captain_," she whispered breathily, waving a hand to shut the door so they had relative privacy. Not that it helped the unfortunate Rain Officer keep his brain on track at _all_; his awareness was seesawing between _threat_ and _trapped_ and _want_ and _sex_ so erratically he was starting to get a headache. How could his body doing this _ever_ be a good thing?

"So?"

Kuchisake pulled back so she could pout at him, her elbows wedged against his shoulders. It hurt and he was about to yell at her to get off him when he noticed this angle gave him a _perfect_ view down her cleavage and his brain stuttered. Of course she noticed at once and giggled at him again. "Ooh, naughty Captain! Like what you see?"

Squalo snarled, because right now words were eluding him. Kuchisake grinned creepily and flopped down on top of him, wrapping her arms around his torso and pushing them across the floor towards the door. Squalo's brain froze up on him again at the feel of softness-muscles-pressure and the odd earthy, musty scent with a hint of old iron that Kuchisake used as a perfume mixed with a hint of feminine sweat and musk.

The eighteen-year-old Rain Officer blinked twice and twitched in an attempt to clear his head. It sort-of worked, in that he became fully aware of the fact he was now sitting with his back against his office door, the Mist Squad Leader straddling his lap and peering up at him from under her eyelashes, the evil smirk plastered across her face exacerbated by the half-Glasgow grin.

"What do you _want_, Kuchisake?" Squalo demanded, then winced because he'd walked right into that one.

Thankfully the horror fanatic did not jump on his poor choice of words, although her delighted smile indicated that she was sorely tempted and would probably remind him of this at some point later. "Guess what I've found out!" She singsonged, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

Squalo tried to think of things that would prompt Kuchisake to lie in wait for him in his office rather than hunt him down or just text him; all of the Varia had cutting edge mobile phone technology these days. Texting had become popular very quickly for sending short notes even if some people mauled various languages because they couldn't use accents, umlauts or just plain didn't have the right alphabet available. The lack of the former led to very odd and frequently obscene texts as not using diacritics changed word meanings, but the latter resulted in pouty and whiney Varia.

However texts did really cut down on the number of things that required meeting in person. If it was confidential enough to require his office…

"You caught Ottabio doing something rattish?" The swordsman asked. Kuchisake, despite not being an Officer, was aware of the other Officer's distaste for the last remaining relic of Tyr's reign. She was also aware that Squalo and Mammon were united in their quest to find something concrete they could nail the slippery bastard to the wall for. Squalo not actually being Varia Boss meant he couldn't just kill the man out of suspicion then investigate afterwards; the swordsman was 'just' an Officer, despite being Xanxus' official second-in-command, so he needed evidence first. The Varia did have rules, few though they were, and it was a Rule that Officers couldn't kill each-other unless they had actual physical documented proof that the other Officer was betraying the Vongola in some way.

Kuchisake sighed. "Alas, no." She pouted, then brightened; "it's almost as good though. Guess who can't use his shiny new ring at _all_?"

Squalo perked up. "Ottabio?"

"Exactly right! It's nothing to do with the ring itself either; he made an excuse to swap with Údar and it made not a scrap of difference. Isn't that _interesting_, my sweet _mangō-taniwa_?"

"Do you think it's to do with personal incompatibility with the gems used or that there's an underlying cause?" Squalo asked, the puzzle of the Cloud Officer's inability to use the new rings making it easier to wall out the Mist Squad Leader's flirting and his own body's betrayal.

Kuchisake sat back on Squalo's thighs and pouted, arms folded under her bust and giving a bit more lift to her cleavage. "That's the tricky bit, isn't it? If it's incompatibility then Cavaliere's not delivered what he promised and it needs fixing, as other Clouds will have the same problem. If it's not that though, that implies there's something in the rings that is preventing the Cloud Officer from making use of them. I had good _hard_ look at mine out of curiosity and there _is_ something there, but I don't know what I'm seeing because it's embedded in a way my Flames can't affect without possibly destroying the ring entirely. I think it's Lightning-work, but as I've never actually _seen_ Lightning-traps before now I've got nothing to compare it to." The creepy Mist huffed, bouncing lightly in place and sending lightning shivers up Squalo's spine.

"I'll set up an appointment with Cavaliere and ask," the Rain Officer promised, removing his own ring and rolling it thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger. It worked perfectly for him; in fact he'd tried out all the Rain rings and the Mist rings and they'd all been incredibly responsive and had a significant amplification effect on his Flames. That was the point of the rings, after all.

"I'll hold you to that, _Captain_," Kuchisake whispered breathily, leaning into his chest so she could breathe the words directly into his ear before she abruptly got off him, lifted him to his feet and let herself out of the room. Squalo stared after her for a second before realising what he was doing and abruptly closing the door again; no matter _what_ his libido thought, he was _not_ interested in the Mist Squad Leader that way. Just _no_.

* * *

Setting up an appointment with Cavaliere turned out to be unexpectedly difficult, as since Squalo did not have an invitation to Talbot's workshop he had to ask Nono for permission to use the private phone-line connecting the Vongola Mansion to the ring-smith's home. It then turned out that Cavaliere was away preparing for his Journeyman Trials and wouldn't be back at the workshop until late January at the earliest. Deducing that the Green Knight was spending Christmas with his Lady, Squalo very respectfully asked if Talbot could pass on the message that he had questions about the rings Cavaliere had made for the Varia and would like the apprentice to get back to him at the greenet's earliest convenience. After that, all Squalo could really do was wait.

Waiting wasn't fun. Squalo did at least manage to verify that yes, there was something odd going on with the rings –a 'curious little Clause' Mammon called it– and Ottabio really could not use his at all, but still wore it because he didn't want his underlings noticing and taking it as a sign of weakness. Sumu and Údar had still noticed though, although neither of them was inclined to kill him and take over the Officer spot. That was a bit sad, but Sumu was still pretty new and Údar, while an excellent General Manager, intended to retire in a few years and didn't _want_ to be Officer. There were other Clouds in Cloud Division with the strength and cunning to kill Ottabio but none of them wanted to deal with the hassle of being in charge of all the _other_ Clouds either, so Ottabio remained in power and a thorn in everybody's side.

Waiting also meant having to deal with Nilla's fellow Harpies, two of whom had taken his abrupt descent into hormonal insanity as their cue to flirt with him over tea. Initially Squalo hadn't been sure what they wanted, but the verbal sparring was amusing and distracting in a not-so-bad kind of way and it hadn't taken him all that long to realise that they liked him. They weren't passionately smitten or anything ridiculous like that; they just thought he looked good and were interested in getting up close and personal in an intimate manner, both individually and jointly, provided he was equally interested. Since he'd known Chiara and Michela for years now and they were both about his age and single, Squalo didn't have a problem with it. Being able to actually _do_ something about the chemical mess his body was working itself up over might even help…

* * *

It was almost the end of January in the new millennium when Squalo arrived back at the Varia Mansion after a short mission in Spain to find Cavaliere sparring with Mjӧlnir on the front drive in front of an appreciative audience. Well, Mjӧlnir was sparring; Cavaliere was simply dodging, blocking and deflecting while giving the petite Chinese teenager tips.

In the near-month of milk runs supervising the apprentice ring-smith, the Varia involved had deflected no less than nine female Lightnings wanting to get up close and personal with the greenet. Kangaroo Squad had watched Cavaliere just as intently as they had kept an eye out for would-be seductresses, but had not learned anything that really counted as useful. The 'green brick wall' complaint had come up regularly: Cavaliere mostly stayed in the workshop, which was protected somehow against Farsight, never did any combat practice where they could see him and only left the farm to go shopping, either on foot to Santa Christina Gela or by car to Marineo. He generally made two foot trips per week and one car trip per fortnight. He also vanished completely off the face of the earth every Friday night and reappeared again on Monday mornings, which was inexplicable but was probably due to him spending weekends with his Lady.

All in all, the four different teams who had made up Kangaroo Squad had been united in claiming that the apprentice ring-smith was being boring on _purpose;_ some wit had even claimed that watching the sheep was more interesting, if only because they moved about more and due to Talbot interacting with them. His tendency to sing annoying songs had also been mentioned several times, as had his habit of cooking for his watchers and leaving the food on windowsills. It had been good food and not poisoned, but that apparently was adding insult to injury. Only the Varia…

Squalo was privately rather amused by Cavaliere's apparent talent for riling people without actually _doing_ anything. In fact, the Rain Officer rather had the impression that Cavaliere had been attempting to be polite and considerate by feeding his watchers and not showing off anything he might be ordered to kill them for seeing later. The singing might have been habit, in which case him singing songs according to what was going on around him was probably normal. If Cavaliere was usually alone on the workshop for hours on end then singing to pass the time and ward off boredom made perfect sense.

Although apparently there was such a thing as too much Sting and the Police; three of the recently-named Lightnings and two of the Storms were _still_ humming bits and pieces of various tunes while doing paperwork without realising they were doing it. They always got very huffy about it being brought to their notice too; maybe inflicting other people with earworms was something normal Lightnings could do? Making a tune Hard to forget couldn't be much different to Doninha's admittedly-hilarious stunt of making herself Hard to ignore and walking on her hands along the banister rail in a skimpy bikini while Mjӧlnir picked people's pockets, then using the money to bribe Mammon for ideas of other things 'Hardness' could be applied to.

If both were examples of Lightning-humour then it wasn't as bad as all that.

Cavaliere noticed Squalo first, but didn't let his guard down for an instant or give away that their audience had been increased by one. Mjӧlnir noticed a few moments later when Cavaliere dodged in such a way that she could see the Rain Guardian across the roughly defined ring.

"Captain!" The tiny Lightning said brightly, lowering her fists and letting the Flame constructs around them fade away. "Welcome back!"

"Good to be back," Squalo replied easily; "I'll be borrowing your sparring partner though as we've things to discuss."

Cavaliere simply nodded, letting the Flames dancing along his arms fade away as well. He hadn't been using his shield, but then again Mjӧlnir probably wouldn't meet many shield-users in the field so helping her with her hand-to-hand was more useful to her. It was an unexpectedly altruistic thing to do, but Boia and Asphodel were meeting up with both female Lightnings on a monthly basis so maybe one or other of them had asked him to lend a hand? Women tended to network like that, spinning intricate webs of who-owes-who and passing favours back and forth along the delicate threads. Squalo had no idea how they managed to keep track of everything and suspected he'd be better off not asking.

The apprentice ring-smith followed the Rain Officer into the building and up to Squalo's office, easily avoiding all the various traps lying around the place, most of which were geared towards Flame-Active people since inconveniencing the sort-of-civilian members of Housekeeping was something Tyrant was prepared to kill people for. That was pretty interesting; generally a person needed Mist Flames in order to 'see' traps like that.

Once inside the office Squalo closed the door, used a touch of Mist to keep people from eavesdropping then removed his ring.

"So," the swordsman said casually, "it turns out one of my men can't actually _use_ his ring, despite there not being anything wrong with it. Care to explain?"

Cavaliere's expression barely changed, but there was a distinct sense that the Lightning was very pleased about something. "You are an assassination group," the ring-smith said calmly, "so I expect internal power struggles are somewhat frequent. However as a ring-smith it would be irresponsible of me to supply your Boss with weapons that his underlings could use against him. So the rings' functionality is conditional on their loyalty to the Varia Boss, whoever they perceive that boss to be."

Not a perfect system by any means, but it did mean that Squalo had _proof_ that Ottabio was a rat if not actual evidence of the nature of his betrayals. Over half of the current Varia probably considered Squalo to be 'Varia Boss' as they'd never met Xanxus, but that wasn't really a problem as Squalo was loyal to Boss and if they were loyal to him then it all worked out. Xanxus wouldn't have any trouble capturing everybody's loyalty once he was defrosted, after all.

"So this little trick is a professional pride thing?"

Cavaliere unbent enough to grin sheepishly. "I also wished to see if it was possible to build a causal-conditional circuit into a ring that would work off the user's Flames regardless of type," the greenet admitted. "I was certain that, regardless of functionality, the rings were uncontaminated by Flame residue, so learning that it works is very pleasing."

So, experimental pseudo-Mist-work worked into the _physical_ structure of the ring and powered by the Flames of the person using it. Very clever and rather scary; there was a _lot_ of potential for really terrifying traps in there, ones the victims would activate for themselves. If Cavaliere wasn't so nutty about his Lady and already Talbot's apprentice, Squalo would have offered him a Varia Contract then and there.

"Is the situation to your satisfaction, Captain?" the greenet asked.

"Yes, fine; good luck with your Journeyman Trials," Squalo said, actually meaning it. Cavaliere was _interesting_ and once no longer an apprentice might be willing to accept commissions for things _other_ than rings.

The greenet bowed. "My thanks; I wish you good fortune in all your endeavours." Then he left, somehow side-stepping the Mist-barrier keeping the room soundproof rather than dispelling it. Squalo frowned after him thoughtfully; if trained Lightnings could slide through Mist-work like that, both the Mists _and_ the Lightnings had a lot to learn still.

The incentive would do both Divisions a world of good.

* * *

Translations

Údar = hit, blow, strike; stab, attack (Bulgarian)

mangō_-_taniwa = man-eater, referring to a shark (Maori)


	106. Chapter 106

Beta'd by the supportive Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of old friends and curses **

Lóng Fēng, Storm Arcobaleno and master of over a hundred different martial art styles, gazed thoughtfully at the letter that had been brought to him by the haughty great grey owl that was currently feasting upon a fresh fish fillet. It was over thirty years since he had last seen Lady Lùlù and although they had maintained sporadic correspondence since, he had not mentioned his cursed state to her. Mostly so as not to have her hunt him down to see what exactly he had done to himself and attempt to lift it; Fēng really did not want to have to explain Lùlù Pruit to his fellow Arcobaleno, because there really were no words that could properly express the elder lady.

Fēng had been introduced to Lady Lùlù –the kanji used meant 'rare jade deer'– by his mother, who had owed the slightly older British woman a debt. Something to do with a jiāngshī, a Blessing and his little sister; his mother had not clarified further. He had been nineteen at the time: young, confident and hot-headed. Also ignorant; Fēng blushed to think of how he had come across to both the Lady Lùlù and her husband Lord Nèizhòu. His mother had set him up for a lesson in humility and he had learned it very well: who was he to judge the skills and capabilities of others? All were gifted and many gifts were unperceivable to the eye. Had the Lady and her husband –whose name was written 'internal eternity'– not been so incredibly brilliant and capable Fēng would have died, regardless of the strength and skill he had been so proud of.

He had learned a great deal from the couple, about the history of his own people, about Curses, about Magic, about tactics, about strategy and about the power of politeness; that politeness he had learned to make use of himself. He had also learned to be wary of the incredible power of eccentricity and unconventional solutions, both of which were completely beyond his reach but were no less perilous for that. Lord Nèizhòu might have been able to talk rings around land owners, mages and warriors without ever losing his charming and respectful smile, but Lady Lùlù was almost universally dismissed as a threat after fifteen seconds into her cheerful chatter concerning legendary beasts and peculiar historical theories. Fēng had himself dismissed her as a weak-minded fool, right up until he'd seen her vanquish the six-thousand-year-old curse he had carelessly triggered during the archaeological dig his mother had ordered him to supervise.

Lady Lùlù had then given him the dressing down of a lifetime and threatened to turn him into a yak, which Fēng had taken seriously as after seeing her vanquish an animated ceramic army and destroy a tiger made of fire it had seemed all-too-possible. It still seemed very possible, which was why Fēng was reluctant to simply write back a polite refusal claiming pressing duties.

The woman who had taught him about magic –despite his being incapable of using it– would be nearly seventy-five now. Fēng should have been fifty-three, except that he had been stuck in the body of a toddler for twenty-five years now. He was also currently responsible for the three-year-old daughter of a recently-deceased former student. I-Pin really needed a stable and secure environment to begin learning in and Lùlù's request would provide him with one. It would even provide his xuétú with peers to learn alongside…

Reaching for paper and brush, Fēng set about writing a polite acceptance of Lady Lùlù's invitation: he would be travelling to Britain to meet with her concerning the possibility of providing instruction in self-defence to her niece's children. Should Lady Lùlù's niece agree to allow him access to her children then he would bring I-Pin along and find somewhere in Europe to settle for a year. As he would have a paying job he would be able to avoid his fellow Arcobaleno and the Mafia entirely, as they would not expect him to be there and such contact had the potential to be detrimental to I-Pin. His xuétú was not yet strong enough to defend herself, so avoiding those who might attempt to use her against him was only sensible.

* * *

Fēng was not entirely sure why he'd been so worried about Lady Lùlù's reaction; the first thing the elegant white-haired woman said to him in the tea house he had suggested for their meeting was:

"My dear wănbèi, I have missed you so! Do tell me what has occurred to have placed you under such obvious pressure."

The way Lùlù had said the word 'pressure' indicated she meant 'physical pressure' rather than stress or distress; considering how she was eyeing his toddler body and rubbing the back of her wrist, she also wanted to do something about it. Fēng knew that absent-minded movement meant she was itching to pull out her wand, but was too polite to do so. He also found her word choice intriguing: the idea that the Arcobaleno curse had _compressed_ him rather than _de-aged_ him was a new and rather fascinating one. He would have to mention it to Viper sometime; the illusionist had always been the one fixated on breaking the curse.

"I too have missed you, qiánbèi," Fēng admitted, returning her bow. "Let us sit and speak of what has passed in the time since our last meeting."

It turned into a very long discussion, with a great deal of tea being drunk and many different subjects being discussed. Fēng touched briefly on the circumstances that led to his being cursed –omitting his fellow Arcobaleno so as to preserve Omertá– then spoke more in detail about his travels, his students, his relatives and his current apprentice. Lùlù in return spoke of her family, the books she had written to pass on the understanding of ancient cultures that she had acquired, the political mess that had only recently been resolved in Great Britain and how it affected her request.

Fēng made an effort to memorise the appropriate pronunciation of her name and those of her husband, heirs and niece; it would not be appropriate for him to use the Chinese versions when in Europe.

"Regardless of whether or not my niece decides to request your assistance in the training of her children, I would be delighted to host you and your apprentice in my home for a year," Lucretia said warmly. "I am currently writing a treatise on historical Chinese Warding and how it changes among the various different peoples and ages: your perspective would be most welcome. I am writing it in Mandarin, for publication in the Hidden City." The Hidden City in Shàngdū was the Magical counterpart to the Forbidden City in Beijing and the centre of Chinese Magical culture and history. Strictly speaking Magical China was more of a loose confederation rather than an actual nation, but the Hidden City was open to all and any kind of violence was forbidden there, so as to preserve neutrality. You couldn't even swat a fly, the Wards were that heavy.

Assisting with such a book would also benefit Fēng, as it would provide his Clan with influence and esteem in the Hidden City and provide opportunities for those Mages born into the Clan to catch the eye of the Masters they wished to learn from. Of course his helping would benefit Lucretia too: her book would be better for it, improving its chances of reaching a wider audience. While wary of those who offered freely for no clear reason, a mutually beneficial –if generous– arrangement with one of his mother's long-time friends was something he was willing to consider.

"I would be pleased to place myself at your disposal, however meagre my knowledge may prove," the Storm Arcobaleno said with a small smile. "My mother has also expressed a desire to drink tea with you, should it not be inconvenient of course."

"I would be delighted," Lucretia said with a smile of her own. "Would it be an imposition to join her for dinner?"

"Not at all; we would all be honoured." The Lóng Clan had all benefitted greatly from their association with the two Curse-breakers who had saved the life of their current matriarch. Having her share a meal with them would also serve to remind the young and foolish that the stories concerning Lady Lùlù's various exploits –as well as her husband's myriad achievements– were not the tall tales many of the more materially minded dismissed them as. Truly, the Communist Party had done so much damage to the imagination, ingenuity and vision of those who had grown up in its shadow…

* * *

A week later, in early March, Fēng seated himself at the small table in the beautifully appointed suite in the home of his hosts the Lord and Lady Prewett and made himself tea as he pondered the day's events.

Lord Nèizhòu –Ignatius– had lost all trace of red in his hair and was suffering a receding hairline, but was otherwise still looking very well and was remarkably active for a man of his advanced years. Both he and Lady Lucretia were still impeccably fluent in Mandarin Chinese and had made a point of engaging his little ward in conversation, coaxing the three-year-old out of her shyness in record time. Although that might partly have been the little suite with everything at a perfect height for toddlers to use, including the chairs, tables, bath, sink and toilet; most hosts were not so considerate.

The only things that were not at toddler height were the small stove with its cast iron tea kettle and the adjacent countertop, so that I-Pin would not burn herself by accident. She could still do it on purpose –he was teaching her agility after all– but that was different.

As he waited for the kettle to boil Fēng considered Lucretia's niece, Dorea. He had not been expecting a young Sky, especially not one so incredibly different to Luce, the only other female Sky the Storm had ever met. Fēng had made a point _not_ to meet Aria, the current Sky Arcobaleno, because after Luce he much preferred to keep his distance.

The Giglio Nero line were rather well known in the Underworld for their inheritance through the female line and their ability to see a little way into the future; Luce had to have _known_ that the man in the iron hat intended to curse them but had said nothing. Seeing a future did not make it inevitable, anymore than seeing a future meant it _had_ to happen. Destiny was a tricky thing, both flexible and strong, and in keeping her silence Luce had betrayed them all. Fēng had been in the process of Harmonising with her when they were forced into the bodies of Toddlers and had deliberately distanced himself from her thereafter. A Sky who would take away their elements' right to choose was not one he wished to associate with, slightly Harmonised or not. Making peace with that slight but persistent Harmonisation had taken him long enough, afterwards.

Luce's death ten years ago had been painful, which was part of why Fēng was determined not to meet her daughter. He did not want to find himself Harmonising again.

Lady Dorea Potter-Black was the antithesis of Donna Luce Giglio Nero. She was young –not even twenty– where Luce had been a few years past thirty and had a full complement of Guardians where Luce had been utterly without ties.

In retrospect Fēng should probably have been suspicious of a Mafia Sky who had managed to reach thirty without forming a single Guardian bond; what did that say about a Sky, after all?

Lady Dorea displayed a level of semi-overt manipulation in her dealings where Luce had always shown nothing but gracious altruism and acceptance. The young woman who was considering the advantages of having him tutor her pre-school-age children very clearly had an agenda, but it was an agenda Fēng was not opposed to in the slightest. Every good parent wanted the best for their children. That Luce had _allowed_ herself to be cursed, _knowing_ that she would pass on the curse to her then-week-old daughter, was a severe indictment of her character. That she had been able to hide her machinations so deep that her Guardians hadn't noticed was another one.

Luce had been a very passive person; she had preferred to take on the role of peace-keeper of the Arcobaleno rather than leader, a position she had left to Reborn. She had also been very live and let live, never taking offense and always forgiving insults and slights. Lady Dorea on the other hand was quite strongly emotive and instinctual, not to mention innately critical. She had not at any point taken anything Fēng had said or done at face value, had asked incisive and pertinent questions and made it very clear that _she_ was in charge of her children's education, not anybody else. No matter _what_ those 'other people' thought best.

It was rather novel to be argued with on the subject of martial arts and Fēng had actually enjoyed it. The vast majority of his previous students and those students' sponsors had simply accepted his decisions, so it was pleasing to have somebody who wanted to know _why_ he had chosen one art over another to teach a pupil. It showed investment and interest, both of which were encouraging: it suggested Lady Dorea was not one of those parents who wished to force their children into socially-acceptable moulds so she could put them on display.

The children were utterly charming: dragon-and-phoenix twins with strongly distinct personalities and tastes. The boy was stubborn and steady where his sister was impulsive and volatile, but each twin was constantly keeping an eye on the other and they balanced each-other out very well, even at the tender age of four. Both were intelligent, articulate and driven, so were likely to do very well if their mother agreed to allow him to tutor them.

The father of the twins was however not in evidence; Fēng had initially believed the man who had arrived with Dorea to be her husband, as he shared a considerable physical resemblance with her children, but the twins had addressed Blaise Zabini as 'Uncle' and a closer look at his and Lady Dorea's interactions suggested theirs was a more sibling bond; in-laws perhaps? Possibly their relationship was one that had developed depth and strength due to the absence of the Lady Dorea's husband, as closer scrutiny revealed that the young woman had a subtle but profound aura of sorrow around her. A recent death then; as the twins had a three-month-old baby brother, it had likely been _very_ recent. The twins were not anywhere near as distressed as their mother though, so perhaps the missing man had been a rather absentee parent. Then again, to a four-year-old a year was an incredibly long amount of time and the death could easily have been that long ago.

All things considered, Fēng rather hoped the Lady Dorea decided in favour of him tutoring her children. He had a feeling they would be extremely rewarding to teach.

* * *

Translations

jiāngshī = Chinese hopping vampire (Mandarin)

xuétú = apprentice, student (Mandarin)

wănbèi = junior, younger person (Mandarin)

qiánbèi = elder, older person (Mandarin)

Shàngdū = the (ruined) city of Xanadu, a former capital of China in Outer Mongolia


	107. Chapter 107

Beta'd by the precious Insane Scriptist.

This is the last chapter I have ready so I'll be taking the usual break to build up a buffer.

* * *

**Of uncertainty and the passage of time **

Within the Vongola and all associated organisations, the last week of June was Quiet Week. It was Traditionally when books were balanced, accounts were squared and extraordinary expenses had to be justified. No missions were accepted, no meetings with allies were booked and no social events took place. Despite the Italian fiscal year ending on the 31st of December since 1965 and the busy period for accountants now falling right after Christmas, Quiet Week hadn't moved. It was Tradition by this point.

Among the Varia, Quiet Week was the only time of year other than Christmas when just about everyone would be in HQ, so quite a lot of administrative things got done then. Anybody planning to retire within the year would submit the appropriate paperwork, Squad Leaders had meetings to discuss efficiency and productivity, Squad rosters were reworked or given a seal of approval to continue for the coming year, training seminars took place and there was a half-yearly auction of various looted items and craft projects, overseen of course by Mammon. The other half-yearly auction had been fixed on Boss's birthday since the not-a-coup, so as to allow the Varia to celebrate the day unofficially.

Being currently in charge of the Varia despite not actually being Boss, Squalo had his own Officer paperwork to do _and_ the boss-paperwork on top of that. He also had lots of things to worry about now he wasn't so busy he didn't have time to really think things through, which didn't help much.

When Boss had been put on ice there'd been one-hundred and seventy-seven Varia, Officers included. That had been nearly five years ago; of those seventy-nine had died or retired since and out of the several-hundred recruits brought in from abroad or picked up more locally, one-hundred and seventy-one had made Varia Quality; the rest had either died or gone into Housekeeping and stayed there. That meant almost two-thirds of the current Varia had never met Xanxus at all. Oh, they'd certainly heard stories –passing down tales of the accomplishments of previous members was Traditional after all– but hearing about Boss second-hand could not possibly compare to the real thing.

If they didn't get Boss back within the next eighteen months, enough of those newcomers would be in Squad Leader positions for Xanxus to have to win everybody's loyalty all over again. That would be bad, not to mention messy as nobody knew what kind of effects spending so long frozen solid in a block of Zero Point Breakthrough Flames would have on somebody. Federico had handed over copies of various Vongola documents back in January: up until now, nobody had ever been frozen for more than a week, and that had been Primo doing it. Later Bosses had limited it to a few days, long enough to clear up the mess and get people together for a proper tribunal… or just notify the Vindice and leave it to them.

Assuming that there would be no long-term damage or strange side-effects after _five years_ spent on ice when the longest previous testing period was barely _seven days_… Nono was definitely _well_ past his prime. He probably hadn't researched the matter at all!

Squalo had passed on suitably stripped copies of that information to the Zabini, as they'd asked him for information on the Zero Point Breakthrough back when he'd seen them last November. That they'd asked gave the swordsman hope that they were independently investigating ways to defrost Xanxus, which was really good and indicated things might not be as hopeless as they seemed. The Varia couldn't do it, as the only Sky they had was Tyrant and the way the Head of Varia Housekeeping used his Flames was completely different to the Mafia norm; Tyrant wasn't explaining why or how but Squalo suspected it had something to do with the pointed lack of 'Guardians' the former Boss had. Federico Vongola could do it either –although Squalo had recently learned that the Vongola Heir genuinely _wanted_ his brother back– so the Vongola Heir was currently trying to teach himself the Zero Point Breakthrough, with limited success. Part of that was being old and set in his ways, part of it was not having a teacher but most of it was the Vongola Heir being just that damn busy learning about the inner workings of the Famiglia and jumping through the various hoops Nono was setting up.

All in all, Squalo did not get the impression that Nono would be defrosting his Boss before Federico became Decimo; he also did not get the impression that the old man would be stepping down all that soon. At this point it looked increasingly like the only place Nono would retire to was the grave, which was a very old-school Varia sentiment for somebody who wasn't even Varia.

* * *

Retirement was a funny subject in the Varia. It had only really taken off as a career choice after Xanxus had taken over; before then Varia who could had no longer met the Quality standards generally either returned to their Famiglia or committed suicide. Being left at loose ends like that added to the abrupt curtailment of social interaction and the general loss of purpose was enough to make it feel like a good idea, especially if they didn't have a Famiglia to fall back on. There had been a few here and there who had followed Tyrant's example and joined Housekeeping, but they had been few and far between and generally filled such vital positions that the change in career was not disdained as a step down; weapon-smiths and Curse Specialists, for instance, as well as a good chunk of Medical.

However then Xanxus had come in and seriously shaken up the Varia, reducing its numbers by about a fifth, and the subsequent coup-that-wasn't had left Squalo with a sudden glut of maimed but otherwise still-Quality Varia with no way of replacing them. Squalo's response had been to _order_ those people into Housekeeping, as trainers for the apprentices and mooks, to assist with gathering intelligence and as all-purpose support for the Varia still in the field. There'd been no way of replacing those people as nobody worthwhile had been applying to the Varia that year, so keeping all those ex-Varia on had been vitally necessary to keep them all afloat.

This had the unanticipated but very happy effect of turning retirement to Housekeeping into a viable post-Varia career, as the staff felt they were doing necessary and challenging work that made good use of their hard-earned skills. Then when Squalo went on his world tour Mammon had expanded the number of post-retirement careers available by setting up various ex-Varia as house-sitters in new Varia-owned properties around the world. Having at least one safe-house in every country they had a client base in was only sensible after all, and all the better if the person living in the house was a native. The retired Varia got to live inside Varia-level security free of charge, wrote reports on local goings-on, engaged in a spot of smuggling of luxury or specialty items according to what the rest of the Varia asked for, kept fit and generally felt useful.

Suicides among former Varia had plummeted dramatically; where before it had been seen as 'the best remaining option' by some it was now considered cowardly, selfish and pathetic by the vast majority of the Varia. Worse, it was proof that the retired person who had killed themselves had never been truly Quality at all, as they'd lacked flexibility and vision. An utter and final condemnation of their Quality.

The net result was that despite the Varia _officially_ numbering two-hundred and sixty-three assassins, there were a further one-hundred-and-nineteen former Varia who answered to Tyrant as part of Housekeeping, half of whom were spread across the world and keeping Information appraised of various local happenings. Those people weren't technically Varia anymore, but they still fell under Squalo's nominal authority; not that the swordsman was about to interfere with Tyrant's decisions in that area.

Squalo was very pleased about this new aspect of Varia culture, particularly because due to the amount of physical effort required, assassins accumulated a gradually increasing quantity of low-level damage to their bodies over the course of their Varia career, particularly in joints and around injuries. This meant that most Varia retired around the age of thirty –some sooner, some later depending on their personal circumstances– and despite lacking the _physical_ requirements for Varia Quality, they still had all the _mental_ ones. Relocating to Housekeeping gave retired Varia an opportunity to hone other skills without losing contact with their support network of former colleagues. It also gave them the chance to pass on their hard-earned skills to the next generation of apprentices, which was really important to Squalo's mind as it meant that when those apprentices graduated to the mook pool they had near-Quality skills and just needed a bit of experience to round them out before being declared Quality. It was more efficient and reduced the casualty rate of the mook pool, which in turn improved their image and meant less wastage of time and effort, so they really got their money's worth by retaining so many former assassins as part of Housekeeping.

All this thinking about value for money proved the swordsman had been spending far too much time with Mammon recently.

* * *

Two days later Squalo was slumped on his couch with a bottle of cask strength single malt Scotch whisky and a decent sized glass. He had finished the paperwork but unfortunately for him, his brain had been chewing over another matter in the background and defeating the bureaucratic process had freed up his consciousness for the thought that had up until then been bubbling quietly in the background.

Namely, how old would Xanxus be once he was defrosted?

Squalo had always thought of Boss as being eighteen months older than him, because that was the length of time between his birth-date and that of his Boss. Boss was older than him, had more vision that him, was stronger than him and far, far more brilliant than him; that was just how it _was_.

Except that the documents he'd read and handed over a copy of to the Zabini had specified that, to a frozen person, it was as though no time had passed between their being frozen and their being released.

Of course that might just mean the victim was unaware of time passing, like they were in a coma or something, but the possibility remained that being frozen by inverted Sky Flames might mean that _literally_ no time passed for the victim. It certainly made more sense than the person growing and aging while on ice, because if that happened wouldn't they starve to death? Then again, if that _was_ the case…

… if a person really didn't age while trapped in ice, Boss was still sixteen. _Sixteen_.

Squalo remembered being sixteen; it hadn't been all that fun. He'd been away on his world tour –in Japan with Kuchisake for his actual birthday and hadn't _that_ been an experience– and his lasting memory was that the only people who had taken him seriously had been his fellow Varia and the Chinese Triads. Everybody else had looked at him oddly for being European, being young, being in-charge of his fellow Varia and generally being utterly unlike anybody they'd ever interacted with before.

It had been incredibly frustrating, especially when civilians had patronised him. He'd spent a good half of that year feeling moderately irritated at the entire human race for being moronic trash.

Thinking back, Squalo could see that Xanxus had felt like that too, with added fury due to one of the people not taking him seriously being Don Nono, having been blatantly _lied_ to –also by Don Nono– and people generally treating him like a rabid dog then being shocked when he bit back. So that was like fury squared, with added Wrath Flames.

The thing was, Squalo _wasn't_ sixteen anymore. He'd grown up, grown into himself, earned respect, proved to himself that he could do the whole Captain thing and was actually pretty settled now. He didn't _want_ to run the Varia until he retired, but he probably _could_. He was certainly better at it than Tyr had been: it said a _lot_ about how capable Tyr _hadn't_ been that, even aged barely fourteen and with no Varia experience whatsoever, Squalo had _still_ been considered a better Varia Boss than Tyr. If Squalo _hadn't_ been better, the other Officers wouldn't have let him take over the political shit; but they had, which said that as a barely-teenage Rain, he'd been better at running a House than a twenty-eight-year-old man with seven years of experience. It was pretty pathetic when you thought about it that way.

Boss was probably still sixteen though. Still sixteen, still less than a year after learning his entire life was a lie –so it would still _hurt_– and barely hours from having successfully mounted a not-really-a-coup on the Iron Fort. Boss still didn't know the details of that: who had died, who had been crippled, who had managed to continue their career. Who had proved they were Varia Quality and been named in the aftermath.

Almost five years of gradual change later and Squalo wasn't sure that Varia was anything like it had been back then. Oh, it was still the Varia and they still killed people in impossible ways for money, but the culture was totally different. About ten times more cosmopolitan than it had been back then, which of course meant the Varia was even _more_ alienated from the Vongola and the rest of the mafia, because the mafia was a very insular organisation. It was an _Italian_ Underworld phenomenon and really, that made it about three times more xenophobic then the average rural Sicilian. _Squalo_ got funny looks for being ghost-pale with a distinctly un-Mediterranean bone structure, for God's sake! Never mind that he was a born-and-bred Superbi and his family had been here since the seventeenth century…

Squalo believed that Boss would approve of what he'd done with the Varia. However the swordsman also had a feeling that it would take Xanxus as long again as he'd been on ice to get used to the changes.

It wasn't a good feeling.

He really needed to get blind drunk, so he'd stop caring.


	108. Chapter 108

Beta'd by the inestimable Insane Scriptist.

Yes, it's time for a new week of updates! This is a trickly point in the story as I'll be starting in on KHR canon -well, my version of it- soon and I wanted to get all my loose ends tied in.

* * *

**Of guardianship and harmony**

Dorea was feeling restless; her twins were four now and had started their education. They had physical education three mornings a week at Prewett House with the miniaturised martial arts master Great-Aunt Lucretia had vouched for and normal lessons the other two weekday mornings and all five afternoons. Nothing heavy yet; just learning to read in English and Italian, recognising numbers and number bonds to ten, as well as lots of arty and hands-on things like learning the names of plants and minerals –in preparation for needing to memorise potion ingredients– and being introduced to how to care for animals. Basic, easy things every child should be able to enjoy learning.

Dorea had intended to ask Mandy Brocklehurst if she'd be interested in tutoring the twins, since Mandy had expressed a desire to teach and had recently acquired a Charms Mastery, but Odile had volunteered herself when it had been mentioned over dinner and that had been that. Dorea had no objections to the Crocodile teaching Marius and Cassie –Odile was very patient with children despite not suffering fools at all– but suspected that the only reason the older woman had volunteered was that Mandy was a Cloud and Odile had developed territorial feelings for the twins.

That Odile was willing to cut her workshop time down to less than half in order to supervise the day-to-day doings of Marius and Cassie suggested she was pretty seriously attached to them really. It also suggested to Dorea that Odile had actually Harmonised with _her_, because otherwise the Crocodile would not have felt her territory being impinged upon by the Lady Potter's suggestion to have another Cloud –despite said Cloud being a Constellation member– on the Estate. Odile didn't have any issues with Hermione, but then again Hermione Black-Prewett was out more often than not, either in Sabina working on learning on all the laws of the Principality or with Jerry in the Laboratories at the other end of the Estate from the house. Dorea also didn't think Hermione had actually Harmonised with her; they got on fine and were family, but no more than that.

Odile on the other hand was almost always in the house and had been at Potter Manor too, either in her lab, the library, walking around the grounds or keeping her duelling skills up to scratch in one of the training rooms. Dorea hadn't been expecting the older woman to get attached, so maybe that was why the Crocodile had done it? Abraxas' book had contained a few rueful mentions of 'contrary Clouds' so that might have been a factor…

* * *

Rence had finished the two sets of Guardian rings in May, but Dorea still hadn't handed them out yet, despite it being early July: she was still making up her mind about who she wanted to put in official Guardian positions and who would do better in the background, where they could take advantage of the lack of scrutiny to better advance the Family agenda.

Jerry and Frank for instance would be better off not being recognised as Guardians, as they spent most of their time inventing and having to attend official functions and schmooze would just make them both act up. Jerry was actually Harmonised with her, but Dorea didn't see that as a reason to put him in a position he would be uncomfortable with. In fact, all the more reason to let him do his own thing! He knew what she liked, how she thought and what she actually needed, so him lurking in the background rather than standing in the foreground was all the better.

Besides that, Dorea was actually Harmonised with _three_ Mists but only had two Mist Guardian rings, so obviously even if she stuck to Harmonised Mists somebody was going to have to take a step back and since Jerry actually had a full-time job and a business to help his twin run, he wouldn't mind doing so. Rence had already made rings for both Prewetts anyway, so it wasn't like Jerry or Frank was losing out there.

Then there was the matter of who would get a Potter Guardian ring and who a Black Guardian ring. That was not a trivial decision: the Potter Guardians would have to abide by the traditional values of the Potter Family and the Black Guardians by the values and Traditions of the Black Family, which were very, very different. The Potters were more orientated towards peace, social and technological advancement and working the system, where the Blacks were all about conquest, subjugation and terrifying others into submission.

In her mind Dorea was calling the Potter set 'the Peace rings' and the Black set 'the War rings', because thinking of it like that made the differences more clear-cut. Then there was the additional difference of how the rings were intended to fit into the inheritance process, considering they would be Family heirlooms; Rence had initially intended for all the rings to be personalised, but faced with the issue of inheritance he had gone over all his calculations again and picked out different gemstones.

The Potter rings would pass on to Hector once he was old enough, for him and his potential future Guardians to wear and use or to be put in storage awaiting a future Lord or Lady Potter who awakened their Soulfire. The Black rings would not however become part of that Family's inheritance because the Black Family Magic was quite strongly tied up in Storm Flames, so it was highly unlikely any future Lord would be able to use them. Marius was a Storm and a set of Sky Guardian rings would be less than useless to him. The Black rings were therefore her personal set, a means for Dorea to keep the people around her safe for as long as it took for her to keep her promise to Death.

Dorea _had_ made a few decisions, but some of those decisions had resulted in her having to go back to Rence and ask for _more_ rings, which had further delayed the handing-out process.

There was Padma, for instance: Dorea wanted her as Peace Rain, but the Indian girl did not have the Flame capacity to make effective use of the large-gemmed ring Rence had made. So Dorea had talked to Rence, who had talked to Padma and so the Potter Rain Ring had been put away in the Potter Gringotts vaults and replaced with a set of blue spinel studs. Four small blue gems set in gold, for Padma to wear in her ears, nose and lower lip. In theory Dorea could have chosen Dawn, but her elder cousin was thoroughly entangled in Magical politics as the proxy in the Black Wizengamot seat and loving every minute of it. Dorea did not want to take that pleasure away from her cousin and besides, she was personally more comfortable with Padma as a Guardian than Dawn, so Padma it would be.

The other person in need of a non-standard item was Luna: Dorea wanted her as Peace Mist, but again giving Luna a ring with a large gem designed to _focus_ and _magnify_ her Flames was just _asking_ for trouble. Luna had enough problems keeping her Flames suppressed as it was! So another Potter Guardian Ring had gone into the vaults and Rence had made a ring set with a large, polished turquoise for Luna to wear.

* * *

Next there was Dorea's ongoing dilemma concerning Suns: there was Leo, who was probably best suited to being War Sun; Draco, who could go either way; and Tracy, who was best suited, personality-wise, to Peace Sun. However Tracy was not the kind of person to be happy in a highly visible position of influence; she'd already confided in Dorea that the most she ever wanted to be in charge of was an infirmary, or possibly a medical ward. Draco had far too much on his plate already, what with research and managing his Family assets, and while the new Lord Malfoy was very good at playing politics he didn't actually _enjoy_ it. Like the Prewetts, Draco was happier being left to do his own thing, which recently had started to look like it was going to involve a few years in Sabina's College of Surgery, amusingly enough.

Leo had not yet been consulted, being out of the country, but he had recently completed his education in Japan so Dorea fully intended to talk about it to him once he stopped by. She expected him to agree to being War Sun just about immediately, as he didn't seem to have any other plans and would probably enjoy everything being a Guardian entailed. It still left Dorea short a Peace Sun though; then again, she could always ask Fay Dunbar, who was already her secretary for all things Potter and had somehow managed to acquire Muggle pre-clinical academic medical training on the side, which complemented her Sun-Flame healing talent nicely.

Now that Rence was a qualified Journeyman ring-smith Dorea did not, strictly speaking, _need_ a secretary to oversee all the Potter paperwork because Rence could deal with it all as and when, or appoint a secretary of his own. He would probably do it himself though, so offering Fay a new job was a good idea as Dorea didn't want to lose her and she _had_ sworn the appropriate oaths already, so…

That Fay was more of a trained socialite, manipulator of gossip and professional sweet-talker than a secretary and better at it than anybody else Dorea had working for her was actually a real plus: the pretty former Gryffindor had all manner of contacts back in England and would probably enjoy the challenge of ingratiating herself with whoever they ended up dealing with in Sicily once Dorea had her husband back; her being Muggleborn had the advantage that she would give less away in such a position than a Pureblood would.

The Lady Potter would _personally_ have preferred to burn the Vongola to the ground and salt the ashes once her Alexandro was retrieved, but she recognised it wasn't her call. It was up to Xanxus and she had a feeling he wouldn't let her indulge her arsonist inclinations, which was a real shame. Despite his foster-father having frozen him and left him like that for years Xanxus still had other people in the Vongola who cared for him deeply, people who lacked the resources to do anything to reverse his current state; Theo's spying was incredibly informative in more ways than she'd initially believed would be the case. Nonetheless, she _still_ wanted very much to burn the organisation to the ground, even if she had to get everybody out of the buildings first.

Resolved that she would talk to Fay that afternoon, Dorea pondered her other Guardian choices.

Blaise would of course be War Rain, just as Daphne would be Peace Storm and Ginny War Storm, even though Daphne was Black Steward and Ginny was currently out of the country mopping up rebels in central Africa. That still left the Clouds and Lightnings though.

Odile was probably going to be Peace Cloud, despite Dorea's initial choice being Hermione. That was because Hermione, like Draco, Tracy, Frank and Jerry, would much prefer not being on the front line of Dorea's interactions with the mafia. Ms Hermione Black-Prewett was a lawyer, loved her job and would be far happier assisting in the running of the Black and Potter estates than she would be if she had to delve into the murky world of mafia legal practices. Oh, Hermione would most likely involve herself when the time came, but once the dust had settled and the initial shock was over the Ward of House Black would want to go back to her other work. Odile would be swapping her personal, Black-style ring for a Potter Guardian ring, just as Rence would be exchanging his own ring for a newer, higher-quality one.

So while Hermione would be getting the War Cloud ring on a provisional basis, Dorea intended to keep an eye out for somebody suitable to replace her. Odile on the other hand was now fully integrated into the Potter household as her children's governess and would doubtless enjoy supervising them at mafia parties, discreetly scaring people shitless while doing so.

As for Lightnings… Rence would be Peace Lightning, as he had taken over from Barty and resumed his position as her primary bodyguard. Selecting a War Lightning was trickier though, as while Barty was theoretically suited, Dorea really didn't think he was sane enough for a Guardian position. He would still be getting _a_ ring of course, but Dorea's preference was to make him an official bodyguard, so he could trail after her or her children according to the circumstances and focus on _that_ to the exclusion of all else. Barty did have a silver tongue still and his duelling skills were truly impeccable, but Dorea preferred to keep him in reserve rather than make him a primary Guardian. If it ever came to outright war he would be her first choice for leading a strike team, but until then she preferred to keep him close.

Rather than Barty, Dorea was leaning towards Millie as War Lightning. Millie was sharp, cunning and surprisingly subtle for somebody who favoured a battleaxe in combat. She was also sane enough to be able to gauge accurately what Dorea would or would not like to happen and act accordingly, which was a plus. That she was already interacting with the Varia was another reason; Millie was making friends there and being a Guardian would give her friend an internal framework to fit everything into, as she would have an actual _job_ beyond being Aunt Narcissa's temporary bodyguard. It would also provide Millie with an incentive to find something to do with herself beyond 'repay Dorea for helping me', which had left the taller girl drifting a bit recently. Having a position of loosely defined responsibility would be good for her.

* * *

Fay sat down at the small wrought iron table that had been set out on the section of the terrace facing the rose garden, which was looking very good considering it had only been planted a year previously. She wasn't entirely sure why Rhea wanted to talk to her out here when she had a perfectly good office –when they each had perfectly good offices even– but it was a hot day and the breeze outside was very refreshing so she didn't mind. Fay smoothed the skirt of her sundress over her knees and sipped the cold mint tea the house-elves had laid out, glancing at the other people around the table as she did so.

On her right was Daphne Greengrass, former Heir Greengrass and current Steward Black, whose pale, slender fairness always made Fay feel plain and dumpy. Compared to Daphne's rich blue-green eyes Fay's were washed-out, compared to her pale golden hair Fay's was dull and compared to that perfect porcelain pink-and-white skin Fay was sallow and freckly. Daphne was also delicately built and elegantly slim, making Fay feel self-conscious about her thighs and arms despite _knowing_ that she was not in any way fat. Daphne just happened to be fashionably waifish. That she and Daphne were the same height didn't really help matters; Fay felt like a milkmaid sitting next to a princess.

She'd mentioned that to Terry Boot once, who had laughed and said that while princesses were pretty to look at, that kind of beauty was also very intimidating and there wasn't a man alive who didn't like milkmaids. She'd hit him with a cushion for the insinuation, but she'd still treasured the compliment. That Daphne had never dated _anyone_ did help Fay's confidence, as had her own various boyfriends and dates.

Fay's current boyfriend was Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was at the University of Oxford studying politics, so they were keeping in touch via owl and making the most of weekends and holidays. Justin would be graduating next summer and had introduced her to his parents just a few weeks ago, so she was feeling optimistic about their relationship despite the distance. From tea-time chats with Parvati, Lavender, Sally-Anne, Stephanie and others, Fay was mostly sure Justin was going to propose soon; she hoped they were right and if he _did_ then she fully intended to accept. Justin was a Constellation member so he knew all about the work she did for Rhea –well the generalities anyway– and wouldn't try to stop her working if they got married.

Justin wanted to go into the Ministry and start up some Ministry-funded primary schools, so that children from non-Magical backgrounds could be introduced to the Magical world sooner and provide support for the parents of Muggleborns. He also wanted to do something about the fact that 'Muggle' was basically a racist slur, but that was a more long-term project. One step at a time; Dorea's government reforms had really opened up the horizons and they needed to get in there quickly before the stuffy traditionalists closed them again. Fay was a so-called 'Muggleborn' too, so she whole-heartedly supported Justin's ambitions.

Sat on Fay's left was Terrence Higgs, whom everybody called 'Rence' and had done since Rhea had coined the nickname during their second year at Hogwarts so as to differentiate him easily from Terry Boot, who was also a Terrence. He was tall with curly blond hair and pale blue eyes, or at least he should have been; he'd been the tester for the Prewetts' hair and eye dyes a few years ago and had been green-haired and green-eyed ever since. Rence had been Rhea's first minion, having looked out for her and catered to her wishes since she was twelve, which had been creepy at the time but was now just a fact of life. Fay wasn't sure Rence would ever get married unless Dorea intervened on the girl's behalf, which was a bit sad considering the older Slytherin was rather good-looking even while green.

The last person at the table was Lady Dorea Potter-Black herself, sat opposite Fay wearing a very sedate ankle-length summer dress and a wide-brimmed straw sunhat, her very long wavy hair tightly coiled at the nape of her neck. Fay suspected Rhea was using Cooling Charms to avoid overheating, as it really was ridiculously hot in Sicily in July and even Daphne was wearing a sleeveless, knee-length sundress and sandals in deference of the weather. The Pureblood princess even had sunglasses on!

"So, to business," Dorea said, setting her glass aside. "You of course know all about this whole 'Guardian' business that the mafia are so into already; I'm in the process of deciding who to have as my own Guardians and I wondered if you were interested."

"Me?" Fay said, shocked. Yes, she was pretty good with her Sun Flames and enjoyed working out new and interesting things to do with them not involving healing or arson, but she wasn't in Dorea's inner circle. "Why not Draco or Tracy?" She knew for a fact _both_ of them were Suns; Tracy Davis was even studying to become a full Healer!

"Being a Guardian will have quite a large social aspect," Dorea explained, "accompanying me to various events and so on, which neither Tracy nor Draco are very keen on. Tracy wants to run a medical ward or infirmary; Draco because he can't see the point in being polite to ignorant idiots with delusions of wealth and importance. Draco's also got his responsibilities as Lord Malfoy to fulfil and his research, both of which take up a lot of his time. You on the other hand enjoy the social aspects of your job and have no other outstanding commitments, in addition to being a very capable duellist and Flame User, of course."

Fay couldn't believe this was happening to her. On the one hand, getting involved in organised crime went against her upbringing in a very moral middle-class background, but on the other… getting involved in non-magical crime was not actually illegal under Wizarding law. She knew that because Hermione had said so, possibly as a complaint. Hermione had not had a rant to accompany her disgruntled comment, which was odd and left the legalistic Cloud's opinion on the matter distinctly ambiguous. Hermione definitely had more details of the matter than Fay herself did; despite being a newlywed, she had joined Padma and Trish in researching feverishly.

Besides, Fay knew that it wasn't like Dorea was going to get _actively_ involved in crime; she preferred to keep things legal, so she had more weapons at her disposal and was not vulnerable to blackmail. Dorea had always been the one to blackmail others, more or less deliberately but quite consistently, a habit she had passed on to Colin.

"What about my other responsibilities?" Fay asked, because no matter how cool an opportunity this was she didn't like leaving things unfinished.

"Now Rence has completely finished his apprenticeship he'll be resuming full-time responsibility for all Potter assets," Dorea explained, "so your work there is effectively over; Rence might still hire a secretary, but they'll probably just be responsible for the accounts and such so your talents would be wasted."

"I'm thinking of employing a squib," Rence said quietly. Fay nodded, not sure how she felt about the change. On the one hand, she knew she would very much enjoy being on the front lines, both socially and in combat terms, but on the other she knew she had done very good work expanding the Potter interests and to be summarily replaced like this…

"This won't happen right away, you understand," Dorea added, clearly reading her feelings right off her face. "You'll want to tidy everything up, Rence has to find this prospective secretary and you have to show them both everything you've done, what your plans are for the upcoming years are and explain the reasoning behind your investment choices. But I fully plan to be in contact with the mafia by this time next year, so you have that long to get your combat skills honed and to fully reintegrate yourself with the social side of things."

Unspoken but evident was that Fay would need normal, non-Magical social connections as well as modern clothing. Well, she had accompanied Justin to a few Balls at Oxford so she had a starting point there, and surely Justin's parents would be happy to introduce her to various friends and relatives as well… they were certainly hoping that their son would be doing things on their side of the Statute of Secrecy so they could show him off to their peers, so a prospective daughter-in-law being willing to accompany them to parties and such in fancy gowns would help.

She would have to talk to Justin about this; maybe he'd propose early if she phrased it right?

"Fay?" Oh yes; she hadn't actually answered Rhea yet.

"I'd love to," she admitted honestly. Rhea smiled.

"Well then, let's go over the details then shall we?"


	109. Chapter 109

Beta'd by the established Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of love and war **

All of Dorea's chosen Guardians now had their rings and were brushing up on their duelling skills, but Dorea wasn't allowed to join in; she was still breastfeeding Hector and so had been banned from combat practice on medical grounds. It made perfect sense, as she had to maintain a certain level of weight in order to breastfeed Hector properly and the Black Family magic not only lingered in a user's body afterwards but was really bad for developing children, but it was still irritating. Then there was the added possibility of injuries that would require potions that would persist in the bloodstream and again prove injurious to her son, but really she hadn't been injured in a spar for years as the whole point of sparring was to train in non-lethal circumstances! Of course accidents could and did happen, but still!

It really didn't help her mood, as Draco and Stanzo had promised they'd have all the research ready for presenting to her come October and Theo had recently supplied her with a complete analysis of the security around her husband, so Dorea wanted to be _doing_ something. Not having an outlet for her frustration and aggression was really doing nothing for her mood and Hector, little weathervane that he was, was starting to pick up on it and being fussier than ever. It didn't help that the seven-month-old's babbling speech now included 'no!' in addition to 'mama' and 'sisi', the latter of which was what he called Blaise, Rence, Cassie and Marius interchangeably. Bastiano was 'ana'.

Being able to hand Hector off to any of her Harmonised Guardians for a up to six hours at a time did mean that Dorea was able to go riding every day, which helped, but it didn't feel like enough and she didn't really have enough bullets left to waste any shooting the guns her husband had given her just to blow off steam. It wasn't like Alexandro had expected to get frozen for years on end, so while he's given her quite a lot of ammunition it wasn't enough to last her for that long unless carefully rationed; meaning she couldn't even shoot at targets unless she was doing it with magic.

So when she noticed the flier saying that a nearby village was offering a tango class, Dorea instantly decided to sign up as it would be something to do involving actual exercise and provide a change from flame research and her various daily responsibilities. Despite still having three families –one of which was technically a small nation– a household and a great deal of businesses to oversee, she currently had more free time than she knew what to do with. Sabina was of course in Graziano's capable hands and the British Ministry was running completely independently of her and with great efficiency, despite certain people –most of them former Dumbledore supporters– calling for her imprisonment. She had proxies and secretaries overseeing both the Black and Potter Estates and as a result her greatest time commitment was currently to her three children, despite Marius and Cassie now having lessons with Odile most days and Hector being asleep a lot of the time. Really, it was about time she picked up a few hobbies again.

Unfortunately however finding a dancing partner proved problematic.

"It would be inappropriate of me, Princess!" Bastiano objected in Italian, hands waving wildly in rejection of the idea. "Besides, we do not know who else will be there! I might get mistaken for your husband and draw the attention of his vassals to you!"

Dorea, about to thoroughly quash the first objection –they were going to be doing a public class for goodness sake– sagged at the sheer reasonableness of the second one. It was true that, since they were now next door neighbours to the Varia Estate, there was a good chance of them running into Varia members, retired Varia and other people with Vongola connections in the surrounding area; it wasn't fair though! She wanted to go dancing and the tango sounded like something she could really get into!

"I'll go dancing with you," Barty said abruptly from the doorway, smiling sharply as Bastiano jumped in surprise. "I've missed duelling you and dancing's not so different."

"Barty, _thank-you_," Dorea said, dashing over to hug her Thrall. "Do have some appropriate Muggle clothing? It's twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, seven until nine, starting next week."

"Yes I do, that's no problem and I'll check the location beforehand to set up a suitably Warded Apparition point nearby," Barty said easily, hugging her back briefly before taking a small step backwards. Dorea let him; that he was willing to reciprocate at all rather than just stiffen up when she hugged him on impulse was a considerable improvement.

"Great! Fantastic!" Dorea said happily, her bangs bouncing up into ringlets at the prospect of some proper exercise even if she couldn't use magic or her sword. "I'll go let Rence and Daphne know, so they leave my time free then."

* * *

Learning to tango was actually pretty easy compared to some of the dances Dorea had learned as a child: the number of actual steps was very small and a great deal of improvisation was allowed. The particular _style_ of movement and keeping to the beat was what mattered rather than the steps, which Barty had a lot of fun with. Nothing really noticeable that would draw the teacher's attention, just little dips and twirls, but Dorea could tell his early education in dance had been just as thorough as her own.

"I'm sure we can get hold of some tango music to practice to at home," she told him as he briefly switched to moving in double-time and then back again, keeping up easily thanks to the very clear signals her dance partner was giving her. Barty was _good_.

"We don't want to forget things before the next lesson," Barty agreed solemnly, his eyes laughing at her. Dorea knew very well that neither of them were likely to forget the steps even if they didn't practice, but what was the point of learning a new skill if you didn't practice it? Besides, four hours a week was _nothing_ compared to the duelling she'd been doing before she became pregnant with Hector. That had been more like four hours a _day_.

"Hermione managed to develop a system for converting CD players to run on magic," Dorea told her dance partner as he dipped her again, "so we could go out and buy some CDs tomorrow." According to Hermione CDs were read by focused light bouncing off tiny indentations in the disc, which was easily converted to run on magic. Tape machines, which worked through magnetic signals, had been impossible to convert at all.

"Sounds fun," Barty agreed, twirling her around. "We could take one of your more musically-minded friends along; see if they'd be willing to learn a few tunes."

The idea of dancing to a live band was rather tempting really. "Jerry maybe? He's musical and would be willing to create a band all on his lonesome with Mist Flames." He might even manage to persuade Hermione to learn to tango as well…

Barty grinned. "Sounds like a plan."

* * *

Blaise stood in the doorway connecting the Sicily Estate's ballroom to the small side-chamber he was lurking in, watching his sister tango with her Thrall to semi-improvised tango music coming from a Mist-Conjured quartet conducted by Jerry. Behind the tall Italian, Daphne, Bastiano and Rence were all watching too, quietly observing the sweeping movements, sharp gestures and swift steps.

"I am so glad her husband can't see this," Blaise admitted quietly in Italian. He knew there was absolutely nothing going on between Barty and Dorea and that there never would be –Barty was physically, mentally and emotionally barred from becoming romantically attached to his Mistress without her permission and Dorea would never countenance betraying her husband like that– but knowing that in his head did not change the way it looked.

You could almost _see_ the tension. The way Barty and Rhea watched each-other like hawks, each reacting almost in the same instant that the other started a new movement; the way they always _just_ missed hitting each-other, either with arching hands or sudden changes in direction; the moments of closeness, bodies never quite touching; the way Barty grinned and the bouncing curls in Dorea's hair as her eyes shone.

Blaise knew it was the tension of battle, the singing suspense of a duel not fought, a weapon undrawn, but it still _looked _like sexual tension. Barty and Dorea both loved fighting and had a special fondness for beating the shit out of each-other in barely-legal duels, so this was a hard-fought exercise in restraint. Not quite dancing, not quite fighting, each knowing that a moment's inattention would grant the other the upper hand and the tension ratcheting ever higher the longer the game progressed.

They were going to give him grey hairs, he knew it.

"I _said_ it was inappropriate for me to do this with her," Bastiano mumbled, hand over his eyes. "How is _this_ any _more_ appropriate?"

Blaise felt for his cousin; Bastiano was still in the thick of puberty and the experience was likely to get worse before it got better what with the teenager having to keep up with his schoolwork, complete his political apprenticeship assignments and carry out his duties as Dorea's husband-double, which had recently started including Flame-training so he could participate in regular sparring with the Guardians and Shadows. That was just so much to keep track of that Bastiano hadn't been informed of more than the bare basics of what had been going on in England before he joined the household; not that the details really changed how things looked…

"Barty's her Thrall," Daphne said shortly. "That means he's incapable of feeling physical attraction for her unless she _wants_ him to. Which she doesn't, being completely committed to her husband, so he's a safe person for her to do this with." The blonde sighed. "Although I agree it looks _really_ bad."

Rence huffed in amusement. "I bet you that once she gets her husband back she teaches him to tango as a bonding activity," the dyed greenet said with a grin.

"That or he sees her doing this with Barty and cuts in," Blaise agreed ruefully. All Zabinis were possessive and red-eyed ones were the _worst_ about it. "We should probably warn him."

"Good plan; I'll make a note of it," Daphne agreed, her eyes never moving from the couple on the dance floor. "Do you think more of us learning to tango and making this a group thing would take the edge off?"

Blaise hummed thoughtfully. "It certainly wouldn't hurt," he admitted, "and Dorea getting to dance with different people would be good for her too. Her getting too used to Barty would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, which was to provide an alternative to combat practice."

"Good point," Rence agreed. "I could join the dance class and take Millie; it wouldn't matter if the Varia or anyone else noticed us as they know about us both anyway. We would pretend not to know Dorea and Barty though. Not sure how that'll work out of some of the Varia do attend, but Superbi has agreed to let us be and I haven't sensed anybody nosing around. Millie hasn't either, not even watchers at her regular meet-ups with the Varia Ladies, so he clearly has his subordinates well in hand there."

"I could take Fay?" Bastiano suggested tentatively. "I'd have to disguise myself, but that would be no trouble."

"That's a good idea; help her feel more included," Daphne agreed. "I'm sure Jerry would be keen to take Hermione and Frank would want to go with Luna."

"When do you think Frank's going to propose?" Blaise asked absently.

"I think Luna will propose first," Rence rebutted. "Who would you go dancing with, Daphne?"

"I don't know; Leo maybe? He moves well and it has been years since any of us have seen him for more than a few days at Christmas; we've got a lot of catching up to do and this would be a good start. It's a shame Theo's busy, he's a very good dancer," Daphne said. "I think Frank will propose before Hector's first birthday."

"Do you think Odile would want to learn to tango?" Rence asked.

There was a collective pause as the mental image of the Crocodile tangoing passed through their minds.

"Just when I thought she couldn't get scarier," Blaise muttered, smiling in spite of himself. "Eh, I'll ask her. Might be fun."

"Your funeral," Rence joked with a grin.

* * *

Daphne liked her new ring, the golden band shaped like a stylised griffon with a large red stone clutched between paws and claws. She both liked and disliked how easily it drew on her Flames though; a person really had to be in complete control in order not to have uncontrolled wisps leaking out. It probably didn't matter so much to people of other Flame-types, but unfocused Storm Flames were highly destructive, even in tiny concentrations, so Daphne had to make a habit of firmly dampening her reserves so they didn't trickle out when she was irritated or running on the singing edge of adrenaline. Storm Flames embodied Disintegration, and having your body constantly exposed to a form of energy that ripped things apart was intensely unhealthy. Daphne had made a point to read Muggle books on Chaos Theory and entropy for inspiration, but had only delved into biology recently and deduced that it wasn't perhaps so surprising that most Blacks died young. They were all such passionate people and despite probably not knowingly accessing their Flames, unknowing access to the destructive power of the Storm would shorten anybody's life. After sharing her hypothesis with Dorea, her friend had actually updated her Family Grimoire!

On a more positive note, her greater control meant her combat skills were magnified and the rings' properties meant her reserves were also magnified. Learning to duel without magic was tricky, but certainly extremely doable provided a person refrained from falling into the trap of believing it impossible.

Nothing was impossible; some things were merely improbable and others just exceedingly difficult. Take for example the small problem of self-defence _without_ breaking the various Secrecy Statutes: rather than moan and bleat about the impossible, the Constellation Command Team –now divided and known either as 'the Guardians' or 'the Shadows' depending on their roles– had all thrown themselves at the challenge and all come up with distinctly different solutions, none of which used obvious magic.

Daphne herself had already been studying Elemental Magic, particularly Weather Magic, which was all about ritual and impossible to work with a wand anyway, so she had found ways to integrate her Flames into her casting and come up with plausible –if completely fallacious– explanations for how she could manipulate the weather with Soulfire. Unfortunately this was utterly useless at close-range or for indoor combat, but outdoors and in open spaces she could destroy _armies_. Acidic rain, lightning bolts that _burned_ rather than electrocuted, billowing curtains of red-tinged mist…

Indoors Daphne had to use more discreet methods of self-defence, but she had those too. From the short, slightly curved daggers she had been taught to use by the ghost of a Wizarding Sicarius while she was still in Hogwarts to her own unique and non-lethal Storm Flame technique, which Jerry Prewett had, in the midst of nearly laughing himself sick, deemed 'twisted Slytherin genius!'

Storm Flames Disintegrated. They were violently destructive that way. However in low and strictly controlled circumstances, they Dis-Integrated _before_ Disintegrating, which was much more useful. Daphne had _excellent_ control and could selectively send her Flames to break things apart along pre-existing weaknesses like seams and welds, meaning that when she applied Flames to things they fell apart into their component parts.

This worked on clothing just as well as it did on weapons and very few people were comfortable with fighting bare-handed in the nude, so it was a brilliant way of taking people down non-lethally. That Daphne took a certain pleasure in the terror and horror on the faces of her victims –ahem– opponents was her own business… although that her methods had led both Jerry and Frank to regard her with wary glee was another triumph. They minded her much better now, if not as well as they minded Dorea.

Ginny had gone a different way about controlling her Storm Flames to Daphne: rather than cutting down on the concentration and attacking diffusely the redhead edged the blades of her throwing axes with a narrow but very potent whisper of Soulfire, which enabled the axes to cut through just about _anything_ no matter what it was reinforced with. That the axes were heavily Enchanted so that Ginny could control their trajectory with her mind and recall them to herself after they finally hit something and stuck… well, she was a very dangerous mid-range opponent. She was quick too, having had plenty of practice while out on the various Black-owned lands mopping up poachers and trespassers on Dorea's behalf.

Ginny had also managed to replicate quite a bit of Battlemagic with Flames, mostly the messy, destructive kind like the Skin-Melting Curse and the Blood-Boiling Curse, which she used rather liberally when fighting exclusively with Flames. Of course with Flames the intensity of the 'spells' could be controlled much better than Magic allowed, so rather than boiling a person's blood away to nothing the unfortunate subject just fainted due to abrupt heat exhaustion; killing people during sparring would be foolish and inappropriate.

Dorea of course wasn't doing any duelling, but she was still demonstrating her Flame-skills so they could plan around her and prepare for when she was no longer medically barred from taking part, which wouldn't be until Hector was weaned. Their Lady was doing a great deal of dancing with Barty to compensate for not being able to spar, which while it _did_ count as reasonably strenuous exercise did not look like something a married woman should be getting up to with one of her underlings. At least the Estate's staff knew better and was therefore disinclined to gossip about it… and Daphne felt it said something that despite the Zabini firmly approving intellectually of Barty being Dorea's Thrall, they still couldn't help wincing when they witnessed the dancing.

Fay had come to armed combat late, so generally just used her Sun Flames to replicate the kinds of combat magic she was best at, namely area effect spells and Transfiguration. However Dorea had insisted that _everyone_ needed a weapon of some kind, so Fay had done some research and got hold of a pair of Korean war fans. They were not really weapons, being made entirely of extremely dense hardwood, but after being comprehensively Enchanted to be Imperturbable and Indestructible they made excellent shields and could double as improvised clubs, provided she Activated the right set of Runes. As Fay's official Guardian title was 'Socialite' she probably wouldn't see much combat, but her modified fans would work well as a last-ditch defence and to incapacitate idiots who thought that pretty dresses, kindness and no edged weapons meant Fay was a soft target. Fay Dunbar was a Gryffindor; no lioness worth her salt was _ever_ a soft target even if they didn't get knife lessons from the older girls in their House like the Slytherins did.

Of course most Slytherins didn't have the talent and drive to prompt the Bloody Baron to call upon another ghost to instruct them in the art of the Sicarius, which was a Traditional Wizarding profession that had officially vanished well before the instatement of the various international Secrecy Statutes; practically however it had continued long afterwards, right up until quite recently. It was only in the decades prior to the Black Reforms that murdering a Muggle became a crime, as before that only Muggle-baiting had been a punishable crime and that was for Secrecy reasons; Daphne remembered that it had specifically been the charge of using magic to kill a Wizard in front of Muggles –never mind the dozen Muggles that had also died in the blast– that had been the reason the late Lord Black had been shipped off to Azkaban without a trial. Those laws still applied, or versions of them anyway since they were currently under the authority of the Magical Confederacy of Naples and Sicily, hence why they were doing their best to avoid using obvious wand magic while interacting with the mafia.

* * *

Leo was in some ways Fay's complete opposite but in others very similar: like Fay he was sociable, chatty and much sharper than he appeared to be. Unlike her however he'd been training in combat since he was a preteen and was very, very good at it; his time at 'ninja university' had honed his skills to a razor's edge and considerably expended both his repertoire and his ability to conceal it. Leo loved to play the fool, acting much younger than he was and saying ridiculous things just to get everyone to laugh. However he could also wield the truth like a blade, do things with his body, Flames and magic that Daphne had previously believed to be impossible and could weaponise _anything_. He didn't use any specific weapon, but the bronze bangles around his wrists had Runes that let him resize and sharpen them into chakrams and his skateboard was sufficiently well Enchanted to work as a shield, club or mode of aerial transport as required; apparently adjusting broom charms to work on a 'hoverboard' was actually very easy.

Beyond his chakrams and skateboard, Leo made a habit to scribble Runes on just about everything in his pockets, so an average duel would involve thrown pencils with razor-sharp points, Muggle money launched at ridiculously high speeds, keys used like claws, handkerchiefs in various colours acting as both shield and distraction and of course the ever-changing origami arsenal, which went from 'basic' things like shuriken all the way up to Engorged and animated paper animals. As Daphne had yet to see Leo at all pressed in any fight, she rather doubted he'd shown off even half of what he was capable of yet. Outside of direct combat, the only thing Leo seemed interested in using his Flames for was to somehow Activate Dorea into a better mood, so the blonde Storm wasn't too worried about him. The young Black clearly had himself well in hand.

Draco generally showed up at duelling practice about once a week, although rarely on the same day from week to week; not really often enough but more frequently than Tracy, who tended to make it to the Sicily Estate about once a fortnight due to her shifts at St. Mungo's as a Trainee Healer. Like Ginny, Draco did not use many of his newly-created Flame skills on his opponents; he simply sent them plunging into unconsciousness with a whisper of Sun Flame or threw scalpels at them. Most of Draco's visits were spent with Dorea, discussing theoretical Sky Flame applications and occasional experimentation into the more esoteric applications of Harmony.

Tracy, like Draco, did not fight with her Flames. Unlike Draco however she didn't participate in the duels at all, as her Healer vows prevented her from doing so: Magical Healers swore by the original Hippocratic Oath, not the modern version, and were required to 'comport themselves and use their knowledge in a godly manner' which referenced the old deities like Apollo and Asclepius rather than the Christian God. Any form of violence was strongly discouraged, except in the defence of a patient. Tracy did practice her accuracy and speed-duelling with targets, but when facing actual people in a spar preferred to stick to Paint Charms. She was very good at dodging and exceptionally quick, so Daphne let her be. Her friend had chosen her path and it was not Daphne's business; Tracy was only a Sun Shadow and Rhea had given her the codename of 'Matron', reflecting Tracy's desired position as person in charge of an infirmary or medical ward. The Sicily Estate _did_ have a designated medical suite, but Tracy would only get the opportunity to run it once she was a full Healer, and even then she might not want to. It wasn't like injuries were all that frequent.

Rence, Barty and Millie were all very practiced and highly capable at fighting with just their Flames, although all three Lightnings did so differently. Rence went for solid Flame constructs: tripwires, projectiles, barriers and platforms. He also Hardened his armour and shield, making him a formidable defensive fighter if limited on the offensive front. Or at least, limited that Daphne had seen; she suspected Rence had a trick or three up his sleeves that were being held back for the element of surprise.

Millie liked to use her Lighting Flames more subtly, favouring the psychological and mental applications so as to make her Hard to see, Hard to avoid, Hard to understand and whatever other difficulties came to mind. The statuesque brunette barely bothered to use Flames for personal physical enhancement at all, preferring to improve her skills with her axe through hard work –hah, pun– and persistence.

Barty however had been utterly intrigued by the more electrical properties of Lightning Flames and had come up with several dozen different ways to use that quality to replicate various spells. He'd also got very heavily interested in electromagnetism, which had led to occasional experimentation binges with the Prewetts and no small number of explosions. However persistence had paid off for the former Death Eater and he had a highly varied and rather terrifying arsenal of tricks in addition to his gladius, which he wielded with great skill. He also had no scruples in using all those 'tricks' while duelling, which ensured everybody kept their healing skills up to scratch.

Padma, like Tracy and Fay, didn't have a weapon she fought with and her Flames were too weak for her to use them offensively for combat like that. Instead Padma used Enchanted quills to draw the Arithmantic shapes which made up her vast repertoire of trap spells, or else simply used her wand, which was easily disguised as a laser pointer, hair stick or other innocuous accessory. Padma used her Flames to enhance her ability to process under fire and to augment her voice; how that worked Daphne wasn't quite sure, but listening to what she was saying in a duel was a sure way to lose. Padma disliked violence and planned to discourage it as much as possible when she couldn't avoid it altogether, so she worked hard at finding ways to talk people into behaving themselves.

Blaise on the other hand was utterly, relentlessly blatant in his combat style: Rain Flames and Water Magic together with his flamberge made him a powerful and versatile heavy hitter. That the Italian royal could now Conjure ridiculously huge volumes of water out of nowhere at the drop of a hat –or Vanish them just as easily– just made him more dangerous, especially indoors. His ability to mould and shape the water so it didn't just flow away was just the icing on the cake really, never mind the Elementals he commanded!

Daphne did not like fighting Blaise; he was just too good. Despite being above and beyond the calmest Zabini she had ever met he still shared their passion for surpassing personal limits and love of combat. Add on the inevitability of being soaked to the skin and looking like a drowned rat within minutes… well, Daphne preferred to fight _beside_ Blaise rather than against him. At least that way she stayed dry.

* * *

Hermione's only combat application of her Flames was to Multiply the force with which she hit things, either bare-handed or with whatever else she was holding: Frank had, both hilariously and infamously, been knocked unconscious by a gentle tap to the back of the head with a folded sheet of paper. Her weapon of choice was a gun, or rather guns: She had a fully licensed pair of handguns that she was permitted as a legal attorney of Sabina operating partly in the Muggle world.

Lawyers being allowed to carry arms was a recent development in Sabina, one that had been instated after the murders of two judges in Sicily in 1992. They had really just been the latest of a long series of murdered legal professionals, but two within months of each-other had got a lot of attention. Sabina's _Corte Reale della Giustizia _had decreed that, since wizards were not permitted Magical self-defence outside of Magical communities by the Secrecy Statutes, those wizards and squibs undertaking Muggle responsibilities which were judged to imperil them would be assisted in acquiring appropriate weaponry and training. Hermione therefore had two medium-sized handguns and all the necessary licences for carrying concealed in Muggle Italy and all related Magical States. She was a crack shot even without Flame-enhanced vision, but she considered the weapons a last resort: Hermione's most common application of her Soulfire was enhancing her presence to intimidate or convince people as she, like Padma, preferred to avoid violence.

Odile went about combat completely differently: golems and automata were only considered to be in breach of the Secrecy Statutes if they were _obviously_ magical, so she was creating a series of Flesh Golems that looked like –and were made from– normal animals. Most of them were dogs in varying sizes, because stray dogs were easy to get hold of. Daphne personally found Odile's Family Magic slightly disconcerting for its requirement of fresh dead bodies, preferably ones the Crocodile had killed herself in an appropriately tidy and painless manner, but pragmatically there was little difference between what Odile did and the systematic butchery of animal for food. Odile's methods were likely more humane than those used in Muggle abattoirs anyway…

All Odile's golems were Runically enhanced and some of them could do all manner of unnatural things, but when the Crocodile fought with Flames she simply Multiplied her senses and reflexes. She also Multiplied the length of her chain-whip, which was only possible to achieve without injury _because_ she had enhanced her reflexes and awareness. The chain-whip was an unpredictable and very difficult weapon, if highly versatile in the hands of a skilled user. Odile was most certainly utterly brilliant, because changing the length of a chain-whip while fighting meant changing its weight and momentum which in turn created some very interesting and unpredictable effects that Daphne had been on the wrong side of a few times.

Theo… Daphne knew nothing about Theo's combat skills because he was still off on his fact-finding mission for Dorea. Technically the mission was over –he'd found all the facts she needed and many more besides– but he would need to stay put for a further year, so as to be their inside man when the time came to break Alexandro Zabini out of the Vongola Mansion. There was also Theo's cover identity to consider, since his 'cover' was an actual real person whose identity Theo had borrowed for the duration of his mission and placing that person under mafia suspicion would be inconsiderate. So Theo would be staying where he was for another full year before departing 'for university'. Theo would then go to Sabina and provide the owner of his borrowed identity with copies of all relevant and non-incriminating memories, tie up any loose ends and then join them at the Sicily Estate. Daphne suspected Theo would be staying well beneath the radar for several years after that at least, despite having already accepted the position of War Mist Guardian; Theo really did _not_ like the spotlight.

Fortunately for the young Lord Nott, there were three other Mists in residence happy to bask in the public eye.

* * *

Leo _loved_ fighting the Prewetts, One _or_ Two. Fighting Fred and George was fun too, but Jerry and Frank were much more subtle and sneaky, making them very tricky opponents indeed. Multiple personality duelling had come about because of a throwaway comment of Hermione's several years ago, about a month before George had finally proposed to her: she'd mentioned that they should be careful about how they compartmentalised or else they might develop a multiple personality disorder. Being raised as isolated Purebloods, neither Fred nor George had known what that was; prompting Hermione to buy half-a-dozen psychiatry books for them. Leo wasn't sure if this broadening of their horizons had anything to do with George proposing to Hermione, but it might have done.

As it was, now the Prewetts had developed distinctly different combat and speech styles for each of their 'personalities' and cycled through them in fights depending on the situation and which personality the other twin was currently using. Fred and George duelled partly using magic, which being Mists they could get away with because Mist Flames were limited only by their imaginations so making magic look like Flames or Flames look like magic was well within their abilities. They also threw their various prank products around to affect the terrain and create traps. The main difference between 'Fred' and 'George' in a fight was that 'Fred' was generally more aggressive while 'George' was sneakier; however the twins knew each-other well enough to seamlessly switch roles at will.

'Thing One' and 'Thing Two', as they tended to call themselves, were distinguishable from 'Jerry' and 'Frank' solely by fighting style: they were not, strictly speaking, personas at all but the codenames Dorea had given the twins for their mafia interactions. This made them cover identities rather than 'personalities', which meant that, while nominally being Thing One and Thing Two, the Prewetts could cycle through four different 'characters' at will. Broadly speaking, Frank and Jerry –regardless of what they were being called– dealt with everything not relating to combat and were distinguishable from each-other by hair: Jerry's was mouse-blond and Frank's was mouse-brown. Even when pretending to be each-other, the hair colours did not change.

In a spar or semi-serious fight, 'One' and 'Two' would come out to play. This involved the hair of the Prewett in question turning blue and their clothing being 'replaced' by a red boiler suit, labelled either 'Thing 1' or 'Thing 2'. Then things got… interesting; Chinese-style Interesting with a capital 'I' like the ancient curse.

Frank, as 'Two', fought using what he called 'forfeits'. He would set up a Mist-Territory with his opponent or opponents as primary anchors then Conjure up a massive variety of illusory flying objects that behaved like bludgers, flying around the Territory and trying to hit the people in it. Once hit, the victim would be forced to do the forfeit attached to that specific object. Forfeits ranged from barking like a dog through spending five minutes balancing on one foot all the way up to loosing most of your Flames and passing out. The objects always looked different from fight to fight too, so you never knew if _this_ time the ballistic boot would force you to sing 'I'm a little teapot' or make your clothing two sizes too small…

Leo was never so grateful for his dodging skills as when he was fighting Thing Two. Fighting _beside_ the younger Prewett was even better: then Frank would apply forfeits to all of Leo's thrown weapons as well, for added variety.

Jerry as 'One' was an altogether different kettle of fish: he'd really taken to music since leaving Hogwarts, attending concerts, theatre performances and raves while they were still based in England and sounding out the local music scene even before the move to Sicily was fully finalised. He'd built the entirety of his rather showy fighting style around music: the ballistic musical notes that exploded on contact in a blast of sound, the puppet musicians that could force you to dance to their tune mid-fight –those were tricky to deal with– and the incredibly disorientating adjustments that muddled up a person's vision and hearing so that you could _see_ sounds. Then there were the lullabies…

Leo suspected Thing One had been deliberately experiencing synaesthesia for some time now, so as to give him additional means of coming at you in a fight. It was the kind of thing he'd find amusing, which was sadly _still_ better than 'Thing Two's sense of humour. Frank got _mean_.

Of course, this was for sparring and semi-serious fights. Actual, real, life-or-death _serious_ fights were completely different and the Prewetts fought much more sneakily and subtly in those, to great effect. Leo had never actually been involved in one of those fights yet, but he'd helped both Prewetts in training for such occasions and was certain their opponents would be fatally surprised when the time _did_ come.

Then there was Luna.

Luna the delightful, Luna the unconventional, Luna-Bell the lovely whose preferred method of combat was Pokémon battles, the rules of which were enforced by the Territories she erected around herself and her opponent. In a running battle, where such regulated rivalry was impractical, Luna conjured up other creatures, some from videogames and others from her own mind; Leo had seen denizens of Hyrule, the Final Fantasy franchise and the Mushroom Kingdom, the latter of which were considerably more dangerous than they looked. Those Piranha Plants for instance…

Much as Luna's fights were fun to watch –and they really, truly were– actually participating in one was a test of nerves, quick-thinking, sheer daring and mental flexibility: unlike in videogames, you only got one shot at winning and there was no tutorial beforehand.

It was not all that surprising that few people ever managed to beat Luna at her own game, and nobody ever managed it twice in a row. No matter how 'friendly' the Pokémon battles generally were.


	110. Chapter 110

Beta'd by the colluding Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of physics and forward planning **

Draco set his fountain pen aside and yawned, stretching in a cat-like manner until his spine cracked and the dull pain between his shoulder-blades subsided. As the only member of the research team without a full-time job, it had fallen to the Lord Malfoy to collate and write up all the gathered research into a coherent whole so it could be presented to Dorea for her perusal. Draco was very pleased with the results of the research project, as well as the conclusions they had been able to draw from those results; he'd also learned a whole lot of new and very interesting magic of a type that was easily converted to working with Sun Flames which was a plus. Draco had done some further experimentation in that area, so he was able to meet Dorea's self-defence standards should he ever be inclined to interact with those belonging to the Muggle Mafia; or indeed find himself roped into doing so by his cousin. He still had some issues to work through and would need to practice more to become fully fluent in using those skills in a fight, but he could at least defend himself properly without breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

Best of all, Dorea would find the results reassuring as they demonstrated that yes, she had been right to put off attempting to rescue her husband until they had more data; they also proved that, so long as appropriate precautions were taken, it would be possible for her to recover him and restore him to full health in short order. Setting up those 'appropriate precautions' and arranging the 'due care' was already beginning, as the Zabini wanted their prince back, but Dorea still needed to read the full accounting of the details of the research so that she knew what was going on and how long it would be before everything would be ready for the rescue mission to take place. She also needed to know what kind of complications they might be faced with on the medical side and grant permission for various renovations to the relevant parts of the Sicily Estate.

Writing the whole piece up in his best cursive had taken several days, but in doing so Draco had located three rather major omissions and half-a-dozen minor errors, all of which had required he sift through the original data and had overall improved the quality of the piece as a whole. It was probably worth submitting the document to Sabina's _Collegio Scientifico_ for publication as well; he had definitely put in a Mastery's-worth of work and had the skills for it as well. Ice Magic –or Crystallisation Magic as it more accurately called– was an obscure but respected field and the findings he had helped to bring to light had definitely expanded the boundaries of what had previously been known.

Being recognised as a Master of Crystallisation would certainly make the past two years' work worth every last frustration and setback.

* * *

Dorea blinked incredulously at the half-inch-thick, neatly bound stack of paper titled, _The effects of stasis at sub-zero temperatures upon fire-natured Magical Beings_ that Draco had just placed on the desk in front of her. It looked… complicated. She was probably judging the book by its cover, but the fact that it was a _book_ and not just a dozen feet of parchment was very ominous. This was years of research by multiple parties, summarised and condensed into a single, hopefully comprehensible package. She had commissioned this research so as to determine the best way to free her husband, but the amount of paper in front of her suggested that it wasn't going to be as easy as she had hoped it would be.

"The good news is that we will be able to defrost your husband without harming him, provided certain precautions are taken," Draco drawled, hands shoved in the pockets of the white lab coat he had taken to wearing over his expensive and fashionable robes. He had rather taken to lab coats and they were a requirement for working in the laboratories at Sabina's _Collegio Scientifico_, where her Malfoy cousin had spent a great deal of his time lately. "Bad news is that it's going to take about five months to get everything properly set up; rituals need to be properly timed and the more complicated ones have latency periods."

Dorea nodded, picking up the book that contained the details of the research she had commissioned two years previously. "I was hoping that everything would be ready for Beltane," she said. "Will it?"

Draco frowned abruptly, eyes briefly going blank as he thought about the implications of her question. "First day of summer? Everything should be ready by then and yes, it would augment the required rituals and reduce the risks. It's a day of growth and healing after all."

"Perfect," Dorea whispered, getting to her feet. "Let everyone know, please? I'll go sit in my study and read this through."

"Will do," Draco promised easily as he backed up and opened the office door. "Let me know if you have any questions; I probably do know the answers and if I don't I'll know who will."

Dorea nodded, following him out and closing the door behind her. The elves would bring her tea and her study was her private reading space, so she would not be disturbed, unless of course Hector decided to make a fuss. He was eleven months old now and weaned, but that had just made him more insistent about getting what Blaise called 'Mummy time'. Her youngest son really was a Mummy's boy, but since he'd never met his father that was unavoidable. Her twins had been less clingy, but they were different people with completely distinct personalities so that wasn't really significant. Besides, the twins had each-other and were currently more interested in learning than in spending time with their mother.

It wasn't that she didn't love her precious babies with all her heart –because she really, truly did– but being a single parent was _hard_. Even with all the support from her Guardians and Shadows, it was so, so hard. She had poured so much of herself into them and it never felt like enough, because there was a great big hole in all their lives where her husband, their father, was supposed to be. Her babies were growing up and aspects of their ever-more-obvious personalities were a complete mystery to her, so she couldn't help them deal with issues involving those aspects. Bastiano was a massive help, being a red-eyed Zabini himself, but he was still a teenager and he wasn't her Alexandro. They were massively different people despite the strong family resemblance. Even having her husband's Flames within her couldn't give her more than vague hints and clues as to appropriate emotional responses.

Settling in her favourite armchair, she opened the book Draco had given her and started to read.

* * *

Ice Magic was a curious subject, one Dorea barely knew the basics of. It did not get taught in Hogwarts, or Beauxbatons or Durmstrang for that matter. The only established Wizarding schools that taught Ice Magic to their underage students were Koldovstoretz, the Russian 'Palace of Witchcraft', and the Egyptian 'Temple of Arcane Arts'. Russia taught Ice Magic because ice was so plentiful that manipulating it was both necessary and educational, while Egypt taught it because water was so precious that Ice Magic was a necessity to preserve it as long as possible.

However it was Greenland, which had no large Magical school and such a small population that the apprentice system was both viable and easily managed, where Ice Magic had been explored and refined. Greenland was the world centre for studying Ice Magic and Draco had spent six months there studying before even starting the study that Dorea was now reading the results of. Those six months had involved a lot of very challenging magical theory for Draco and the letters he had written to keep her apprised of his progress had been utterly hilarious and incredibly fascinating. His complaints about the means of travel for instance –dog sleds or mounted on polar bears– had everyone in stitches when Dorea read that part aloud over dinner. The parcel of rare potion ingredients and its accompanying instructions had been pored over repeatedly by both Prewetts and Dorea herself, all three of them curious about the many varieties of tiny plants which grew under the snow and ice and their properties. The animal parts had been less attractive but no less useful; polar-bear liver had a truly remarkable number of uses and tizheruk scales had some very odd qualities.

Ah, now she was past the introductions her reading was getting _interesting_.

_Magic is akin to light in being both a wave and a particle, something Muggles have also discovered. However Magic is denser than light: it cannot pass through transparent surfaces and cannot be reflected indefinitely. It was previously believed that Magic was simply a force, acting upon the physical and spiritual at the whims of the caster, but recent studies show it has actual mass, no matter how minute. Magical mass affects the environment even when not in motion, as proven by the oddities endemic to areas with high levels of ambient magic, so it is clearly a substance no matter how rarefied._

_Crystallisation Magic is entirely built upon the assumption that all substances, be they solid, fluid or ethereal, can be influenced into changing their state: gold can be made fluid; water becomes vapour and so on. Taking this to its ultimate conclusion it is therefore possible to condense Magic into solid form, provided a sufficient concentration can be gathered and appropriate temperatures and pressures applied._

_Careful study has proved that Soulfire is strongly akin to both light and Magic in its inherent properties, having as much if not more unstructured energy than light –making it 'hotter' to the touch– while also demonstrating less mass than Magic, as evidenced by it being possible to refract Soulfire into a spectrum of differing wavelengths and properties. However Soulfire is strongly akin to Magic in that it can be manipulated by those beings with an affinity for it. That Soulfire can be condensed into physical mass by any suitably skilled individual is a matter of significant interest and may well revolutionise the practice of Crystallisation Magic as research progresses. _

That explained why Draco had been given a large grant by the Polar Studies Institute of Greenland after she had managed to condense some of her Soulfire into a two-inch cube that looked and felt like ice for him, and how remarkably helpful all those aged and insular professors had instantly become. What the Vongola called 'Zero Point Breakthrough' felt like dry ice and violated the laws of physics by acting as a heat sink and getting _colder_ when exposed to heat; Draco had said something about non-linear displacement but Dorea suspected he'd been bluffing and didn't actually have a clue how it worked. Personally she thought it was a counter-intuitive manifestation of the Sky Flame Harmony Aspect, which was likely to also be what held the crystalline Flames together in solid form.

Dorea read on, skimming through the descriptions of the experiments and methodology with occasional pauses to take in the details of the various complications that had surfaced during longer freezing times or while dealing with the more strongly fire-orientated beings; superficial tissue scarring was a constant among said fire-natured entities, unfortunately.

_Hypothermia became an issue among all beings frozen for more than a few hours and after a few weeks mental confusion upon defrosting became both common and potentially dangerous. It is strongly akin to post-petrification delirium, as both beings and creatures are more in tune with their environment than is superficially apparent, so waking to find their surroundings different in some indefinable way prompted paranoia, panic and lashing out. The victims could and did recover in time, provided they were given space and an environment they felt secure in._

Draco theorised it had to do with the ever-changing solar cycle, as being held in stasis for several weeks meant that upon awaking the days would be markedly longer or shorter and the ambient light would be different as well. That made sense to Dorea; changes in seasonal Magical flow would likely have an effect as well, as it did for Wizards who changed time-zones too abruptly. There was a reason it was not advisable to use a single Portkey for long distances and it wasn't that it wasn't possible to make Portkeys travel that far… but that the journey got progressively more turbulent the further you travelled. Long-distance Apparition was possible, but a wizard doing so was likely to develop travel sickness within a few hours of arriving at his destination and needed to sit and rest for a while to acclimatise in order to prevent it from happening.

Travel sickness was of course distinct from Portkey sickness, which was to do with the dizziness induced by Portkey travel. Over long distances a person could develop both and the combination was, according to Ginny, utterly _miserable_. Ginny genuinely loved travelling and her job –all aspects of it– but she could have done without the travel sickness that could not be avoided whenever emergency interventions were required.

Of course knowing all that and that her husband was Sky-natured, it was likely that he was even _more_ attuned to his environment than the average. But Dorea didn't know if that affinity for Harmony would exacerbate or mitigate the issues involved in the recovery process. She could only hope it would help him to recover more quickly.

_The three factors that proved most critical in the restoration of fire-natured beings were as follows: reversing the freezing process from within their bodies as swiftly as possible once the outer casing of ice began to melt; excising and regrowing the scarred tissues before the injuries induced during the freezing process became entrenched; and keeping the beings in a warm, high-magic environment with plenty of nutrition spelled directly into their bodies so that recovery could proceed without complications. _

Dorea skimmed a few more paragraphs detailing the specific Runic setup that had been most successful and the entire following section, which described the methods of cleanly removing frostbitten flesh and healing the resulting damage without leaving scars. Well, without leaving _obvious _scars; regrown tissue took time to properly settle, so it would be visible on a health scan for the few years it took for the body to fully integrate and replace it.

_The reasons for the persistent scarring developed during freezing by fire-natured beings have been determined and are as follows: their nature fundamentally opposes the freezing process, especially during the early stages. Thus, rather than being flash-frozen in an instant –which would cause their body's water content to become a glass– the process is prolonged at the point when the ice meets the fire-natured being's skin. Crystals of ice then form within the skin cells, eventually rupturing them as the freezing progresses. Once the ice has passed the skin barrier the target's resistance collapses, enabling the body's core to be supercooled in a water glass that resists damage; hence the scarring is strictly superficial. Glassy ice must be kept at a temperature below -123ºC to prevent nucleation from occurring, as crystal formation would kill the trapped being._

_Crystalline Soulfire is in fact a natural glass rather than a true crystal, which is how living beings can be frozen in it without incurring damage under normal circumstances. Fire-natured beings would however encounter the same difficulties that occur when they are frozen in a water glass. _

In other words, Dorea could expect her husband to have a lot of very nasty if superficial frostbite in need of prompt treatment once he was defrosted. His being Flame-active as well as fire-natured could only have made the damage worse, as it would likely have prolonged the early stages of the freezing process further.

Well, at least now she knew that there was a safe procedure she could use to free him, even though setting up all the necessary medical precautions would take the better part of half a year. She would _finally_ be getting her husband back and fully intended to get to know him _properly_, at long last.

* * *

A tizheruk is a mythological snake present in Greenlandic folklore.


	111. Chapter 111

Beta'd by the practical Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of plotting and domestic security **

Theo quietly smothered a yawn and shifted his weight discreetly while deliberately avoiding looking at the clock on the wall. That would be rude, even though the only people who would see it were the underlings of the mafia Don currently in a meeting with Federico Vongola. As a member of the Vongola staff Stefano had to maintain the necessary image, which was that the Vongola staff never got tired, never spoke out of turn, never got impatient and belonged to some kind of servile hive mind. Therefore he had to remain standing outside the meeting room until someone inside rang the bell, at which point he would enter, serve drinks and clean up the previous round of drinks before leaving again. It was several hours past dinnertime now –midnight wouldn't be long in arriving– so he would be bringing in food as well. The trolley was waiting in a side-room, ready to be stocked up with a fresh hot water kettle and warm food at a moment's notice, so all Stefano had to do was wait patiently.

He'd been doing a lot of that lately.

Following Lady Daniela's death he'd been reassigned to the Vongola Heir and made responsible for serving meals and various other refreshments, as well as feeding the cat –which Theo was _sure_ was at _least_ as smart as a kneazle and had _noticed_ he wasn't who he said he was– and running minor errands about the building. He wasn't allowed near Federico Vongola's paperwork –the man had secretaries for that– but he did just about everything else except the cleaning and the laundry. Theo had a feeling the reason Stefano Torretta had been assigned to Federico Vongola was that Signora Maria-Chiara didn't trust her brother with the maids, which in all honesty was probably the right call. So Stefano had got promoted from 'dogsbody' to 'footman', which meant a doubling of his pay check and a significant reduction in free time. Ironically despite having more working hours he also had less to do, which was boring if restful.

The new state of affairs also gave him more time to eavesdrop on people with his non-corporeal clones, so by August he had been able to provide Dorea with a fully comprehensive report on the Vongola Mansion's non-physical security, various security procedures and various other protocols. He'd also come up with a complete strategy for removing Xanxus Vongola from the basement, with two variations depending on whether or not Dorea chose to defrost her husband in situ.

Yes, he'd been very, _very_ bored lately and the Muggles weren't wrong to say that the Devil made work for idle hands; he'd also come up with six separate ways to infiltrate the building that would work for Flame-latent people, another eighteen that would work for Flame-Active people –although some methods would only work for individuals with specific Flame-types– and had subtly discouraged five different social climbers attempting to secure the Vongola heir's attentions. The man really was weak to women, even though he knew better.

Federico's Mist Guardian had noticed him doing that and had arranged for him to be given a bonus for each woman he managed to get rid of; Stefano was of the opinion that the only way for the man to marry a decent woman was for him to get his sister to arrange the marriage for him. Maria-Chiara had excellent taste and was very good at picking the right person for the job.

A large part of the problem was that he still missed Madam Daniela; missed her bitterly. He also missed Dorea for some reason; much more than he ever had before despite now being able to sneak a clone out to visit her from time to time. When he was finally free to be Theo again he was going to move into his Sky's home and never, ever leave again. He would read all the books in her library –libraries– play music for her, talk about anything she wanted his opinion on and just enjoy being Theo, War Mist Guardian to his Lady Black. He would have his own face, wear his own clothes, speak with his own voice and think his own thoughts.

It had been far too long since Theo had last felt safe enough to think his own thoughts.

* * *

Theo's plan for getting Xanxus Vongola out of the mansion was laughably simple, mainly because the only Wards on the building were the ones he'd put there himself. Oh, there were the various Mist-defences, some of which were terrifyingly formidable, but those were mostly designed to keep out Flame-users who wished the Family ill, not Wizards wanting to rescue a loved one held captive. Some applications of Mist Flames did interfere with magic, but Theo had used his time in the mansion well: he knew what each of the anchored and still-active Mist-made defences did and how, so he could work around them. Especially since the area he was targeting was outside the more potent protections.

For instance, there were very strong measures in place to prevent Mists other than the Vongola Mist Guardians from Apparating into or out of the building. Well, they called it teleporting but the measures also prevented Apparating and repelled Portkeys. Those defences were pretty much standardised in the Vongola, but Dorea had been translocated into the Varia mansion –which probably had far better security– and out again without issue. Theo had deduced from this that what the Mist defences prevented was unstructured translocation; the stable, structured patterns of any kind of transportation ritual would slide right through them. Therefore the easiest way to get his Lady's husband out was to set up a quick and dirty ritual circle in the grounds of her new Sicily Estate, partner it with the Enchanted pebble he had 'dropped' next to the chained block of ice in the basement of the Vongola Mansion and they could be in and out in seconds. It wouldn't be very secret, but it would be effective.

Subtlety would take longer: putting the electronic security in a loop beforehand, fooling the sensors, ensuring the basement was suitably deadened to sound and magic, lightly Confounding those responsible for monitoring the basement so they wouldn't notice the loop… so many little important things without which the entire plan would unravel. Theo was sure Dorea would choose subtlety regardless though; being subtle meant they retained the element of surprise. Theo knew his Lady was significantly less fond of the Vongola than he was and her reasons for discretion were not the same as his own. Theo wanted the rescue to be discreet so that the individuals he had come to admire within the mansion would not come to harm; Dorea wanted discretion so that if they ever invaded later they had the upper hand.

Theo hoped it wouldn't come to that, but the future rested on Xanxus Vongola and the success of his revival, so the only way to find out what would happen afterwards was to take that first step. He was ready; everything and everybody was in place. What they were waiting for was the Healers' confirmation that everything that could possibly be arranged was awaiting their patient's arrival.

Patience might have been a virtue but Theo had never been particularly virtuous, even though Stefano was actually pretty good at it. The discrepancy between the mask and his sense of self was small but significant now and it really did not make the waiting any easier. It was only November and May was _months_ away…

* * *

Everybody in the Vongola Mansion joked about how Stefano Torretta had been transferred to Federico's staff after Ottava's death because the Vongola Head of Housekeeping didn't trust her brother with the maids; none of them realised that Federico had _asked_ for his grandmother's attendant and last Rain Guardian to be put in charge of all the non-mafia things in his life.

Torretta was a Latent Rain who lacked the reserves for Activation, but something the Vongola didn't tell _anyone_ was that you didn't need to be Active to Harmonise. You didn't even need to have reserves large enough _to_ Activate; all that was needed was for the Sky and their Guardian-candidate to have enough in common with each-other to bond and prolonged physical proximity. The reason 'Accomplice' developing a tenuous Guardian bond with his grandmother hadn't been noticed until after Ottava was dead was that since 1964, when the last Pioggia had died after finally losing his battle against cancer, Nono had spent about thirty years more or less constantly pushing variously-qualified Rains into his mother's staff in an attempt to get her to bond with one of them and calm down a bit. His grandmother had scared them all off effortlessly and regularly scolded Nono for 'trying to manipulate his mother like that'.

By the time Torretta had been recruited by Maria-Chiara their grandmother's health had been in gradual decline, attacking her mobility and Flame reserves alike. Federico's father had clearly thought his mother would no longer be able to form new bonds at that point, as he'd stopped trying to foist Rains –and the occasional Sun– on her. At which point Federico's contrary grandmother had taken a fancy to a Flame-Latent civilian to the point of dubbing him 'Accomplice' and having him wait on her hand and foot, which Torretta hadn't minded doing in the slightest.

In fact, the only people who _had_ noticed that Torretta was suffering from a broken Guardian bond when his grandmother died were Nebbia and Ganauche III, both of whom had noticed the bond forming in the first place. Federico wasn't sure what it said about his father that he had missed a change in his mother than his young, inexperienced Lightning Guardian had picked up on –it definitely wasn't a good sign– but he wasn't surprised that Nebbia had noticed. Nebbia had been with his grandmother since the beginning, having been her _first_ Guardian.

Federico didn't know where Nebbia was now; the old man had vanished completely right after Ottava's funeral, more than eighteen months ago. Nono had been worried enough about that to try and find Nebbia's family to ask if they'd seen him, only to discover that there were _no_ records whatsoever of what Nebbia's real name actually _was_. Not his first name _or_ his last name; there was a journal entry of Settimo's stating that Daniela had bonded with the son of her younger siblings' nurse, but there was no hint of which nurse that had been –having seven children meant Settimo had gone through a lot of nurses and had generally employed two or three at a time– or when. The man might as well have been a ghost; that he'd left his Guardian ring behind made hunting for him even more of a lost cause.

Adriana Visconti, his mother's third and last Nuvola, had moved into a different part of the Family Wing with her deaf-mute apprentice and had declared her intention to remain there until she died; as a Vongola Guardian that was perfectly allowed and her being a Cloud made it somewhat inevitable. A Cloud bereft of their Sky would be even more reluctant to leave their Territory than an unattached one, although having a young protégé did at least mean that Aunt Adriana would be anchored in the present rather than constantly brooding on the past.

Considering that Adriana was eighty now, Federico didn't think she'd live long past her apprentice reaching her majority, if indeed she even lasted that long. Little Lina was currently nine and wouldn't be graduating from Mafia Academy for another six years at least. The prospective Decimo wasn't entirely sure what the real name of Adriana's 'Pesciolina' was, but she was probably an orphan or a foundling. Considering she was deaf-mute, Federico was leaning towards 'foundling'. Well, whoever that heartless parent had been, their loss was the Vongola's gain: Pesciolina was a highly gifted Cloud and very diligent in her studies. She would have no shortage of work once she was old enough either; a deaf-mute Flame-user would be in great demand for projects requiring a high level of secrecy.

Federico sighed, setting aside another report to be followed up on and picking up a new wad of paperwork. The Vongola had seen far too many grieving Guardians in the past few years. It had started back in '96, with Enrico's murder by a no-name hitwoman leaving the Vongola to deal with Croco, Tulipano, Anemone and Garofano. His brother's Guardians had been utterly distraught and had completely disintegrated, each of them blaming one or more of the others for their Sky's death. Garofano, the Lightning, had died attempting to murder Tulipano, the Storm just four months later, which had left Tulipano crippled for life; Anemone –the Rain– had quietly gone back to his family right after Enrico's funeral and Federico hadn't seen or heard from him since; Croco had died in an accident shortly before Massimo's murder while experimenting with a new Flame technique.

Then Massimo had died, his Lightning Moro had promptly committed suicide and his Cloud, Claudia Visconti, had suffered a breakdown that had been further exacerbated by her miscarrying Massimo's child the day before the funeral. That had been a genuine tragedy, one that had been kept from anyone not baring the Vongola name. The wider Famiglia –especially the ones who had no understanding of the strength of the bonds binding a Sky to their Elements– would have blamed her for the loss of a potential heir and Claudia had already lost enough.

She had only lasted another eight months after that, dying in the midst of a raid on a group of Famiglia who had believed that the deaths of two Vongola Heirs within three years were a sign of weakness. The Varia participating in that raid had delivered her body back to the mansion and assured Visconti, his father's Cloud Guardian and Claudia's cousin-once-removed, that she had taken all her enemies with her. Her funeral had been a quiet family affair, although a few Varia –including the pre-teen Storm Officer– had showed up to pay their respects.

* * *

Federico had never really been able to understand why his father so mistrusted the Varia. Yes, Tyr had always been a bit of a thug but Squalo Superbi had killed the man then bonded at first sight with Xanxus, placing the Varia firmly in Vongola hands for the first time since Ottava had founded it. His little brother had then done a massive shake-up, picking up another two Guardians along the way… and then attempted a coup. The coup did not make sense at all, so Federico was of the opinion that it hadn't been a coup –if Xanxus had intended to take over the Vongola he'd have picked a more effective method, his little brother wasn't stupid– but a way of getting back at their father over something. Probably to do with Nono never getting around to telling Xanxus that he was adopted and therefore _couldn't_ be Vongola Boss; his little brother _loathed_ liars and would have seen it as a betrayal after a decade of letting Xanxus be known as his bastard son.

It wasn't like anybody would have _cared_ that Xanxus was adopted rather than a bastard child; Vongola Dons had adopted orphaned children with strong Flames before. Yes, he would have been publically out of the running for Boss, but he would have been a popular candidate both for the Varia and the CEDEF, relied upon to become a pillar of the Famiglia. It would have made his upbringing less competitive too, which could only have helped… although having Xanxus nipping at their collective heels _had_ been very motivating for Federico and his older brothers. Well, Federico had been motivated; if he remembered correctly Massimo had just been irritated at having _another_ sibling showing him up and Enrico had been offended by Xanxus' determination to be Decimo. The yawning gulf of years between them had only made things worse; their little brother had been about of an age with their younger sister's eldest child, Erica.

Federico paused, underlining a line of text in red before throwing the document aside; it had to go back and be renegotiated since it violated the original terms set. Why couldn't people actually remember their orders?

Shaking his head, the Decimo-to-be continued pondering the inconsistencies of his father's treatment of his youngest son. Xanxus had been terribly indulged, to the point that if Grandma hadn't surreptitiously taken over his education he probably would have been a complete spoiled horror rather than 'just' a violently temperamental and dangerous teenager. Then Xanxus had taken over the Varia and Nono had… Federico couldn't quite put it into words, but his father had been shaken by Xanxus' career choice. Federico had just been glad his baby brother had finally set his heart on something he could actually _achieve_; the whole Decimo-thing had been doomed from the outset but their father had decreed that Xanxus was to be treated as a son of his blood, so actually _telling _Xanxus that would have been disobeying a direct order from their Boss.

Not even would-be-heirs could get away with that.

That Xanxus had then used the Varia as a blunt instrument to get their father to pay attention to the decay that was quietly creeping into the Vongola had not helped; Federico wasn't even sure Nono realised that had been Xanxus' intention. It had taken _Federico_ five years and access to both the Vongola and CEDEF Archives to put that together and he'd been looking for it! Well, looking for something anyway; red-eyed rage-monster his little brother might have been, but his loyalty to the Famiglia was slightly ridiculous. Xanxus wanted the Vongola to be _great_ and everything he'd ever done could all be traced to that root, provided the person investigating made an effort to look at things like Xanxus did.

Really, Nono's treatment of Xanxus made no sense; why was his baby brother still on ice? It was a betrayal! His father was just making stupid excuses when Federico _needed_ his little brother to help him keep the Family stable! Why couldn't Nono see that? But no, his father was utterly blinded by his first impression of the Varia, which had happened back in the Second World War when Nono was a teenager and had involved a few of the associated assassins attempting to kill him. Not 'seriously' kill him according to Ottava, but it had still been a near miss for all that Nuvola had embedded the perpetrators in a concrete wall immediately afterwards for 'being stupid'. She'd always told Nono to 'stop being so dramatic' but so far as Federico could see, his father had tarred the entire organisation with the same brush and always expected all members of the Varia to betray the Vongola in some way sooner or later. Never mind that the Varia had the fastest turnover rate of members out of all the Houses in the Vongola by a factor of four…

Federico carefully set the paperwork he was crumpling down, took a few deep breaths and went to pour himself a glass of water. Getting angry wouldn't help. He knew that. He'd gotten angry at his father on the day of his grandmother's funeral over said father's refusal to defrost his little brother; they'd even come to blows over it, which was why they'd almost been late to the ceremony. Xanxus had lost two brothers and a grandmother and _didn't know_. He'd missed five years of his life, the birth of his great-niece –Erica's adorable little daughter Serena– and more world events than Federico cared to count. At this rate Nono wouldn't be defrosting his youngest until the world was so utterly changed that Xanxus no longer had a place in it!

Sipping the cold water, Federico closed his eyes. He was doing his best to learn how to create the Zero Point Breakthrough that Primo had invented, but it was slow going. He had so little training time these days, with most of his time swallowed up by paperwork and proving to his father that yes, he _was_ capable of ensuring that all aspects of the Family were kept running smoothly.

It would have been _much_ easier to keep the Family running smoothly if he'd had Xanxus on hand, glaring at people and reminding them that the Don Vongola didn't _have_ to be nice and polite because fiery immolation was always an option. Xanxus was sharp too, he spotted things Federico missed and while he was blunt about it, he wasn't usually _wrong_. A bit oblivious to the subtleties sometimes –Federico's baby brother was amusingly blind to sentimental stuff– but that didn't mean his observations were useless. Quite the opposite.

Xanxus would be infinitely more useful to have around than his idiot cousin, that was for sure; Iemitsu Sawada had _not_ improved with age. Federico had always been jealous of how his father doted on Iemitsu, even back when the blond idiot had been an eager-to-please ten-year-old dazzled by the prestige and affluence of his uncle's lifestyle. Even then, Iemitsu had always been going on about how 'cool' it was that everybody looked to Nono for everything, rather than seeing it as Nono being responsible for so many people's wellbeing and how difficult it was for the Vongola Don when things didn't go as planned.

Iemitsu's mother was the younger sister of Federico's mother; her name was Carla and she had married an older Japanese man called Ietsuna Sawada. Ietsuna had been a morally rigid man who had not been aware of his wife's mafia connections; when he discovered that the husband of his late sister-in-law was inducting his only son into organised crime he had been furious. So furious, in fact, that he had refused to meet or even talk to Nono afterwards, sold his house in Palermo and moved all the way to Lucca in Tuscany with his wife, informing the then-fifteen-year-old Iemitsu that he would not be welcome home until he abandoned crime for good.

Iemitsu had not abandoned crime; instead he had become Nono's fourth son in all but name and been groomed for the External Advisor position. As far as Federico was aware, he'd never seen his real father again and hadn't even attended the man's funeral. Such a glaring absence of family feeling was… concerning in a person who held so much power over the Vongola Famiglia. That Iemitsu had no Guardians made it even more worrying. Oh, he had a personal CEDEF team made up of elite members, but he hadn't ever bonded with any of them.

Federico had been prepared to let his concerns lie, recognising that he wasn't exactly unbiased where his cousin was concerned, but six months ago he'd been notified by Squalo Superbi that one of the people covering for his niece's maternity leave had filed a request for a psychiatric evaluation of the CEDEF Boss. The request had also highlighted a rather worrying trend in Flame-Active personnel movement through the _Consulenza Esterna_, so Federico had ratified the request as Vongola Heir, on condition of it being a _discreet_ evaluation.

It had been discreet; so discreet that Iemitsu hadn't even noticed it happening. The content of the evaluation however was utterly damning: the External Advisor had a narcissistic personality disorder. Federico had spent a good forty minutes poring over the document when he finally got his hands on it, reading every line and consulting a medical dictionary scrounged up from somewhere by Othello so he could be certain he fully understood all the terminology used. Attention seeking, inter-personally exploitative, sense of entitlement, inflated self-appraisal, grandiosity, lacking in empathy, dramatic and emotional behaviour…

Horrifically, it all made _so much __**sense**_. His cousin's lack of Guardians, the relatively short average period of service of Flame-Active individuals in the CEDEF, the increasingly frequent number of times the Family had been surprised by the doings of other Mafia organisations since Iemitsu took over –the latest of which was the whole disaster involving the massacre of Estraneo Famiglia and their still-missing Possession Bullets– and the general decay in intelligence quality, which persisted even as Iemitsu reassured Nono that everything was under control and Nono _believed_ him.

Federico knew enough about the Vongola Intuition to know that the only reason his father had for ignoring his instincts was that he _wanted_ to believe Iemitsu. Just like he _wanted_ to believe that it was better to keep Xanxus on ice. How could his father be so damn _blind_!

The Vongola Decimo very deliberately set him empty glass down on his desk; throwing it wouldn't change anything. Thinking about Iemitsu and Xanxus had however completely ruined his mood, so Federico got up and went to ring the bell. Torretta appeared at the door almost instantly, not taking more than a single step into the office; the quiet footman knew he wasn't allowed anywhere near the paperwork.

"I'd like some _pasticcini_ and a small hot chocolate," Federico said briskly; "I'll be in the sitting room." The sitting room was adjacent to the study he did the paperwork in, but accessible from the hall by a different door.

Torretta nodded. "A hot chocolate and _pasticcini_; at once, Signor Federico." It had taken Federico a month to get the unknowing former Guardian to call him by his first name rather than just his Family name, but getting him to drop the 'Signore' clearly wasn't going to happen. Shaking his head, the Vongola Decimo left his study and flopped down on one of the comfortable chairs in the sitting room.

* * *

"Giving up already?" Federico opened his eyes just enough to glare at Hamlet, who was perched on the edge of a decorative table and flicking through a photo album.

"Shut up," Federico grumbled half-heartedly. "I just want a break." He glanced at the album in his Mist's hands. "Feeling nostalgic?"

Hamlet shook her head, not looking up from the pages. "I was pondering Iemitsu's 'cute little apprentice'. I'm pretty sure I've seen him before."

Federico paused. Hamlet did not meet many children; those she did know were either related to her or she had met through accompanying him to various events involving his sister Maria-Chiara and _her_ children. Basil had only looked to be ten or so though, which made him several years younger even than Federico's youngest nephew Benvenuto.

"Creepy kid," Macbeth said idly. "Calling Iemitsu 'Master' all the time and bowing and scraping at the drop of a hat."

"Iemitsu didn't make him stop, did you notice?" Antony pointed out lightly. "He seemed to think it was adorable."

Federico shuddered. It might have been because he was a worldly man with a great deal of experience of the depth and breadth of various subcultures and perversities, but he would _never_ allow anybody to call him 'master' or 'my lord'. Especially not a child. "We know Iemitsu's not right in the head," he said repressively.

"My point," Antony said, lidded eyes glancing briefly towards his Sky, "is that little Basil is well aware that there is something very badly wrong with his Boss, which he is attempting to draw attention to without being noticed."

There was a pause filled with the silence of people readjusting their assumptions.

"Damn, it's a Rain-humour thing again isn't it?" Macbeth said wryly. "Damn you and all your kind for your horrible, horrible tendency towards deadpan mockery. I am never going to be able to keep a straight face in Sawada's presence ever again."

"Found him," Hamlet interrupted before Antony could do more than blink innocently at Macbeth, the Mist turning the album around to show off the photograph she had found.

A round, childish face with a strong resemblance to Maria-Chiara, blue eyes, blond hair and all; the photo was at least eight years old, as little Benvenuto looked about four.

"That's my nephew Hamlet; he's thirteen now! Basil barely looks ten!" Even so, Federico could feel his stomach sinking as his Intuition agreed with his Mist's assertion. He hadn't seen his nephew in years, not properly; there'd been glimpses in passing at various Lancia events that he tried to attend for his sister's sake and he'd been there in the background at Christmas, but they'd never had a conversation. Now that Fderico thought about it, he'd never heard his sister talking about how her youngest was doing at Mafia Academy or anything else along those lines like she had with her older two.

"Iemitsu's little 'orphan' is your younger nephew?" Macbeth asked.

"I can see it," Antony stated. "What did Iemitsu say he was teaching him?"

Iemitsu hadn't, but remembering the slim, improbably young-looking form of his littlest nephew peeking out at him past long, concealing bangs of dark blond hair, Federico could guess. "Basil was Flame-Active, so Iemitsu will be teaching him to use them. Probably almost exactly the same way _he_ was taught, considering Iemitsu was never interested in hearing the reasons why Skies had to be taught differently to all the other types."

"He had those Dying Will Pills in his pocket," Hamlet said, setting the album aside now that she'd found what she was looking for. "I didn't get the impression Iemitsu had taught him how to manage without using those things as a crutch." Her disapproval of such negligent behaviour was clear for all to hear.

Dying Will Pills had been developed during the Second World War, to speed up Flame-training and reduce the risks involved. Federico had used them quite extensively himself while learning Hyper Dying Will Mode, which he still struggled with. Massimo had always been the best one at Flame-related things…

Federico's Intuition pinged and the Decimo stiffened in his chair. "Hamlet," he asked carefully, "how likely is Iemitsu to be teaching my nephew Hyper Dying Will Mode?"

There was a dead silence.

Hamlet looked sickened. "Considering what else we know about Iemitsu… I'd say it's near-certain." There was a reason why only the Vongola's Skies had ever been taught Hyper Dying Will Mode and it had nothing to do with wanting to keep the knowledge secret; the only reason Hyper Dying Will Mode didn't horribly kill Skies the way it did all other Flame-users was that a Sky's innate Harmony prevented them from accidentally destroying their body's internal regulation systems.

Federico rose smoothly to his feet, walked across the room and plucked a carnation from the vase sitting on a low table; it swiftly collapsed into ash between his incandescent fingers. He selected another, then another, trying in vain to talk himself down from the messy murder of the External Director.

Then Antony was standing behind him, a Tranquil hand against his back and Federico's homicidal feelings were dampened into something colder and more lasting than righteous fury. "As External Advisor, Sawada is untouchable by direct means," his Rain Guardian reminded him, "and we do not have another candidate available at this time."

Federico honestly didn't care. He'd asked his father once why his Guardians couldn't be taught Hyper Dying Will Mode as well and had been made to read the reports written in Quarto's time of what had happened to said Vongola Don's first set of Guardians, who had tried to learn the technique and paid the price.

The Mist had gone insane, his body twisting and mutating into a chimerical monstrosity that had taken six Lightnings to slay.

The Sun and the Cloud had died by inches over several hours, their bodies bloated by tumours and anaphylactic shock.

The Lightning had died almost instantly, his Flames destroying his own nervous system through high-voltage electrocution.

The Storm had dissolved, screaming until his lungs melted and his brain liquefied.

The Rain's fate had been the least messy but perhaps the most horrifying: he'd just… stopped. His heart, his nervous system… all of it; he'd just quietly collapsed and Quarto had been unable to get his heart and lungs working again before his Flames snuffed out, killing him.

If that _was_ what Sawada was teaching his nephew, then the boy's continued survival was a _miracle_. But that the idiot hadn't killed him _yet_ was no guarantee that Benvenuto would go on surviving.

"Is Nono even allowed to review what Sawada's teaching his apprentice?" Macbeth asked behind Federico.

"No, he isn't," Hamlet replied, her voiced clipped. "As you know, there is nobody to whom a report of abuse of any kind by the External Advisor can be made, other than Don Vongola. Even then, all Don Vongola can do is demand that the External Advisor explain his actions. While the External Advisor has a mechanism for deposing a corrupt and unsuitable Vongola Don, the Vongola _still_ has no official means of unseating a corrupt External Advisor." Which was most of why, despite Federico having taken Iemitsu's evaluation to his father back in Quiet Week, the blond idiot was still Director of the CEDEF; changing long-held Traditions took time.

"So unofficial or nothing," Macbeth deduced, his voice chilly. Federico would cheerfully throw a medium-sized fortune at the Varia if assassinating Iemitsu would solve his problems, but while it would get Benvenuto out of immediate danger it would cause a great many other and much more wide-ranging issues. They could save assassination for a last resort; getting Nono to recognise that Iemitsu was actively detrimental to the wellbeing of the Family was the 'proper' approach. As his father's heir, he _had_ to do things the right way or else he undermined everything.

"Set up an urgent, confidential meeting with my father please, Antony," Federico said tiredly as Torretta entered the room with the refreshments he had ordered earlier. "Again." He was so, so tired of having his family suffering for the mistakes of the Family.

* * *

Translations 

Signora = Madam (Italian)

Pioggia = rain (Italian)

Nebbia = mist (Italian)

Nuvola = cloud (Italian)

Pesciolina = little fish (Italian)

Croco = crocus (Italian)

Tulipano = tulip (Italian)

Garofano = carnation (Italian)

Signor/Signore = 'Mr' (Italian)


	112. Chapter 112

Beta'd by the beauteous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of the subjective nature of normality **

It was Christmas again in the Varia Mansion, although the actual date of the official birth of Christ had passed; the Christmas period lasted until Epiphany, which was on January sixth. The Vongola Christmas period was kicked off by the Traditional Vongola Christmas Party on the winter solstice, which started at sunset –which was at about half past four in the afternoon– and did not end until dawn the following morning. This year Kuchisake had attended to show goodwill and prove that the Decimo had the Varia behind him; she hadn't been the only Varia there but her half-Glasgow grin had made her the most obvious one. Her date, Federico's Rain Guardian, had been very attentive and had apparently complimented the scar as being 'striking'; Squalo privately applauded the man's sense of self-preservation and his courage. It took a very brave man to attempt anything that could potentially come under the heading of 'romantic' with the Mist Squad Leader.

The time between Christmas and New Year was generally rather quiet, as all the accounts needed to be done and Mammon inevitably fined people who didn't get their expense reports in on time. How large the fine was depended on the Mist Officer's mood, your recent workload and how many other people were running late on their expenses, so it was generally best to get everything in early and avoid having your next paycheck slashed. Mammon took his position as Varia Treasurer very seriously and everyone knew it, but it still seemed like every year there was always someone –or several someones– who managed to forfeit half their next paycheck, to the point that there were bets about who it would be this year.

The week after New Year was quiet for an entirely different reason: a lot of minor missions flooded in right about then, courtesy of the various family disasters and fallings-out that erupted over Christmas, so about half the Varia would be out in twos and threes carrying out those missions. A lot of the people not running missions would take a week's holiday then, visiting relatives or just taking time off well away from the rest of the Varia. It was a good time of year for it and very popular among the Varia's calmer veterans. Fuseau for instance generally made himself scarce that week and the week following, as did the entirety of Dark Horse.

This year Dark Horse had a new member: the Alastor Squalo had gotten to know on his world tour had retired during Quiet Week and had been replaced by a very large Electric Sun who was one of Lussuria's favourite sparring partners. The previous Alastor, now going by Kurt, had moved to Mafia Land and started running sniper training courses. Squalo had already sent a few Varia and apprentices interested in specialising to attend and had been highly gratified by the Quality attained by all of them. Then again, Kurt had only retired because years of heavy usage of Storm Flames had damaged his joints to the point that lying in the underbrush for hours waiting for a shot was acutely painful, not because he was any less of a crack shot.

It was a bit disconcerting to see the lineup of one of the Immortal Squads change like that; Dis Pater was also starting to prepare for retirement and had already started training his eventual replacement, a rather finicky Cloud called Panther who'd been in the Varia for slightly over two years. Of the other Immortal Squads, Marvel Squad had lost their last remaining original member –Purple Man had retired in June '97– and replaced him with a young and utterly crazy Storm while Grimm Squad had passed from Mab to Redcap and now had one of the older Chinese Lightnings in it going by the name of Trol.

Then there was Aurora Borealis, whose Squad Leader Magharibi had at some point decided to 'retire' to Medical so she could work there full-time without keeping the rest of the squad from running missions and earning money. Aurora Borealis' new Squad Leader was Este, one of Squalo's Rains, and the Officer knew that the Squad had their eye out for a suitable new fifth member. He'd only become aware of the transition in Quiet Week though, which had made him feel like an idiot for not noticing that Magharibi hadn't been on the paperwork anymore.

The squads taking their names from their Squad Leader were as fluid as ever, some of them changing every year as membership fluctuated or being altered according to the requirements of specific missions. There was rarely any permanence there, so Squalo didn't expect to find any. The Named Squads were slightly more durable, but wouldn't be worthy of being called 'Immortal Squads' unless they lasted beyond their original Squad Leader with Traditions and specialties intact. The Pack _might_ manage to make the transition, since Varg had thus far held his squad together admirably following his advancement to Squad Leader upon Okami's abrupt and untimely demise, but they hadn't tried to file for Immortal Squad paperwork yet so it was all up in the air. That was understandable when Okami was less than four months dead due to being deathly allergic to _something_ that had killed him right after the conclusion of his last mission; if they still hadn't done it by Quiet Week Squalo would outright ask if they were interested.

The last year's only really _memorable_ new arrival had been the sixteen-year-old granddaughter of that South American priest who'd tried to get Squalo to marry said granddaughter two years previously when she'd been fourteen; how on earth she'd found them Squalo had no idea, but she'd shown up at the door with a letter from her grandfather. She'd then flirted with him in front of a large and very interested audience, mentioned that her grandfather was still amenable to their marrying 'if you change your mind' and spent the entire time he was reading the damned letter fiddling with her bracelets and looking around at everyone, a long line of bare thigh visible through the slit up the side of her skirt.

The entire Varia had of course found this hilarious and had teased the full story of 'the Captain's engagement' out of Vökva and Fuseau, but other than that the petite priestess had been inducted into Housekeeping as an apprentice –due to her lacking languages– with very little fuss despite the additional 'religious freedoms' she had asked for. The Rain Officer was trying not to think about the interest certain members of the Varia's messy squads had shown in Sposa's religion, or the fact that she'd fed one of the mooks their own still-beating heart less than a week later. At least that had persuaded everybody to take her threats very, very seriously…

He was still getting teased about his 'bride' though; he _still_ hadn't quite conquered his blushing problem and the occasional red flush was encouraging all the jokers, no matter how nasty he made the punishments!

* * *

Since it was generally pretty quiet in the first week or so after New Year, Squalo had started taking advantage of the lull to follow up on the previous six months' intelligence reports and review the reported mission behaviour of the Varia. It all got fully explored in Quiet Week, of course, but leaving it all until then was just Dumb considering how _much_ of it all there was. So Squalo did a preliminary check in the first half of January, seeing if loose ends had been tugged at, lines of inquiry were being followed and that nobody was making trouble. Anybody who _was_ making trouble would get called in front of their Officer –or in the case of the Clouds and Lightnings, to Squalo himself– to explain themselves. Depending on how satisfied the relevant parties were by the explanation, the troublemaker might get moved to a different Squad, put on punishment duty or just killed; Squalo hadn't had to kill many people but it happened.

It was mainly the intelligence, not the behaviour reports, which were getting Squalo's goat this year. Particularly the ones concerning the CEDEF; Changeling had gone back to work in September so the _Consulenza Esterna _was 'officially' Varia-free, but the evaluation Derecho had requested on Iemitsu last spring had opened a whole can of worms that they had yet to get to the bottom of. If it was up to Squalo then Iemitsu would already be dead, Changeling would be interim External Advisor and Federico would be vetting potential candidates to take over the position, assisted by his very pleasingly competent Guardians. But it _wasn't_ up to Squalo, so Iemitsu was still alive, still in charge of the CEDEF and still wreaking havoc.

Federico was seriously pushing Nono on a number of different matters, Iemitsu's damaging behaviour being one of them; Xanxus still being on ice was another but honestly Squalo was expecting the Zabini to intervene there before Nono finally got his act together. He'd had a brief meeting with them back in November –they seemed fond of November meetings– and they'd informed him that they were 'making progress' and that he would be informed the moment they decided to move. Squalo had a feeling he'd actually be informed right _after_ they made a move, so as not to create conflicting loyalties, but he was fine with that. He had a good feeling about this year and not just because it looked like Nono was going to _finally_ hold the Inheritance Ceremony and hand over the Family to his son.

The Harpies had shared that Nono's delaying looked to the rest of the Famiglia as though he lacked faith in his son's competence –or else was so addicted to power that he _couldn't_ relinquish it. Squalo wasn't sure who had said what or to whom, but right before Christmas he'd got a report from Changeling that Nono had requested a whole slew of intelligence missions and security investigations of the kind that preceded all major Vongola events. If everything went smoothly then invitations would be going out in early March and the Inheritance Ceremony would be right before –or possibly right after– Quiet Week. Considering Federico had promised that the first thing he'd do upon becoming Boss was defrost Xanxus, Squalo was rather looking forward to the regime change.

Of course, the CEDEF wasn't the only place where things were going on; the Underworld was a big place after all. For instance, _another_ of the Northern Mafia Famiglias had been massacred in November, which made five in the past three years. Dealing with that was a Vindice matter, but the aftershocks of so many murders and such a large power vacuum were really unsettling things. Some of the Austrian crime conglomerates were reaching down to fill the gap in the market, the few surviving Northern Famiglias were expanding and militarising to protect their territories and it was a big old mess. Whoever was doing this was a _moron_, unless of course they were a mass-murdering loony doing it for kicks and _wanted_ to kick off a nasty Mafia War up there.

There were also rumours of the Bovino Famiglia having created a time-travel device. Seriously, what the fuck? Scientists could be fucking lunatics. What the hell had the Bovino wanted a _time machine_ for? Apparently it only worked for five minutes at a time and only sent people into the future, not the past, but still, it had the potential to be the kind of thing Mafia Wars were started over.

The Giegue were still cutting a bloody swath through the Russian Mafiya –it was a real shame they weren't interested in joining the Varia– and the Cavallone had _finally_ got themselves fully in the black again and were making a very respectable comeback from the difficulties they'd been mired in six years ago. They'd moved into white-collar crime, which was a new thing made both harder and easier by the ever-increasing levels of technological advancement being used in banking, and were doing pretty well. Squalo suspected there'd be much more business in that area in a few more years and that the Cavallone would be getting a large piece of the pie by virtue of being ahead of the pack. Good on Dino for ensuring his Famiglia would be wealthy for generations to come, provided they managed their finances right.

* * *

Once he'd gone through all the files he'd intended to, added annotations and references and written up dozens of pages of notes, Squalo returned the intelligence to its designated section of the Varia Archives –which had _much_ better protection than the mission records– than piled up all the personnel files and carefully carried them back to Xanxus' office. Knowing that Boss was going to be back soonish had prompted Squalo to go through all the personal files for everybody in the building and sort them according to Squad, then alphabetise the Squad groupings according to Division. That done, he's started trying to create a bit of order among all the notes he'd made on the language migrations that had taken place since Xanxus was put on ice, including how the primary languages spoken _in_ the Varia had shifted during and after his recruitment drive. There were quite a lot more people speaking Arabic now, for instance, and Hindi was seeing a whole lot more usage, if only due to the rising popularity of Bollywood movies. Chinese wasn't much used because over half the various Chinese in the Varia didn't actually have a dialect in common with each-other, but most of the Mists now understood at least one Chinese dialect and about half of them knew at least three. A baffling number of people had also made a point of learning either Georgian or Mongolian, apparently just so they could write reports in a non-Latinate language.

There had also been a phase of writing reports in fictional languages, so Squalo knew that the Varia now contained people fluent in Klingon, Sindarin and, most confoundingly, Enochian. Getting the dictionary and grammar for _that_ had been a chore and a half, mostly because the Mist in question could not actually provide a source text and claimed to have lifted the language out of some random guy's mind; Squalo had made him write out a full lexicon and a thorough explanation of the grammar.

He'd had to arrange for a new bookshelf in Boss's office to put all the language texts and files on, but it would be worth it when Boss got back.

"Squalo-koi!" The Rain Officer turned at the sound of Kuchisake's voice. The horror fanatic had recently handed the GM duties for Mist Division over to Raas, giving her masses more free time. Thankfully this had happened within a few months of Changeling going back to the CEDEF, meaning Kuchisake's regular Squad was then free to take normal missions again and she could be sent off to kill people a long, long way away from Varia Headquarters.

Unfortunately for Squalo, sending people off on missions meant having to accept their reports once they got back.

"What is–" Squalo blinked. Kuchisake's Glasgow grin was now symmetrical, a considerably redder scar curving up her left cheek to match the thick white grimace on her right cheek. The Mist Squad Leader smiled widely.

"Oh, you like it?" she patted the stitches adorning the new scar. "I had it done as a Christmas present to myself."

"It's very… symmetrical," Squalo managed. It was in fact unusually symmetrical, considering the original scar had been created by glass shrapnel.

Kuchisake preened. "I had to use Mist Flames to get it _just_ right but it was totally worth it."

Squalo mentally added 'why would she want it symmetrical?' on his mental 'Do _Not_ Ask' list and proceeded to more mundane matters.

"Did you finish the mission already?"

The horror fanatic sighed theatrically. "It turned out to be _far_ simpler that Information implied," she complained. "I didn't get to do _anything_!"

Squalo paused, considering the recent requests he'd vetted and the information he'd just reviewed. "Remember that mission up in Switzerland we didn't have enough information on?"

Kuchisake brightened and her eyes gleamed. "Do tell, Captain."

"I reviewed it all again and put it together with some other bits and pieces," –odds and ends supplied by Bel concerning the peculiarities of the Swiss Magical communities– "and it is actually doable, provided there's a really strong Mist involved and everybody keeps a low profile." Squalo was pretty damn sure most of the upper ranks of Mist Division knew about magic, or at least certain aspects of it, but he'd promised not to tell and wasn't about to break his word. Kuchisake would be able to gather all relevant points from the reports anyway. "I'll get the details together for you tomorrow."

"Thank-you Captain!" Kuchisake chirped, her smile widening disturbingly. "I'll go let my boys know!"

After she'd left Squalo grinned. New body art or not, it was kinda reassuring that Kuchisake was still the same as ever.

* * *

Translations 

Trol = troll, specifically the supernatural being (Greek)

Este = evening (Hungarian)

Sposa = bride (Italian)

All other names are mentioned in earlier chapters (or are canon, or are in English).


	113. Chapter 113

Beta'd by the collaborative Insane Scriptist. This was going to be the last chapter, but I've got another one finished so there'll be an update on Monday too.

* * *

**Of devotion and retribution **

Catrín of the Giglio Nero had no idea who his parents had been, beyond one of them having been close enough to Donna Chiara for her to take him in as a ward of the Famiglia when he was five. She'd been young then and Catrín had idolised her. Well, he'd not been Catrín then –Catrín was the name the Varia had given him– but he'd still adored her and had sworn to always serve and protect the Donnas of the Giglio Nero shortly after turning ten. Donna Chiara hadn't mocked his resolve and had ensured he had tutors in all the kinds of things a Donna's protector would need, from strategy and languages to Flames and weaponry.

He'd been thirteen when Italy entered the Second World War alongside the Third Reich; was fifteen when the Armistice with the Allied Forces was signed and the Germans forcibly occupied the country. Of course Catrín could not allow such a threat to his Donna to stand and had begged to be allowed to join the guerrilla forces under the command of the Giglio Nero's ally, the Vongola. His Donna had refused his request, so Catrín had spent the following winter sneaking around nearby Nazi outposts and killing any and all Germans he could find. His actions brought him to the attention of Donna Vongola's Cloud Guardian, who approached Donna Chiara to request that Catrín join a new force he was setting up on Ottava Vongola's behalf, an independent assassination force. Donna Chiara had then granted her permission and sixteen-year-old Catrín had spent the following year and a half with the Varia, as the Independent Assassination Squad called themselves.

The Varia had named him Catrín for his incredible skill in using Storm Flames, after the _calavera catrina_ that was a popular image around the Day of the Dead in Mexico. That Catrín's birthday was actually _during_ the Day of the Dead was probably part of the reason; Catrín was resigned to his fellow assassins' terrible sense of humour. That their idea of a joke included attempted murder on slow days was something it had taken surprisingly little time to get used to.

When the German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2nd 1945, Catrín immediately presented his resignation from the Varia to his Squad Leader. Inconnu hadn't liked it, but had grudgingly commended Catrín's loyalty to his Famiglia before writing him out a set of orders that would ensure the Vongola forces scattered across the peninsula would assist the seventeen-year-old on his way home. Catrín then narrowly avoided being drugged during the farewell meal held in his honour, bade his Squad goodbye and headed home.

Catrín finally made it back to Sicily and the Giglio Nero in November, due to various delays along the way and getting called upon to offer assistance to the Vongola a couple of times. Donna Chiara immediately welcomed him back into her home, then promptly ambushed him with her year-old daughter, Luce. Catrín hadn't even known his Donna was married! Chiara had laughed at his protests, assured him that her husband was a loyal member of the Famiglia –which Catrín grudgingly agreed with her on once she finally told her the man's name– and then placed the former Varia assassin in charge of the Family's domestic security.

The teenage Storm took the challenge and responsibility as seriously as he had every other change his life had thrown his way and the next thirty years passed quietly. Donna Chiara had another two children, Stella and Fiero, a girl and a boy, and all three children grew up and set about the business of living, protected by the security protocols Catrín had set up and the bodyguards he had trained for them. Stella married a son of one of Chiara's Guardians and settled happily into being a housewife while Fiero studied Flame Science and eventually joined the Vongola Research and Development. It was Luce that Catrín worried about: she was his Donna's eldest, her heir and an Active Sky, yet she had no Guardians. He had expressed his concern to Chiara once but his Donna had simply patted his hand and assured him that Guardians would come 'at the proper time'.

Then Chiara took ill and died in 1972 and Catrín repeated his oaths to Donna Luce, who asked him to overhaul the security protocols and training methods used by the entire Famiglia. It was a long and challenging job but Catrín accepted it, even though it meant he would no longer be able to watch over Luce on a day-to-day basis.

* * *

When in the spring of 1975 Catrín returns from an outlying estate to find Luce visibly pregnant with no husband in sight, he realises his Donna had sent him away on purpose. She won't tell him who the child's father is either; just insists that the man doesn't know and that it is necessary.

Catrín knows very well that the Giglio Nero Donnas can see a little way into the future, but any future that requires Donna Chiara's precious eldest daughter to be slandered for becoming pregnant outside of proper Catholic marriage is not one he is willing to accept. So he goes over the records of the recently deceased, persuades one of Donna Luce's more distant cousins to falsify records of an arranged marriage between the Donna and the man's lately-dead son, then presents the results one evening after dinner. Luce scolds him, but her eyes are bright with delight and that is reward enough.

Then in the last months of Luce's pregnancy the Giglio Nero Mansion is invaded by six powerful strangers, all constantly arguing with each-other and utterly ignoring any attempts by the staff to curb their excesses. They are all young and arrogant with more power than sense and convinced of their own immortality. It is with great restraint that Catrín refrains from proving to the Sun that being 'the greatest hitman in the world' does not mean anything to a Varia Quality assassin; Catrín _knows_ he is still Quality and has been following the exploits of the Varia from an interested distance.

The easygoing Storm and the kind but hot-tempered Rain are the most bearable of his Donna's Guardians, and the Mist does at least show appropriate levels of discretion and paranoia concerning Luce's safety, but the other three have nothing to recommend them and Catrín cannot understand how or why his Donna has bonded to them. The Cloud is a coward who is constantly flinching from all of the others –Luce included– despite his loud boasting, the Lightning cares only about his scientific discoveries and reminds Catrín greatly of some of the more monstrous killers he served beside in the War and the Sun is so utterly convinced of his own superiority it is sickening. What is worse is that Luce does not even attempt to curb their casual cruelty, limiting herself to playing peacemaker after each fight dies down.

Catrín cannot see these people ever settling down together and dedicating themselves to the wellbeing of the Giglio Nero of their own accord and worst of all, he can't see Luce exerting herself to persuade them to do so. This can only end badly.

His expectation of disaster grows stronger as time passes, only disrupted by Donna Luce giving birth to her firstborn and heir, a daughter she names Aria. Catrín is the first person summoned into the bedroom once his Donna has given birth and when he reaches her side, Luce immediately hands her daughter over to him.

"I knew I was never going to be your Sky," his Donna says as he blinks in puzzlement at the sleeping baby in his arms. "But Aria is going to be yours."

Catrín stares at the crinkled newborn that is young enough to be his granddaughter and feels horribly inadequate. How can he possibly be a good Storm Guardian when he is already fifty-seven and will probably be dead before his Sky is even middle-aged?

"You'll do brilliantly," Donna Luce predicts with a tired smile. "Now take my daughter to the nursery so my Guardians don't wake her when they all start fussing."

* * *

A week later Catrín understands why Donna Luce isn't worried about the impact his mortality will have on her baby daughter. The Arcobaleno Curse makes it considerably more likely that it will be Catrín, not Aria, who will be left bereft within the next thirty years.

"Fifteen years," he repeats hollowly, clutching his sleeping Sky to his chest as Luce stares at him sadly, reduced to the size and form of a toddler with a transparent orange pacifier hanging around her neck on a ribbon.

"At the most; my becoming small like the others gives me more time, but I am still unlikely to live beyond that," Donna Luce confesses, wringing her hands guiltily.

"You knew this was coming," Catrín accuses quietly, refusing to look at his diminutive Donna. She'd known she was going to be Cursed and hadn't tried to get out of it. Had deliberately had a child before she was Cursed, a child who would inherit the Curse when she died. Aria would be Cursed while in her early teens and was unlikely to ever see thirty.

"I'm sorry." Catrín still can't look at her. He's never hated his Donna before. There's nothing he can say to her right now that isn't an accusation.

"When I was little, I was afraid of you," Luce says eventually, staring at her tiny feet dangling over the edge of the chair. "I looked at you and saw hatred. It took me years to realise that the hatred I saw was in the future, not the present. I spent over half my life knowing I'd do something to make you hate me and I hated myself for it, because I could also see that you loved me and my mother so, so much. But this was the only way forward I could see."

Catrín is of the opinion that if she couldn't _see_ a way forward she should have _made_ one, but he knows better than to argue with Giglio Nero Donnas. However he promises himself that _his_ Sky will not be allowed to indulge in defeatist fatalism and will be taught that just because you can't see a way forward, it doesn't mean there isn't one.

After all, being Varia Quality means achieving the impossible.

* * *

Of the other Arcobaleno, the Storm and the Cloud never visit; likely because they feel betrayed. Catrín does not blame them for it. The Rain visits occasionally, maybe once or twice a year, accompanied by another Cursed Rain who apparently attempted to save her but was just slightly too late. The two Rains argue constantly, the older one kicking the younger in the head on a regular basis.

The Lightning visits frequently in the first few years, mostly in the name of gathering data to study the Curse, but by the time Aria is five he no longer calls on them. Catrín much prefers to keep the amoral scientist well away from his little Sky, so has no complaints.

The Mist was the only one to linger in the immediate aftermath of being Cursed; she remained with the Giglio Nero for three whole years before venturing out on her own again. After leaving she stops by every year in the summer, for Luce's birthday. When Aria turns ten Catrín finally thinks to suggest that Viper might do well in the Varia; the tiny Mist does not respond either way to his suggestion, but after Luce's death she stops visiting and a few years after _that_, a very small assassin becomes Mist Officer.

The Sun visited regularly. Initially to argue, then just for the sake of seeing his Sky. He comes around about three times a year but with no real schedule; Catrín very soon gives up on attempting to predict the man. He is angry at being Cursed, angrier than any of the others although the Lightning might come close, and feels the loss of his adult self the most keenly. Catrín suspects that his ego has taken the most damage and that the wound is festering.

Renato Sinclair is not even slightly interested in his Sky's daughter, which Catrín is grateful for because if the hitman _had_ paid attention, he would have noticed that Aria bore a rather uncanny resemblance to him during her toddler years. The Storm is certain he has stumbled upon the identity of his little Sky's father, but says nothing to either Luce or Sinclair; all things considered he prefers the arrogant hitman not involve himself in Aria's life at all.

When Aria is fourteen, Luce dies. Sinclair never visits again, not even for the funeral. Four years later Catrín hears a rumour of a pint-sized hitman calling himself 'Reborn' tutoring the Cavallone heir; he does not bother investigating further.

That he had been right about Luce's Guardians not being even slightly interested in her Famiglia does not give Catrín even the smallest iota of satisfaction.

* * *

When Aria is fifteen she acquires a Lightning Guardian. Gamma is not-quite fourteen, Stella's grandson –making him Donna Aria's cousin once removed– and an orphan. He's very intelligent, appropriately loyal and utterly determined to be the best Guardian he can possibly be. Catrín approves very much of both his devotion and his humility and is rather pleased that his Sky finally has a Guardian her own age.

When she is seventeen she collects a Cloud as well; Enyo is a Latent with relatively small reserves, but Catrín knows better than to think that Flames are everything. Enyo learns quickly and is soon making the most of his skills even as he expands his repertoire.

Catrín would have liked his Donna to have picked up a few female Guardians, but it isn't exactly something she has any control over so he doesn't mention it. It won't help. Instead he makes sure all of Aria's subordinates are familiar with the security protocols and have the appropriate training their roles require. He knows almost nothing of political and financial matters, but he can ensure that his Donna's home is properly secured.

Once Aria is in her early twenties she begins attending parties at the Vongola Mansion and various younger sons of allied Dons start attempting to court her. Catrín only rarely attends such events; he is nearly seventy and feels very out of place. His joints are stiff, his face is carved with wrinkles, his little remaining hair is white and he is no longer as strong or as quick-witted as he was in his youth. His Donna understands his reticence and excuses him from attending all but the most formal of social events with a kind but knowing smile.

Aria is twenty-five when Catrín catches a man climbing out of her bedroom window in the early hours of a chilly February morning. The seventy-three-year-old might be long past his prime but he is still Varia Quality in every way that counts: he silently shadows the intruder off the grounds, incapacitates him with a thin spike of Storm Flames to the brain stem then uses the man's own car to drive them both to a deserted dead-end where he proves that his skills have in no way diminished over the years.

Leaving a steaming skeleton and a car completely clean of biological traces behind him, Catrín walks the five miles back to the Giglio Nero mansion in the dark. That man had been old enough to be his Sky's father and should have known better than to treat a lady so shabbily; breaking into her bedroom during the night for a covert assignation and then escaping the same way? Shameful behaviour. This way at least his Sky's honour is avenged.

* * *

Translations

Catrín = stylish, posh (Mexican Spanish)

Calavera catrina = elegant skeleton; popular part of the Day of the Dead decorations (Mexican Spanish)

Inconnu = stranger (French)

Luce = light (Italian)

Stella = star (Italian)

Fiero = proud (Italian)

To all those newly-created Federico fans... sorry, not sorry.


	114. Chapter 114

Beta'd by the amusing Insane Scriptist.

There will be another chapter tomorrow and then a pause until I have more written up. Enjoy!

* * *

**Of picking up the pieces **

Squalo stood up against the wall of Bulldog's autopsy room, well out of the way of the forensic pathologist. Bulldog had spent the better part of two weeks down here in the basement, running tests on the bones that everybody suspected were Federico's. Of course there being only bones left made conclusively identifying then a bit tricky, but Bulldog's specialty was Flame forensics so if there was anything left _to_ be found, Squalo was certain Bulldog would find it.

Next to Squalo Federico's Mist Guardian, Hamlet, was slumped against the wall with her eyes closed. The smart suit she was wearing was rumpled and there was a hint of blood spatter on the cuffs of her shirt, but other than that the only outward hints of her bereavement were the purpling shadows around her eyes and the pallor of her skin. Hamlet definitely hadn't been getting anywhere near enough sleep lately.

Federico's Guardians had actually managed to pull together as a unit in the aftermath of their Sky's death, which was considerably better than his elder brothers' Guardians had managed in the aftermaths of _their_ deaths. The six of them had supervised the evacuation of the Vongola Mansion –the last place Federico had been to the best of their knowledge– then called on the Varia to assist them in locating their Sky's killer. It had come out fairly early on in the search that Federico hadn't been wearing his Vongola ring when he died –it had been lying on his bedside table– but they'd had no luck in finding _anything_ until one of the apprentices helping Vongola Housekeeping go over the transport records turned up a car missing from the garage.

Finding the abandoned car had been child's play and there had been a gently steaming pile of bones right next to it; however the Varia Mists who had done the finding had been extremely miffed to discover that whatever had been done to reduce a person to bones had completely eradicated the deceased's lingering Flame signature. In fact, the bones had been completely clean of _any_ Flame signature at all, so they hadn't been able to get a lock on the perpetrator _either_.

Needless to say, the Mists and Mammon in particular had all taken that very personally, which had kept the entire Division _very_ quiet indeed in the past fortnight. Squalo had a feeling there would be at _least_ thirty new identification techniques created by the end of the month, all of them working off different premises. It was keeping those Mists not on duty out of trouble and distracting them all from the horrific uncertainty that had overtaken the rest of the Vongola, which was great since usually Mists were the ones most sensitive to those kinds of vibes. The stymied fury billowing in the corridors was much better than having people acting up to suppress their own nerves.

"So," Bulldog said, pulling off a latex glove to run a hand through his long and rather untidy hair, "first of all: yes, it's definitely Federico. I had to get his full medical history and his dental records in order to identify him by the old, healed breaks in his skeleton and the condition of his teeth, but I did manage to prove things beyond all reasonable doubt."

Hamlet sagged further into herself in what was probably relief; knowing that your Sky was dead but not knowing if you'd even found his body… that had clearly been wearing on her.

"Secondly, whoever did this to him knew _exactly_ what they were doing and were precise enough that I'm frankly amazed we haven't found any records of them in the Varia Archives yet," the middle-aged Storm carried on, pulling off his other glove. "There's nobody currently in Storm Division with these kinds of skills –or if there is they've been keeping it mighty quiet– and Tyrant can't remember anybody who could do this either, which rather narrows down our suspect pool."

Considering Tyrant had joined the Varia in 1946 and had a phenomenal memory for people, it really did narrow down the suspect pool; there were _no_ suspects. The complete opposite to Massimo's murder, where there had been so _many_ potential perpetrators the investigation had never got anywhere. The gas grenade had turned out to have come from the armoury of the house Nono's middle son had been murdered in, so that had been a dead end; the cement he'd had his feet embedded in had been sourced from the dockside; and even the fuzzy security cameras hadn't picked up anything definitive other than that there had been a car involved, which had been a given anyway.

Being reduced to steaming bones was just as ridiculously theatrical as being given concrete shoes and shoved off a pier, although Squalo was pretty sure the theme was incidental. Still if it wasn't, who was there left to be murdered and prove the common thread? Once was once, twice was suspicious but it was three in a row that was enemy action.

Maria-Chiara Vongola was probably never going to be allowed to leave the Vongola Mansion again without an armed escort, just so as to prevent such a thing from happening. Sucked to be her, since she was more competent and less known than her brothers had been.

"Did you know that I've never seen formerly-living tissue this void of Flames since, well, _ever_?" Bulldog ranted, bringing Squalo back to the present. "There not being even the faintest, tiniest _hint_ of Sky _anywhere_? Do you have any _idea_ how _pervasive_ Harmony is? I can still sense echoes of Boss in the corridor leading to his workshop and around his private fridge in the back kitchen, never mind in his office and the hallways around it! Even the places out on the grounds where Housekeeping scattered the ashes of the idiots he fireballed still have a trace of lingering Flame! But these bones feel like they were never in a person at all!"

Hamlet remained unresponsive, but she wasn't attempting murder or leaving the room so she was probably interested in what was being said. Squalo wanted more details too; untraceable murder was the holy grail of the Varia and while they as an organisation were capable of killing people in ways not traceable by outsiders, other Varia could probably deduce the methods and track down the responsible party if they could be bothered to. A couple of Varia had actually been recruited when they tracked the murderer of a friend, lover or relative to the Mansion and tried to get revenge.

"How was it possible then?" Squalo asked, to keep the conversation going.

"Well," Bulldog grumbled, "in _theory_ a Storm can selectively Disintegrate a person's flesh off their bones without damaging the skeleton, although you'd have to be pretty dammed skilled to achieve it. I mean, even all the tiny fiddly bones in the inner ear are still intact! Sekti looked like he wanted to replicate the process when he stopped by earlier this week to help me work the imaging suite, but I expect it'll take him a few years to get the particulars sorted. I've agreed to help him track his progress there, so I'll keep you updated." In addition to being their medical examiner, Bulldog also ran a couple of body farms on Varia land and was the foremost expert in the mafia on how different Flames affected corpse decomposition rates _and_ how to identify injuries by Flame-type; he'd actually founded both fields of study and he even ran seminars for Vongola Medical every year, although the grumpy Englishman always complained about how impatient and sloppy most of the attendees were.

"Similarly, since Storms _can_ burn other Flames off things without damaging the material the Flames are applied to, it should _theoretically_ be possible to burn away the Flames lingering in the corpse of a Flame Active individual. However it's just not that simple: a person's Flames aren't just lingering on their skin; they permeate every cell of the entire body! The longer a person has been Active, the more Flames they have lingering in their body and if a person Activates their Dying Will before they reach their full growth, tiny sparks get embedded in their bones and muscle tissues! This is part of why Storms are prone to joint problems in later life, incidentally; anyway, to _still_ burn _all_ a person's Flames away without damaging the tissue they are embedded in there would have to be some kind of wicking effect to draw it out, which to me sounds like somehow applying Mist Clauses to Storm-work and definitely something that would require a very specific mindset to achieve."

"So, possibly a Misty Storm," Squalo deduced. The _worst_ possible kind of Storm and almost the most destructive Flame-combination possible; the mindset that was most commonly found in Misty Storms –and the occasional Stormy Mist– was the certainty that they _could_ achieve their goals, no matter how twisted or absurd, because the world _would_ bend to accommodate them. Or else it would _burn_.

Squalo did not like Misty Storms at all. They embodied all the most twisted and obsessive traits of both Mists and Storms and were impossible to sway from their chosen course.

"I think it's more likely to be a pure Storm though," Bulldog said, "going by the micro-scarring on the bone surfaces and the complete absence of Flame signature."

"Explain."

The retired Storm promptly did. "It takes considerable control to not leave a Flame signature behind even just walking around; to not leave one on a corpse that was killed using Flames takes an order of magnitude more… unless you are a Storm. A Storm can control their Flames to Disintegrate _themselves_ away to nothing, leaving no signature at all. It takes a lot of control because if you do it wrong you end up a greasy smudge on the ground, having destroyed your own body and Flames along with the ones on your target, but it's documented as being possible and we have two Storms in the Division with that skill on record." He paused. "It's actually easier for Storms to remove their own signature from a crime scene than to just erase their trail while walking around, because the crime scene is a specific, contained location away from the Flame-user, while a trail is by definition attached to a person at one end. This is also why Storms are good at following trails, as setting Storm Flames to the traces of another person's Flames is like lighting a fuse; all you have to do after that is follow the burn."

As a Rain, it was the other way around for Squalo: Rain Flames had excellent cohesion due to the Tranquillity factor, so it was relatively easy not to leave a trail wherever you went. However killing a person with Tranquillity meant infusing their body with it and after you'd done that you could _never_ get all the traces out. This was partly why Squalo preferred sticking to pure swordplay when he killed people; that way there were no Flame traces to deal with afterwards. The rest was all pride in his skill and not _needing_ to use Flames to kill people, even when those people were using Flames against him.

"Mists shed everywhere regardless," Hamlet said abruptly, "but those of us talented enough can keep the traces so fine it takes a truly gifted individual to pick up on them."

"Quite," Bulldog agreed, "which is why I do not think the killer had any Active Mist Flames. There were _no_ traces _anywhere_. Not in the vehicle either; they even Disintegrated all the dust and dirt, probably to eliminate any potential biological samples." He shook his head. "Anybody with control this good can probably suppress their Flames well enough to feel like a Latent, so even rounding up all the Active Storms within fifty miles of the murder wouldn't necessarily turn up the killer."

Hamlet leaned her head back against the tiled wall, eyes still closed as she rubbed her temples. "Damn. I bloody well _warned_ him that someday someone would get lucky! And he was doing so _well_ too; more than six months since his last assignation and he actually took Othello along on that one."

Squalo did not comment on how he'd predicted this happening over two years ago when the Harpies had brought to light this particular gaping hole in Federico's ability to let his Guardians do their job. "Do you know where he went?" The Rain Officer asked instead.

"I can guess," The former Mist Guardian sighed. "He's been trying –and mostly failing– to woo Donna Aria Giglio Nero since August; been very serious about her really, but she wouldn't take _him_ seriously. Maybe she thought that if she slept with him he'd stop bothering her? Anyway, whoever it was probably caught him on his way back to the Iron Fort afterwards."

"How serious?" Squalo asked curiously. Aria Giglio Nero was twenty-five, but more pertinently she was the current Sky Arcobaleno and therefore doomed to die young; Mammon had confirmed it to be so. However Vongola who fell in love tended to do so abruptly and absolutely, so Federico probably wouldn't have let his bride's short lifespan –or the Curse that would have been inflicted on one of her children upon her death– stop him from marrying her.

Hamlet opened her eyes and stared glassily at the ceiling. "He was in love," she whispered faintly, "so completely deadly serious."

Wonderful. Just to make this utter disaster even more of a complete failure for the Vongola; where were they going to find a decently trainable heir _now_? More to the point, one that could be trusted to make responsible decisions, rule the Famiglia rather than be ruled _by_ it and have the guts to change a few things, like getting Iemitsu out of the CEDEF.

* * *

Three weeks later it was Squalo's birthday but the general state of emergency was still in effect, which rather seriously impeded the Varia's efforts to mark their Captain turning twenty. Squalo was privately grateful; he'd had quite enough of Varia birthday parties by the time he was seventeen and they really hadn't gotten any better since then.

However _not_ marking his birthday somehow was just _begging_ for Lussuria to arrange something for him, so Squalo ordered griddlecakes with bacon and maple syrup for breakfast then mentioned he was going out for the day and wouldn't be back until five in the afternoon. This meant that whoever was organising the birthday cake would probably arrange for it –and the inevitable presents– to be served in one of the reception rooms on the ground floor, thereby keeping the whole mess away from his office and all the paperwork. It would also encourage everyone to believe he was having fun, making it less likely that someone would try and 'cheer him up' later.

Squalo planned to spend the day with his little sister and his cousin Pantera, who was the Superbi Heir and very good company. His cousin already knew about this, so there'd probably be tuna carpaccio for lunch, followed by a fancy dessert and quite a bit of alcohol alongside various presents from his relatives. His cousin would probably have a few more other Superbi over for the meal, but Squalo knew that Pantera wouldn't invite anybody difficult so it was bound to be a good day. It turned out there were a few ex-Varia who'd married into the Superbi Family after retiring –something Squalo hadn't found out until after getting back from his world tour– so they and any of their older children might be there.

All in all, it promised to be a decent day out. Hopefully it would be enjoyable enough that whatever the Varia got up to in his absence wouldn't get on his nerves too much.

* * *

Squalo wound up ambling back into the Varia Mansion at a quarter past five, feeling very mellow indeed. His birthday lunch had been fantastic, the conversation had been interesting and he'd actually got some decent presents. There'd also been several bottles of very good wine from the Superbi vineyards, which probably had something to do with his continued good-humour. Squalo only ever drank alcohol when he was in a good mood and today had been very pleasant so far.

"Have a good day out, Captain?" Glace asked, opening the front door from the inside before Squalo could do it himself.

The Rain Officer grinned lazily at his General Manager. "Very good, thank-you; did anything in particular happen while I was out?"

"Nothing bad," Glace assured him. "Ottabio left on a mission with his Squad, Deadpool stopped by to leave you a present and the Three Bears came back from wherever it was in central Africa they were with a newly Active Mist that Scrapefoot promptly dumped on Mab."

"So good, dubious and interesting," Squalo summarised.

"Good, hopeful and interesting," Glace corrected him; "Deadpool's present isn't wrapped and is definitely a very fine katana. I don't even think it's trapped, although there's probably a confetti bomb in the birthday card he left with it."

Squalo rolled his eyes; confetti bombs were a staple of all Varia birthday parties, although it had apparently been Deadpool who started the Tradition. He'd also been the one to brave Tyrant's firm disapproval of glitter to create Real Illusions of glitter, which had been allowed on the basis that, while _actual_ glitter was unprofessional, Mist-glitter was acceptable since it wasn't really there and created no mess. It still got everywhere, but it faded out of existence shortly after its creation.

A Varia birthday without at _least_ four confetti bombs wasn't a proper birthday at all, like a Varia prank war without copious quantities of Mist-glitter was just a minor skirmish. One particular Mist was infamous for using Mist-glitter _on missions_, but he made it work for him so he continued to get away with it. Alizarin was friendly with Lussuria, which Squalo felt explained a _lot_ about him.

"Anyway," the GM continued as they crossed the Front Hall, "Housekeeping made more than ten different kinds of cake to celebrate your turning twenty and they're all on the buffet tables in the Breakfast Hall. Everybody's helping themselves to everything except the one with the candles on, so come and blow those out so we can try it."

"What's the big deal about one cake?" Squalo asked, agreeably changing direction.

"It's a four-tier devil's food cake," Glace said mildly, "and the only chocolate cake on the table."

Squalo snickered; Mab was clearly messing with everybody's heads again and the kitchen staff were aiding and abetting. He bet he knew why everybody had their eyes on _this_ cake; despite Boss being on ice, the kitchen still got in regular orders of the high-quality chocolate he liked so as to ensure that whenever Xanxus returned, there would be chocolate waiting for him. It was the same reason steak was served at least three times a week on the evening buffet.

The kitchens had probably saved up the chocolate that was getting towards its best-before date and put it _all_ in those cakes. However Mab had clearly Cursed the cake in some way so nobody could get near it until he came along and blew the candles out. Funny.

Sure enough, there were Varia lurking around the walls of the Breakfast Hall with plates of cake and drinks as well as sitting at the tables, all eyeing the multi-storey chocolate cake with twenty pristine candles burning a cheerful Mist-indigo on the top. There were more Varia through the open double-doors leading to the other breakfast rooms and three of the tables nearest the buffet had been pushed together and piled high with presents.

Being de-facto boss of the Varia meant getting presents from just about _everybody_, which was a bit nerve-wracking really. Most of Lightning Division had absolutely no concept of what constituted a suitable gift and the Mists were not much better; at least Ottabio never got him anything and Mammon's idea of a gift was a reduced fee on whatever information he needed next.

"So, what are the other cakes?" He asked, pausing by the chocolate cake that was the centre of attention.

"There's cheesecake, carrot cake, panforte, Pandolce, Esterházy torta, Napoleonka, kek lapis, Castella, spice cake, babka, fruitcake and Charlotte Russe," Éclair said cheerfully from his spot at a nearby table. "Nobody can get more than one slice of any cake type until you've tried it and nobody can get within two feet of the chocolate cake." Éclair was a rather odd Lightning, but at least he was _trying_ to be a person rather than a killer robot.

"I don't know, the candles are rather fun," Squalo teased. "I might leave them for a while."

There was instantly a chorus of moans and pleading as every Varia in the room –and a few of the ones in the other rooms who'd heard him– all tried to express how incredibly cruel he was being. Squalo laughed; he hadn't meant it but seeing everybody so desperate was funny.

"Oh, fine then," he leaned closer, cautiously eyeing the Curse on the cake. It being Mab, there was probably a birthday-related prank that would trigger when he blew the candles out. Eh, never mind. One quick puff and the little flames were extinguished.

There was a pause as everybody held their breath, then the candles vanished and a very sharp knife appeared in the air above the top cake and plummeted down, sinking almost all the way into it before stopping. Shaking his head at Mist-melodrama –seriously none of them were immune– Squalo pulled the knife out and cut himself a thin slice of cake. Chocolate wasn't really his thing, but he fully intended to get himself a decent slice of that cheesecake and some of the panforte.

There was a tingling in his fingers as he picked up his slice of chocolate cake and Squalo knew he'd been had; what was it that Mab had done though?

"There's a shark wearing a party hat on the back of your jacket, Captain," Glace murmured past a wide smile.

Eh, harmless. Squalo ignored the sniggers and got himself some more cake.

* * *

"_Auguri_," said a familiar voice a while after Squalo had settled down at a table to eat his cake. The Rain Officer looked up to see Hamlet joining him, Mab standing behind her.

"It'll only last until midnight or until you leave the grounds," Mab told him, referring of course to the shark of the back of his jacket. "Happy birthday, Captain."

Squalo nodded, not wanting to talk with his mouth full. He then glanced curiously at Hamlet, wondering why she was here.

"State of emergency is officially over as of twenty minutes ago," Hamlet told him, sticking a cake fork into her slice of Esterházy torta. "Nono's summoned Reborn for something and still isn't saying who the next heir is, but I'm pretty sure he's got _somebody_ in mind; somebody definitely not Iemitsu." Which could only be a good thing, in Squalo's opinion; then again, unfortunately there _were_ worse people out there. "Oh, and Romeo got himself murdered this morning."

Squalo blinked. Hamlet did not seem particularly bothered by the loss of her fellow Guardian. "By whom?"

"You know he got involved with Don Bianchi's daughter shortly after our Sky died?"

Squalo _had_ heard about that, from Nilla as it happened. "The Poison Scorpio, right? Isn't she sixteen?" Romeo was twenty-one, making that relationship a bit alarming.

"Yes and yes," Hamlet drawled, poking her cake as it gradually fell apart. "It seems that he managed to coerce her into sleeping with him yesterday and she wasn't very happy about it this morning. So she ambushed him and shoved Poison Cooking down his throat until he died." Unsaid but very obvious was that Hamlet thought the idiot had deserved it. "Nobody's going to be charging her with anything." And Hamlet's opinion was shared by Don Vongola; good to know.

"What are the rest of your fellows getting up to?" Squalo asked, mostly as conversation. Now that the state of emergency was over Federico's Guardians would be giving back their Guardian rings –if they hadn't already– and finding new things to do with their lives. Or trying to anyway; bond bereavement was no joke.

"Lear's gone back to his family; what he'll do once he's mourned is anyone's guess," Hamlet said idly. "Macbeth's already vanished into Housekeeping with Antony and Othello is probably going to do hits for the Family until he's calmed down a bit."

"Housekeeping?" Squalo echoed curiously.

"Only way left to protect the Vongola," Hamlet said shortly; she meant the family not the Famiglia, so Macbeth –or whatever his real name was since Guardian names died with their Sky– would be watching over Maria-Chiara and her grandchildren alongside the Rain-who-had-been-Antony.

"And you?" No-longer-Hamlet had been Federico's Right-Hand, for all that most people had thought Macbeth held that position and despite Hamlet herself having been the youngest of her Sky's first set of Guardians. She'd only been nine when she'd Harmonised with him.

The Mist finally looked him in the eye. "I would like to join the Varia, please."

Squalo considered it. Hamlet –or whatever she would be calling herself now– was thirty-eight, but she was a Mist and hadn't worked her body as hard as the Varia tended to, since being a Guardian did not require a person to be in peak fitness or to throw themselves into high-risk situations. She could probably meet Mist Division's lower-than-Varia-average standards for a year or two, after which she'd probably have worked through her bereavement and be fine with retiring. Being a Guardian she'd have the languages, but he wasn't going to give her special treatment for that either.

"I'll get you the paperwork, Scarlattina_,_" he told her before taking another mouthful of cake.

The eyebrow twitch he got in response to his impromptu naming was the most genuinely irritated reaction he'd got out of her since Federico died. Good; she might be joining up for the violence but she'd discover soon enough that the Varia could be healing too. Which Squad to put her on though… Ah, of course: Problem Squad. She'd fit right in.

* * *

Translations

Alizarin = a type of crimson dye (English)

Éclair = lightning flash (French); also the dessert pastry

Auguri = congratulations (Italian)

Scarlattina = scarlet fever; little scarlet (Italian)

Note: In Italian, 'poison Scorpio' and 'poison scorpion' translate identically, and since Bianchi _is_ a Scorpio I thought it was more apt.


	115. Chapter 115

Beta'd by the hectic Insane Scriptist.

Last chapter for a while... but it's only a small cliffhanger.

* * *

**Of dawn raids and well-planned recoveries **

"Right then," Padma said to the two of her two fellow Guardians whom she had chosen to assist her in the part of 'The Great Escape' that Dorea had put her in charge of, "is everything ready?" Since that part was also the first part, and therefore the most _vital_ bit since if they failed everything else would go wrong, Padma really hadn't expected to have it delegated to her. It was _Dorea's_ husband they were rescuing after all.

Her initial reaction to Dorea asking her to set up and carry out the extraction of Alexandro Zabini from the basement of the Vongola Mansion had been a fumbled wand and a shrieked "What?" which retrospectively was terribly embarrassing, but Padma felt completely justified there. She had expected Dorea to do that part and so had everybody else!

But Dorea had explained that she needed to be fully prepared for the defrosting and resuscitation Ritual at dawn and assist with the activation phase at twilight, which she would be unable to do if she was out retrieving her husband from his captor's cellar. Beyond that, she had her husband's Flames burning within her, which might plausibly set off the sensors Theo had described as being around the block of Soul-glass. More prosaically, Dorea confided that she was worried that if _she_ were the one to go and fetch her husband, her having his Flames and the resonance between them might start the defrosting process early, which could only end messily.

Padma had therefore accepted the mission and recruited Millie and Leo to assist her: Millie for her brute strength and considerable stealth skills and Leo for his skill and experience in using Runes and his ninja training. Stealing a man frozen in a block of ice out of a sealed sub-basement from under Muggle security cameras and extensive Flame sensors was _definitely_ a job for a ninja, if the real ones were anything like their cinematic counterparts.

"The Transference Circle is fully laid out in front of Lab Two, next to the Awakening Circle so we can get Rhea's husband transferred from one to the other as quickly as possible before dawn actually begins," Leo said, scratching behind his ear with the hilt of the knife he had used to lay out the Runes. "It's a temporary Circle, so we'll have to be in and out in less than an hour."

"Theo's all set and waiting for us over at our destination," Millie said briskly, "and he's laid out the Runestones to match the layout here, with the seventh point facing due south. He says the cameras are on a loop and he's set up another loop in the sensor data so as long as there are no Flame spikes we won't have any trouble."

"Good, we're ready then," Padma said, threading her wand through her hair and briefly touching the sapphire earrings that marked her as a Guardian. "Let's go."

Leo pulled his hood over his head as Millie wrapped a veil around her face, all three of them now clothed in dark grey, comfortable jumpers and trousers armoured enough to withstand dragon fire. The Prewetts still hadn't managed to work out a way to turn 'Harmony' into armour –well not _reliably_ at any rate– but Tranquillity and Activation armour was now in existence alongside the Hardening armour, so all three of them were properly protected.

Padma stepped out of the laboratory building, walked across the grass and into the Transference Circle, her fellow Guardians at her heels, and then they were gone.

* * *

Stefano Torretta was at home and fast asleep, it being five o'clock in the morning. He'd be getting up in an hour though, since he had to be at work for eight. Federico's highly unexpected death had thrown Stefano's schedule off, which had been extremely uncomfortable when he'd only just been starting to get his feet under him again. He'd _liked_ Daniela's grandson too; the man was terrible with women but he cared about his people and had been passionate about improving his Famiglia.

Since February Stefano had been assigned to caring for Maria-Chiara's grandson, Amadeo. He escorted the boy from his suite to the schoolroom where the five-year-old had lessons, then to lunch in the service wing, then supervised him playing in the gardens or doing his homework. Theo was free to go elsewhere whenever one or more of Amadeo's relatives came to spend time with him –generally members of the Lanza Family– but he couldn't go far, since he had to be available to take responsibility for the five-year-old again when they left.

The most frequent visitors were the two Varia members who had taken tea with Daniela back when Erica Lanza had been pregnant, Maínomai and Pýř. Pýř had noticed a few of Theo's Mist-clones hitch-hiking in people's minds, but the Cloud had apparently assumed they were part of the security and a way of monitoring the staff not in the know about the actual Mafia to ensure they _stayed _ignorant of the Mafia. Theo had nearly had a panic attack when he realised he'd been spotted and still wasn't sure how the assassin had come to the conclusions he had. Maínomai was supposedly a Lanza himself, but Theo had a feeling that was a political fiction. Still, it was very kind of them to visit so often when Amadeo's mother was so busy at the CEDEF could barely make it in on Sunday afternoons and was always so exhausted it was all she could do to stay awake and listen to her son tell her about his week.

Of course, just because Stefano was in bed didn't mean that Theo was; Theo was currently inhabiting a Mist Clone that was standing in the basement of the Vongola Mansion, surrounded by battered, pock-marked pillars and watching a meticulously laid out ring of seven Runestones and waiting for Padma, Millie and Leo to show up.

Then, with barely a flicker of power in the Runes, there the three of them were. Padma instantly rushed over to him and hugged him, which was a bit unexpected; did he really look that bad? He probably did, considering Millie followed the Ravenclaw Alumnus over and peered at his face for a moment before patting him on the shoulder. Leo did not hug him, but that was probably because Padma had got their first. The Badger could probably tell he was an illusion too, so endorphin-Activating hugs wouldn't work.

Millie then wandered over to the big chained block that dominated the cellar, steel panels keeping the ice contained. Her posture suggested she had a comment to make, so Theo reached out a tendril of Flames so that the four of them could speak mind-to-mind. It had been decided beforehand that speaking aloud would be too much of a security risk.

_Are they really so afraid of him getting out that they have to lock his frozen body in a box?_ Millie asked.

_Looks like,_ Leo said laconically. _Theo? Ready for the switch? _

Theo nodded; Padma walked off to one side and drew a small seven-pointed Arithmantic star, then waved her wand. A block of 'ice' appeared on top of the star, about the same size as the one containing Xanxus Vongola. No, Alexandro Zabini; what they were doing had nothing to do with the Vongola. Remembering that was important; it made it easier to avoid the Mansion's Mist-Wards.

_Make it a bit thinner,_ Leo said, hopping on top of the chain-wrapped block. _And slightly shorter… yes, like that._

_Get off before I Switch them,_ Padma said, twirling her wand as her eyes darted from the Conjured ice-cube in front of her to the block of solid Soulfire off to her left.

_I have faith in your skills, _Leo said sweetly, bouncing in place. Padma rolled her eyes, but flicked her wand decisively.

And there was their Lady's husband, frozen solid on top of Padma's seven-pointed star. Leo dropped off the top of the chained decoy block and hurried over, Millie beside him. When they reached the frozen cube they flanked it, Millie crouching down and grunting quietly as Leo carefully, slowly pushed it forwards onto her. Then between them the Executioner and the Fool lifted the icy prison and gradually moved it back into the Transference circle, the Secretary only taking a moment to wipe clean her little Protean Enchantment –which ensured the Conjured block of ice would still have the 'feel' of Alexandro Zabini's Flames for as long as it lasted– before following after them.

Left alone in the basement Theo calmly picked up the Runestones, double-checked that the monitoring equipment was showing the previous year's recordings and then left, remotely disabling the camera loop as he did so. He would leave the stones in his locker and then dissipate, so he could leave with them this evening when he went home after work.

Theo wondered idly how long it would take the Vongola to notice that the Varia Boss had gone for a walk. A few months maybe?

* * *

It was barely twenty past five when Padma, Millie and Leo arrived back on the small lawn in front of the Laboratories, the latter two carrying between them the block of ice containing her husband. Sunrise wasn't due to start for another thirty-nine minutes, which meant that rather than hurrying over and expanding the resonance she could already feel tickling in her soul, Dorea had to stay in Lab Two with Draco and the various Zabini medical specialists she had borrowed from Sabina as they set up the theatre where they will be operating on her husband's injuries and finish off the furnishing of the High-Magic recovery room. The Runes to gather, equalise and stabilise the room's ambient magic were already complete, but the bed frame had needed a mattress and the house-elves were all in a flutter trying to arrange the best sheets and the fluffiest pillows for ''Lord Potter', in between arguing over the colour palette for the blankets and whether or not to provide a dressing gown and slippers.

Dorea stepped in at that point and spoke in favour of green to match the walls, but with plenty of other colours to brighten the space up. Convalescence was _incredibly_ boring after all. Two elves promptly vanished and returned a few minutes later with a few still life and landscape paintings to go on the walls, completely unEnchanted so as not to interfere with the room's function, while the others made the bed and fetch pyjamas, slippers, a wash basin and water jug and of course a thick, warm dressing gown in blood red.

House-elves; how did anybody ever manage without them?

Having the elves move the pictures around and go back a few times for different ones did keep her busy for a while, but she was satisfied with how the room looked and had to force herself to stop fussing. Twenty minutes to go.

Dorea was at a loss at how to spend those minutes until Loppy appeared, carrying a tray with a mug of hot chocolate and a fresh cream brioche.

"You are the best elf a Lady could have," she told the little creature sincerely, accepting the hot chocolate and letting the young elf put the fine china plate holding the breakfast pastry on a nearby table.

"Mistress is too kind to Loppy," the elf mumbled before vanishing with a subdued pop.

Even pacing herself it only took ten minutes for Dorea to eat the early breakfast, but just as she was wiping her fingers on the napkin Loppy had thoughtfully provided Draco knocked on the doorframe behind her.

"We're ready for you Rhea," the rather harassed-looking platinum blond said briskly, his eyes shining with the intensity that usually accompanied a really good fight or a proper debate.

Dorea set down the napkin and rose to her feet, kicking off the slippers she'd been wearing and removing her jacket to reveal the scarlet dress she was wearing underneath. Red for courage, passion, celebration and authority; all things she would need to keep in mind as she took her place in the Awakening Ritual.

Walking outside took a bit more care than usual what with having bare feet, but the Ritual was all set up with her husband in the middle so all she had to do was stand in front of him in the Circle, halfway between the middle and where Draco was standing, at the point marking due South. The Sun would be rising in front of her and a way to her right, slightly left of where Fay's position in the Ritual was. Tracy was standing mirroring Fay, to Dorea's left and marking the point where the sun would eventually set. The other four people involved in the Ritual were the Zabinis who had helped Draco with his research; they would be guiding the power invoked while all Draco, Fay and Tracy would have to do was stand still and not faint.

Which would probably be harder than it looked. All of Dorea's other Guardians –other than Theo who had George standing in for him– were arranged in a loose ring around the outside of the Circle, providing additional support.

Breathing deeply, Dorea centred herself and forced her mind to be calm and still. There was nothing here, nothing except the grass and scrub beneath her feet, the cool breeze on her skin, the pre-dawn light lightening the sky above her and the blazing fire within her soul. Two fires; her own and her husbands, which today she would restore to its proper place. Which was…

… right _there_ in front of her.

Dorea strode forwards, a corona of orange Soulfire glowing around her, and reached out towards the block of bitterly cold Soulglass. It melted away easily, collapsing as she Harmonised with it and tore it apart to reveal her husband at its core.

Alexandro II Zabini, Principe of Sabina. Her Xanxus, Capo della Varia. The last of the ice faded away to nothing as the first ray of sunlight touched the grass around them and the Ritual hit the second stage.

Having her husband collapse into her arms was not remotely romantic; he was stone cold, soaking wet, horribly pale and had pinkish fluid seeping out of far too many ragged-looking injuries on his face, hands and through his shirt. He was also taller and heavier than she was, so it was all Dorea could do to break his fall without falling over and lower him roughly to the ground so he was lying on his back on the grass. Then she slammed her left hand over his heart and her right to his forehead as she pressed her lips against his and _Willed_ his Flames to return to him.

Dorea felt them roll up her throat and past her lips in a fiery rush, making her want to sneeze. She suppressed the urge though, ferociously Willing his heart to beat with hers, his diaphragm to flex so his lungs could breathe, his brain to awaken and his soul to settle within his body once more.

Then there was a feeling like a wick catching and her awareness of her husband exploded into being again, fully formed in a way it hadn't been since her wedding night. Finally, her Alexandro, her Xanxus was _alive_ again, whole in soul and mind and body.

Dorea quickly got up and took four rapid steps back so the triage team could hustle her husband away to Lab Two's operating theatre and treat his really appalling frostbite. Then she sat down hard on the ground, because it suddenly hit her that, after almost six years of struggle and hard work, she was going to be seeing her husband again. But she had absolutely no idea what to say to him when she did.


	116. Chapter 116

Beta'd by the acclaimed Insane Scriptist.

I'm going on holiday next week, so I though I should share the chapters I have written up before leaving. Enjoy!

* * *

**Of watching and waiting **

It wasn't quite half-past six in the morning when Dorea handed her husband over to the medical team, which meant she had to go on with her day more-or-less as normal while they worked on stabilising his system and healing his injuries. Of course, not being stupid, Dorea hadn't actually planned for very much to take place because there was no way she would be able to focus when she knew her husband was undergoing surgery. Their wedding bond ensured she was fully aware of his being nearby, unconscious and injured.

However reality turned out to be even more difficult that she had anticipated. Her entire body felt off from the loss of Xanxus' Flames; she'd undergone her Magical Maturity with that tight knot of fury, passion and power nestled behind her solar plexus and now it was gone. She had needed to go and change into something warmer because she felt cold, never mind that it was already fifteen degrees outside and would probably get up to twenty-five. She also felt hollow and slightly queasy, which was an uncomfortable combination because the hollow feeling made her think she was hungry but the queasiness meant that the very idea of food was extremely unpalatable.

Thankfully she had Leo, Blaise and Rence keeping close, as well as all but one of her other Guardians and Shadows hanging around on the Estate. Usually they were the ones leaning on her a bit, her Harmony lending them that extra edge, but today the roles were reversed and the feeling of being surrounded by her Elements was very comforting despite most of them not being physically present.

Breakfast with her children did not however go as smoothly as Dorea had hoped it would; it began with Hector bursting into tears as soon as she picked him up for a hug and went downhill from there.

"Baby boy, what's the matter?" Dorea murmured, holding onto her youngest as he clutched at her and wailed into her shawl, smearing it with snot and tears.

"Mama b-b-b-bwo-k-k-ken!" Hector eventually managed to articulate in between whimpers, clinging onto her cardigan and some of her hair.

"I'm right here, Hector," Dorea assured him, drawing out a bit more of her Flames. "See?"

"Mama _bwoken_!" Her toddler son insisted, twisting around in her arms and kicking frantically at her stomach. "_Bwoken!_"

Ah. Yes. She wasn't carrying around Xanxus' Flames anymore so of course her sensitive Sky son had noticed she had about half the 'usual' levels of Flames.

"No, Mama's Flames are here," Dorea said firmly, catching her son's head and moving it to rest over her breasts. "The other Flames were Papa's."

Hector hiccupped but stopped struggling. "Papa?" He sniffled.

"We have a Papa?" Cassie asked sharply from her place at the breakfast table.

"Yes, you have a Papa," Dorea said, rocking Hector as he gradually stopped crying. "He got locked up for a long time, so he sent me his Flames to keep me safe. But now he's free again, so he had to take his Flames back." Which was a gross oversimplification, but Hector was only eighteen months old and Marius and Cassie were barely five.

"But we don't _need_ a Papa!" Cassie protested hotly. "We have Uncle Blaise and Bastiano and Grandma and Rence and everybody!"

"We're fine, Mama, really," Marius said earnestly, fixing her with silver-grey eyes that were so much like Dorea's own father's had been that it made her heart hurt for a moment. More hurt on top of the pain of having her children deny their father, no matter that it was done out of ignorance.

"Well, _I_ want your father back," she said firmly, sitting down at the table now that Hector had calmed down, "Because he is my husband and I miss him." The years since his freezing had led her to forget how the bond felt, but now it was back she really did miss his presence very keenly for all that she barely knew him beyond what their one night together had revealed and the echo of his personality that his Flames had contained.

"But Mama, you had his Flames," Marius said. "Doesn't that count?"

"Would you be happy just with your sister's Flames if she went missing?" Dorea asked.

"Of course not!" Marius huffed. "She's my twin! She's more than just that!"

"Well that's how I feel about your Papa," Dorea said, cutting up some toast into soldiers for Hector and handing them to him. The toddler fed himself with reasonable enthusiasm, interrupted by the occasional hiccup. His crying jag meant he would probably not eat as much as he should, so she'd have to make sure Nanny Sofia knew he would need to eat later or he'd get cranky.

Nanny Sofia had used to eat breakfast with them, but once the twins turned three Dorea had decided that breakfast was family time, so child-wrangling was done by her and whichever Guardians were with her. Usually Rence, Blaise or Daphne, but Leo had been joining her quite a lot lately when not reconnecting with his former year-mates and with his parents after his long absence pursuing his ninja education. Leo had been on the Estate today for the Ritual and was staying on just in case they needed his Sun Flames at any point during the surgery, which did not help Dorea worry any less about her husband.

The table was quiet for almost a full minute as her two five-year-olds contemplated her words and ate their cereal.

"When can we meet Papa?" Marius asked curiously. Cassie was just pouting, spoon moving slightly more sharply than was necessary, so Dorea guessed her daughter didn't like the idea of some unknown person –even if they were her father– coming along out of the blue and being that important to her mother.

"The Healers are looking after him now, so when they agree he's well enough for visitors," Dorea said, privately wishing she didn't feel so unwell. She did need to eat _something_ but at this rate she would have to ask Frank for a nutrient potion because nothing on the table appealed except the tea.

"He'll probably be out of theatre by this evening," Leo offered, snatching yet another piece of toast, "but he's very unlikely to be awake before tomorrow evening. Maybe not even until Thursday morning."

"Papa sleeping?" Hector asked, turning wide blue eyes on his mother.

"Papa's sick," Dorea explained gently, "and when you're sick you have to stay in bed and sleep until you feel better."

"See Papa Tursey?"

"Yes, baby boy, you can see your Papa on Thursday."

"Kay." Hector went back to his toast soldiers and the apple slices Rence had prepared for him, apparently satisfied.

"Well, _I_ don't want to meet my father," Cassie muttered rebelliously.

Dorea could not let that slide; Great-Aunt Cassiopeia would come back to haunt her! "Cassiopeia Melania Black! That is no way to talk about your father!" She said sharply. "You will spend the morning with Governess working on your handwriting." Odile usually taught lessons in the afternoons only, with the twins going to Prewett House to learn self-defence from the diminutive Fēng in the mornings, but she could easily supervise handwriting practice while doing something else.

"But Mama! Fēng-jiàoshī promised to teach us something new today!" Cassie protested.

"You should have remembered that before being rude about your father," Dorea said firmly. "You will have to catch up tomorrow."

Cassie hunched over her breakfast but did not protest. "Yes Mama."

Dorea took another sip of her tea; she was developing a headache. Hopefully it would pass.

* * *

The headache didn't pass, but it didn't get worse either; it simply lingered, a low throbbing around the top of her head that briefly spiked whenever she moved too quickly. Dorea did end up asking Frank for a nutrient potion around lunch-time because food was just unappealing and the only tea she could stomach was white tea; the house-elves kept bringing her new pots of it as she wandered around the house and grounds, trying to find something she could do for more than half an hour at a time.

Reading failed; research couldn't hold her interest; Barty refused to duel with her on the basis she was 'too distracted'; dancing proved she had two left feet and a disrupted sense of balance in addition to everything else; her fidgetiness made the Aethonians skittish so riding was out; walking in the gardens made her feel too cold; and her fingers even fumbled the piano keys!

In the end Dorea just let Leo and Rence wrap her in blankets and snuggle with her on the sofa in one of the music rooms while Blaise sang to her, playing the occasional chord so he could keep track of the tune. He started with Bob Dylan songs, the ones which were stories like 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts', then meandered into Bob Marley and Dire Straits with occasional forays into David Bowie.

Dorea managed to doze for a few minutes here and there, but she just couldn't seem to actually get to sleep properly. Well, it was only early afternoon…

After managing to eat half a ginger biscuit with her afternoon tea Dorea resolutely headed back to the training hall and spent a full hour slowly going through sword forms, which did make her feel a bit better and enabled her to eat a bit of dinner. It also enabled her to feel centred and calm enough to accept her daughter's mumbled apology with grace and kindness and read both her twins a story before bed.

However as evening slid into night, Dorea found she still couldn't sleep.

Nothing helped; not a mug of sleepy-tea, not extra blankets, not even Blaise infusing her with additional Tranquillity! Dorea really didn't want to take a sleeping potion –the chances of it interacting badly with her unsettled Flames were rather high– so instead she spent the small hours sitting at the piano with Barty slumped on the sofa across the room, gently playing scales and simple tunes as her fingers gradually remembered what they were supposed to do.

Wednesday passed in a bit of a haze; not having slept at all made it even more difficult for Dorea to focus on anything so she spent most of the afternoon lying on a couch again, this time snuggling with Luna, Blaise and Daphne while Rence sang accompanied by Gaetano on his violin. She still couldn't manage to nap though and the feeling of being off-balance persisted.

Before dinner Draco came and found her to tell her that they'd finally finished working on Alexandro's injuries.

"It took much longer than we expected," her cousin explained, black smudges around his eyes and hands trembling ever so slightly, "because of the number and severity of the injuries as well as how dangerously low his magic levels were. We had to stop operating twice and rotate people out because his Family Magic was leeching our reserves so badly we couldn't keep working."

"How is he?" Dorea asked worriedly. If he'd been _that_ badly off then his recovery might not be as swift as she'd hoped…

"Sleeping," Draco said shortly; "dreaming too, which is a good sign. All the frost-bitten tissue has been excised and replaced, but due to how bad the damage was it's probably going to scar slightly to begin with. Nothing amazingly obvious, but it he decides he wants to sunbathe at any point in the next five years then it'll become considerably more noticeable."

"No long-term damage then?"

"None, although his right eye is going to need monitoring and further treatment in the coming month to ensure it heals properly. The damage there was pretty horrendous," Draco said frankly. "Now excuse me please cousin, I'm going to go and sleep off my own exhaustion." He paused. "And no, you're _not_ allowed to visit him yet; Healer's orders. Once he's stopped leeching magic from his surroundings you can, but until then Trey wants you out of his immediate radius. We're pretty sure he's leeching off you anyway through the Marriage Bond, so letting you into his physical proximity as well would be a _very_ bad idea."

"I understand." Not that she was happy about being denied visitation rights, but Dorea could see where they were coming from. Hopefully her husband would have settled properly by the following morning…

That evening when she read to Marius and Cassie, Marius asked if rescuing their father meant she had caught what he had. Dorea admitted to feeling a little poorly, but promised her son she would go to bed early so as to get plenty of sleep. However despite all her good intentions, Dorea just could not settle. She _wanted_ to –she was _exhausted_– but she just couldn't.

As it was the second night in a row she'd been unable to sleep, Dorea decided to stuff the proprieties and go find her Guardians to see if they were amenable to a group sleepover. Frank might not be pleased, seeing as he and Luna had gotten married a month back in a very colourful wedding –Fred had proposed on her birthday– but at this point Dorea was getting a bit desperate. She wanted to _sleep_ and _rest_ so she could think in a straight line about things! Important things like her still-teenage husband and what she was going to say when he woke up!

With how she was feeling right now she was more likely to burst into tears and throw crockery than talk, and that would just get them off to a _terrible_ start.

* * *

The sleep-over was pretty successful as a social event despite Draco, Leo and Trey all being completely dead to the world throughout –due to their exhausting themselves putting her husband back together– with the floor of her sitting room swamped by blankets and duvets and everybody ending up in a great big tangled puppy pile, Odile included. Why Odile had decided to take part was a mystery and quite out of character, but Dorea had been too tired to ask questions.

It was very soothing and restful, but Dorea _still_ didn't actually manage to get to sleep. Oh, she dozed semi-coherently, but her awareness of her surroundings never wavered and her thoughts kept chasing themselves in tight little circles that made it impossible for her to actually drop off. The low-level buzz of everybody's Flames overlapping and merging was like its own mini-Harmony and very comforting to feel whenever a particularly inane thought-spiral self-destructed and jerked her fully awake.

Dorea gave up on sleep altogether at half-past four, stealthily untangling herself from the mass of bedding and dreaming Guardians and heading down to the kitchens with a dressing gown and slippers on over her nightgown. So many hours in the calming presence of the majority of her Guardians had restored her appetite and the house-elves never slept.

However as she left the kitchens with a tray loaded up with hot chocolate, pastries, fruit, porridge and glasses of fruit juice, the Lady Potter encountered somebody quite unexpected in the hallway.

"Theo?" It wasn't all of him, but it was certainly a considerable proportion of him inhabiting a Mist Clone.

"Rhea," Theo whispered, ghosting close and carefully hugging her from behind, pressing his face into her shoulder. "Missed you."

"Missed you too," Dorea admitted, leaning her head into his. Luna she was bonded to for their shared sense of whimsy and profound affinity for the more perilous branches of magic; Theo however shared the same wounds on his heart, wounds caused by the loss of beloved parents at the hands of significantly less-beloved relatives. She and he also had music in common, although Dorea recognised that Theo was considerably more gifted in that area than she; while she might sometimes improvise and elaborate upon a theme, he wrote entirely new things.

"Join me in the Yellow Music Room?" her War Mist asked quietly, pulling away.

Dorea nodded and let him lead the way to the room in question; the Yellow Music Room faced east, catching the morning sun in the first hours past dawn. However it was also one of the more inaccessible music rooms and was too small for a proper piano, so it tended to get used by people who played more portable instruments when they wanted to be alone.

Theo played guitar and had asked for her company; she would eat while he played and then her Poet might speak to her of what was on his heart.

* * *

Dorea ate her breakfast as Theo idly strummed chords, occasionally playing songs and humming along to them. He meandered from tune to tune seemingly at random, but Dora noted a preponderance of sad songs: songs about deaths, romantic break-ups and being far from home.

When she had finished eating he joined her on the sofa and started playing something new, singing along quietly but clearly. Dorea had never heard the tune or the words before.

"_If passion is a madness then I've long since gone insane;  
"Heartbroken yet reaching still to that which caused me pain._

"_Agony and ecstasy I cannot tell apart  
"And grief is like a dagger piercing my still-beating heart._

"_What is love that I desire it so?  
"Pain, that fills my heart with yearning?  
"Could I have escaped this fate, had I been more discerning?_

"_Joy tears at me like broken glass, your presence sweetest of all pain;  
"And in my heart it matters not that I can only lose again."_

"Theo?" She whispered when he finished.

Her Poet peeked at her from under his long, floppy fringe. "It hurts, Rhea," he whispered, leaning sideways so their shoulders touched.

Dorea threw her arms around her battered Mist Guardian and hugged him close, pushing her still-unsteady Flames through the Ward hiding under his skin so they could properly merge with his own Flames. Theo carefully set the guitar aside then snuggled closer, pulling her onto his lap and burying his face in her hair.

"Nothing's changed," her Poet said eventually, arms wrapped tightly around her middle. "Two whole days since the relocation and nobody's noticed anything. At this rate they may not pick up on it until Quiet Week, unless he decides to go public before then."

Dorea could tell that Theo was both relieved and disgusted by the success of their deception. "He's going to need the time," she said instead, changing the subject slightly. "He's going to be reaching his Magical Maturity in a few months and that will mean formally deposing his father and becoming Principe rather than just Heir-Apparent and Regent, with all the responsibilities that implies."

"Poor bastard," Theo muttered. Dorea did not comment; her husband _was_ technically a bastard after all and spending the better part of six years carrying his Flames around had given her some insight into his personality; Alexandro Zabini had very high standards and was both amused and disgusted by the incompetence of his enemies. The incompetence of allies and subordinates on the other hand… that he found offensive.

"How are you?" she asked instead. She felt a bit guilty about the accidental bond he had formed with Daniela Vongola, but how could she have known that hiding her Poet's Flames with the Fidelius Ward would lead to that?

It had taken _months_ of theorising, research, talking to her Uncle Nick about past Flame-users and consulting a wide range of Vongola-affiliated ghosts after Daniela's death to come up with an explanation for what had happened to Theo; _none_ of them had thought it would be possible for an already-bonded Flame-Active to bond to another Sky.

Then again, it wasn't like there were that many Skies out there to begin with and most Skies seemed to keep their Guardians close and hoard them jealously rather than let them wander off and insinuate themselves into the households of other Skies. Dorea trusted her Guardians' judgement, skills and Oaths, so she had no trouble letting them go off to do whatever they believed was best, so long as they weren't stupidly endangering themselves.

Theo hadn't stupidly endangered himself, but he had discovered a completely unexpected hazard of hanging around other Skies and getting attached to them.

* * *

It had been Vongola Terzo –who had asked to be called 'Pessimo' rather than by his given name– who had shed the most light on the mystery of how a bonded Guardian could form a seperate bond to another Sky. Pessimo had been Ricardo Vongola's grandson and at the time that he was being considered as an heir-candidate he had seemed to only have four Guardians. However he had actually had a full set: it had just happened that his Rain and Sun were both Flame-Latent with reserves so pitiful that they were unlikely to ever become Active. Oh, and they'd both been servants: his Rain had been his valet and his Sun his mother's chambermaid.

This had been part of why Pessimo had been a rather unexpected and unpopular choice of successor among the wider Famiglia, but he'd proven himself in the first ever battle between heir-candidates. He'd later proven himself to be a highly capable leader and had ruled for forty-six years –a very long time all things considered– and seen the Vongola right up to the time of the Napoleonic invasion of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The various potential repercussions of French expansionistic policy had convinced Pessimo that a young, dynamic and forward-thinking Don Vongola was what the Family needed at that point and had made his nephew Pietro –his younger brother's second son– his Heir. Pietro had by that point lost his entire first set of Guardians in a tragic training accident and was as a result a bit more… eccentric… that the rest of the Famiglia was entirely comfortable with, but he had been the strongest Sky the Vongola had at that point and everybody had known it, so nobody had contested Pessimo's choice.

The reason Pessimo had not nominated any of his own children was that he did not actually _have_ any offspring; he'd adopted and raised eight children over the course of his tenure as Don Vongola, but he'd never married or even taken a mistress, much to the consternation of his advisers. Dorea rather got the impression that, given a choice, Pessimo probably would have chosen to emulate Leonardo da Vinci in studying everything he could get his hands on and advance human understanding in as many areas of the arts and sciences as possible. However he'd been handed the Vongola, so instead he'd dragged the organisation onto the scientific cutting edge –well cutting edge for the late eighteenth century– and set up scholarships and grants so that the Family would _stay_ well ahead of the norm in years to come.

That Pessimo had not been even slightly interested in women –and from what Dorea was reading between the lines hadn't been interested in men either– meant that he'd have done very well in the Church and probably would have been less badgered over his intellectual curiosity there too. It hadn't happened that way though and his smiling ruthlessness and brutally gruesome methods in dealing with the people who sent assassins after him had certainly kept the Vongola stable throughout his rule.

He'd also code-named his Guardians after the Catholic virtues, which made all conversations involving the ghosts of said Guardians completely hilarious because even after dying Pessimo _insisted_ on using code-names rather than their real names, especially with his Storm. According to Pessimo's first Rain, the Vongola Boss had initially instituted the code-names in revenge for something his Storm had said about Pessimo's own first name; that he had accidentally started a Tradition of renaming Vongola Guardians by doing so just made it all three times as hilarious.

On the subject of double bonds, Pessimo had theorised that the entire reason Daniela –whom he called his 'adorably competent little granddaughter' despite her being more distantly related than that– had bonded to Theo was that her Poet's primary Flame had been so completely concealed she had been entirely unaware of it even of a spiritual level. He had then gone on to explain that when a Sky met somebody else's Guardian they could _feel_ the Guardian bond, which generally prompted a Sky to either back off or else attempt to usurp the bond. However bonds were finalised through a person's primary Flame-type rather than the entirety of their Flames; it was probably possible for a Guardian to be double-bonded or even triple-bonded to their Sky through their secondary and tertiary Flames as well as their primaries, but how could a person tell the difference when all those bonds were to the same person?

However Theo's Mist Flames had been fully obscured by the Fidelius Ward to the point that nobody could connect the Misty Flame-traces her Poet inevitably shed to his person even if he was standing right in front of them; the only person who could feel Theo's Mist Flames was Dorea, because she was his secret-keeper. So Theo was _perceived_ as a weak, Latent Rain by any Sky he met. So any Sky wanting to secure him as a Guardian would reach out to those weak, Latent, _unbonded_ Rain Flames, not knowing that they were but a tiny proportion of his true self.

Flame-type followed personality, which was why bonds were formed between primary Flame-types: why would you want to hang around someone whom you only had a very little in common with, as would be the case if you bonded with their secondary or tertiary type? But Theo had been undercover, pretending to be somebody he wasn't, so he had stayed in Daniela Vongola's vicinity for long enough to form a tenuous connection with her. If it had ever come to a fight over Theo's loyalties Daniela wouldn't have stood a chance against Dorea due to the retired Donna holding only a minuscule portion of the Rainy Mist's loyalties, but her death had still left him bereft and bereaved.

The only way for Theo to salve the ache was to spend time with Dorea, but his self-appointed mission was such that he couldn't do so in person and had to send Mist-clones instead. They helped, but not as much as him showing up in person would. Dorea was determined that as soon as Theo left the Vongola Mansion –which would probably be at the end of June– he would be spending as much of his time with her as possible, even if it meant him becoming her temporary social secretary or something.

* * *

At six o'clock Dorea decided to go down to Laboratory Two and see if she was allowed to check on her husband yet. The Theo-clone had already evaporated so that 'Stefano' would not be distracted by its actions while at work, so she was alone as she walked down the stairs and out across the gardens, still in her warm dressing-gown and slippers. It wasn't raining and the sun was up, so she wasn't seriously cold.

"Lady Potter?" The nurse on duty said, staring at her with what looked suspiciously like mother-hen concern. It was a very odd look on an eighteen-year-old wizard whose name eluded her. Nolton possibly? She seemed to remember him being a Gryffindor; definitely in conjunction with Roger Malone somehow, that she was sure of. His first name though… something to do with Tracy? It didn't begin with the letter 'T' though… she definitely needed sleep.

"Can I see my husband yet?"

Nolton, whom she thought had been assigned to Trey as her assistant-cum-minion by St Mungo's, glanced sideways at a runic display on the wall. "He stopped leeching from the room's magical atmosphere two hours ago, My Lady, so you should be fine visiting. We still aren't sure when he'll wake up, but we have been Spelling nutrients into his stomach and bloodstream regularly for the past two days as well as Spelling waste out, so he'll not be harmed should he remain sleeping for a further few days. Anything beyond that and we may have to take steps to bring him around to prevent muscle atrophy and difficulties with the lingering scarring."

"Thank-you David;" Dorea said, remembering the teenager's name at last, "please send somebody up to the house so my Guardians know I'm down here?"

"Of course, Lady Potter," David Nolton said quietly, tapping a few runes to open the door to the High-Magic recovery room.

Dorea stared at the sleeping form of her husband as the door closed silently behind her. She could only see his head, upper chest and arms and most of what she _could_ see was wrapped in bandages underneath his silk pyjamas. His face was also heavily swathed in linen, a square patch covering his right eye entirely. His left eye and ear were uncovered and there was just a patch on his chin rather than proper bandages, so he'd be able to talk once he woke up, but the other visible bits of skin were few and scattered.

Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed by her husband's left hand, Dorea noticed that somebody had carefully threaded his wedding ring onto his finger over the bandages; that was only possible because the rings were self-adjusting. If he'd actually been _wearing_ the ring when he was frozen then the Don Vongola probably would have failed to restrain him for more than a minute at the most: the Potter wedding rings were designed so that the pair wearing them could channel power –be it Magic or Flames– from one to the other and create an amplification loop. Thus had her husband been encased in Soul-glass while wearing his wedding ring Dorea could have channelled his Flames back to him through it, alongside her own; the Zero Point Breakthrough Flames probably would have sublimated instantly and the explosive reversal probably would have seriously injured –or even killed– Timoteo Vongola.

Dorea was rather sad that things hadn't turned out that way, even though it probably would have placed her husband in a very sticky situation in the short-term. She wasn't entirely sure it would have worked out better in the long run, but it could have and might have. Theo had mentioned on multiple occasions that her husband wasn't without supporters in the wider Vongola and it had only been Timoteo Vongola standing between her husband and an earlier release. None of those supporters has acted sooner because Timoteo was Don Vongola so going against him was technically treason against the Vongola and they weren't willing to risk antagonising the Famiglia for family, adopted or not. Plus the whole ice issue which meant that _only_ a Sky could defrost her husband. She yawned at that thought.

She was so, so tired. She could probably shut her eyes for a few moments in here. She could rest her head on her husband's chest and the room was warm enough that she wouldn't get chilled despite lying on top of the blankets.

Dorea fell asleep within minutes of closing her eyes, resting for the first time in forty-eight hours. Somewhat ironically, it was only an hour later that her husband opened his eyes for the first time in nearly six years.

* * *

Translations

jiàoshī = teacher (Mandarin Chinese)


	117. Chapter 117

Beta'd by the gleeful Insane Scriptist.

So many enthusiastic reviewers! Wow!

Incidentally, from Xanxus' point of view this chapter is (almost) a direct continuation from chapter 44...

* * *

**Of wakefulness and meetings **

–_abandon her!_

Xanxus opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling. Well, opened his eye; the other one was padded with something that was held in place by what felt like bandages, and with how sore it was Xanxus was strongly disinclined to try and open it just yet. He wasn't an idiot.

He also wasn't in Medical. Vongola Medical had a distinctive smell lingering in it, of bleach and pain and sterility; Varia Medical smelled of blood and bleach and despair, which was slightly different but not massively so. Varia Medical also did not have white ceilings; Magharibi had meticulously painted the ceilings with lurid colours and strange patterns which made your stomach lurch and your head spin when you were drugged or under the weather. The reasoning was that if you could get out of bed without falling over after waking up to _that_, then you were probably well enough to leave.

Varia Medical really was not the kind of place _anybody_ wanted to linger in, despite the food being guaranteed poison-free and the Varia _in_ Medical being the only ones in the building actually invested in your wellbeing. It wasn't just the smell and the décor either; Medical _felt_ uncomfortable, like the assassins who had died there hadn't left and were watching you. There weren't any lingering angry ghosts there –Medical got regular Cleansing– but it still felt unsettling.

This room wasn't like that. It felt like an actual bedroom repurposed as a temporary sickroom, with an actual double bed that he was lying in the middle of, walls painted in fern-green rather than that awful medical-mint and actual paintings in gilded frames hanging from a picture rail. It also felt warm and comforting somehow, rather than sterile and bleak like every other hospital Xanxus had ever been in. Although the fact that his wife was fast asleep on top of him probably had a lot to do with the feeling of warmth and comfort, despite his skin being tender and his body aching right down to his bones.

The presence of wife was the most obvious clue that he wasn't anywhere Vongola affiliated, although Xanxus wasn't entirely certain how he knew that. Logic dictated that to find him she'd have had to come into contact with the Vongola _somehow_, but instinct –and Xanxus had _excellent_ instincts and intuition despite not being a real Vongola– insisted that his wife was so opposed to Nono that she would go to a lot of effort to find other ways of doing things, and that if the Vongola was on fire his wife would break out the marshmallows and lead a campfire sing-along.

Which was a pretty hilarious mental image really, but smiling pulled at a scar on his chin so Xanxus stopped. Mostly so he could further examine said wife.

What was slightly off-putting was that, despite it _definitely_ being his wife sprawled face-down on top of the blankets covering him, she didn't feel like he remembered her feeling: less Stormy, for one; considerably more powerful and with a full complement of Guardians for another. And yet… despite the discontinuity between memory and reality, she still _felt_ right. Like the change had taken place at a time he'd been present for but did not actually remember, so it was unfamiliar but not really alarming.

Reaching out carefully to smooth a few errant curls behind his wife's ear, Xanxus noticed that somebody had moved his wedding ring from the chain around his neck to his left hand. Probably a good idea; he was never going to take it off again and everybody in the Vongola could just deal. He hoped a few of the old farts' brains exploded, the senile liar's most of all.

Then the door of the room opened and Xanxus tensed, which made his entire body scream at him because being tense aggravated still-healing injuries all over; _really_ all-over. The man who slipped inside was a total stranger despite his rather uncanny resemblance to Primo's Cloud Guardian, but despite Xanxus being _certain_ he'd never so much as wandered past this man in the street, he was still _familiar_.

_Chilly sunshine, bright, distant and relentless; an arctic summer morning so dry the air crackles with static and a lightning bolt from the blue is a very real danger. Cold yet deceptive; sunburn is no less a hazard in winter than in summer. Sharp eyes, sharp words; careful hands and well-hidden attachment. Family. _

This was his wife's Sun Guardian. He _knew_ it. Could feel it, even.

"Good morning," the Sun said quietly and conversationally in English, his accent almost stereotypically upper-class and snobbish. "My name is Draco Malfoy and that is my cousin sprawled on top of you. It's the first time in over two days she's actually slept, so I'd prefer it if you didn't wake her."

In other words, hello I'm one of your in-laws and I'm going to be your interrogator for the morning. But politely, because your wife has been worrying herself sick over you and I don't want to disturb her now she's finally crashed.

Xanxus just raised an eyebrow at the Sun; his left eyebrow, since the other one was buried under layers of bandages. Seriously, what kind of family name was 'bad faith'? Never mind a first name like 'Draco', although it could be a reference to the Ancient Greek lawgiver or the circumpolar constellation.

"Firstly and most importantly, you have been frozen for five years, seven months and three weeks." Draco the Alaude-look-alike kindly paused after that bombshell so that it had time to sink in properly. Five years and what! The old fart had just up and _left_ him for the better part of six years? Would have gone _on_ leaving him to rot for _longer_, since it was extremely unlikely his being defrosted was a Vongola sanctioned operation. His wife had him here –wherever 'here' was– with her people, instead of somewhere Vongola affiliated.

Six years –pretty much– was a hell of a long time; Squalo would be twenty! Xanxus' last memory of his Rain was of a skinny fourteen-year-old! Hell, _Belphegor_ would be fourteen by now! It was more than half a _lifetime_ in Varia terms!

Actually, the Varia could wait; how old was his _wife_ now? Twenty-two? And he was still stuck at sixteen; damn the old fart for his spineless procrastination and ruining Xanxus' marriage before it even began! He couldn't begin to imagine how his wife felt about being all-but-widowed for six years… and he'd promised to protect her and kill her enemies. Which since she was _here_ rescuing _him_ she had probably had to do herself.

He'd broken his promise to her. Fuck. Never mind that it had been Nono that had put him on ice; it had been _him_ getting himself in that position which meant it was his fault as much as the old fart's. His fault for believing that his foster-father would do the _right _thing rather than the _easy_ thing for once, despite all evidence to the contrary. What the _hell_ had he been thinking?

Suppressing the urge to burn everything around him to ash was _hard_, but Xanxus refused to lose control. It was all his own damn fault things had fallen like this and taking it out on his wife and her Guardian was just tacky. Especially when they'd been the ones bearing the brunt of his mistakes and going out of their way to fix them.

Failure burned in his soul like acid and barbed wire, feeding on his pre-existing self-loathing. _Look at you, the whore's son trying to rule. No blood, no rights, no nothing, just a play-toy for the Don to dote on in his old age, a pet with delusions of grandeur._

Then suddenly the hatred was muted and his anger was dulled. Xanxus blinked at the ceiling, then glanced suspiciously at the Sun now sitting on the chair next to his bed and pressing a finger to his temple.

"That wasn't Rain Flames," he stated hoarsely, the first words to actually pass his lips. The Sun smiled thinly, no actual amusement in the expression.

"A calming charm; having you set yourself on fire would set back your recovery significantly and burning down the medical laboratory would not make you any friends."

More magic, but a different kind to what his wife had used to find him. Spells that calmed people sounded useful; not everybody could be a Rain and not all Rains were any good at calming people down. Then again, what he was experiencing wasn't really calmness; the anger and rage was still _there_, somehow, but he couldn't feel it.

"A temporary measure," The Sun went on, confirming Xanxus' suspicions, "but it will have to suffice for the time being. There's a testing range out beyond the gardens where you can burn and blow things up once you're mobile."

That sounded very enjoyable; he'd have to do that. Later. First things first: "How is she?"

Draco Malfoy gave him a very dry look. "Stressed, nervous, awkward, hopeful… and expecting to be disappointed. I trust you _will_ do something about that?"

Like hell Xanxus was going to let his wife suffer distress and disappointment if he could do anything to change it. He _loved_ her, she was the only person in the whole world who knew his deepest, darkest secrets and still looked at him like he was precious and worthwhile. He was horribly aware that his long absence might have tarnished that innocent trust a little –might even have _broken_ it– but he could work to earn it back and would do so. His beautiful wife was worth all of that effort.

Her being older than him now was going to make it tricky though. It would be a bit difficult –possibly a lot difficult– but not impossible. He would manage.

"Second very important point," the Sun continued after realising that Xanxus wasn't going to answer verbally; "you got Dorea pregnant on your wedding night. Congratulations, you're a father of twins."

Xanxus wondered faintly how he might have reacted if the calming magic didn't still have him firmly in its grip; bellow like Squalo most likely. He'd got her _pregnant_? Left her to struggle through giving birth and raising her children _alone_ while also having to deal with her enemies, the ones she'd wanted him to protect her from? He'd fucking failed at parenting as much as he had at being a husband; did she even _want_ him back?

Yes, she _did_ want him back: if she hadn't she'd have left him in the Vongola basement –well he assumed that was where he'd been– or killed him before he woke up. He was free, he'd undergone significant medical treatment and his wife was fast asleep on the bed with him; she still wanted him. He just had to prove to her that she'd made the right decision and that he was never, ever going to be this Stupid ever again.

"Twins?" He repeated, because that was about four times as bad as raising one kid, which he knew from watching his sister was no joke. Benvenuto had been born after his sister was widowed and she'd struggled to raise him right, having to fill both parental roles by herself. Maria-Chiara most certainly hadn't been interested in remarrying just to give Benvenuto a male role model, especially when the little boy had two male godparents to look up to as per Vongola tradition; Benvenuto would be what? Thirteen now? Xanxus hadn't seen the brat since he was seven, which felt like less than a month ago.

"Twins," the Sun agreed. "A boy and a girl; the boy is the Black Family heir and the girl is a Black heiress. Marius Alexander Black and Cassiopeia Melania Black; the boy looks a lot like you but with grey eyes and the girl takes after her mother, but with red eyes and a very fierce temper. They've recently turned five."

He had a son and a daughter. He still felt sixteen –and actually really _was_ sixteen since his body very definitely hadn't changed while he was on ice– and had two five-year-old children. Xanxus had absolutely no idea what to do with kids, let alone his own kids. A baby he might have been able to manage –he could have adjusted as the kid grew– but five-year-olds? His own childhood certainly wasn't any kind of guideline he could follow and he sure as hell wasn't going to follow Nono's example of how to parent. Bad enough that he'd missed his kids' entire lives so far and since they were _his_ kids, they probably already hated him for it.

"You have a third child as well," the Sun added.

Xanxus stilled. "How?" He'd been on ice, how could he have sired another child?

"Magic," the Sun said infuriatingly, "and a sample kept in stasis from when Dorea returned after her wedding night."

Well, that sounded… plausible. Really weird and more than a little paranoid in terms of being a precaution, but plausible. "Why?"

"Dorea needed an heir for the Potter Family, and for that heir to be born in England," Draco Malfoy explained snootily, "and as she wanted to move to Sicily so as to be near you, that meant having another child before leaving. So she did: Hector James Potter, who is eighteen months old. Also a Flame-aware Sky; unlike his older siblings who are fully latent Storms."

Three kids. He had three kids, one of whom was a toddler and a little Sky. He was going to have to spend a _lot_ of time bonding with his kids so that they would take him seriously when they eventually started Flame-training. Which they would have to, magic or not, because he was the Varia Boss and his kids were soft targets… and the only reason he could think that without incinerating something was the damn calming magic.

"I'm dropping all this on you now because Dorea promised her children they could see you today," the Sun went on, "and since she's asleep on your chest she can't delay them. So you have five minutes to get your head on straight before her Lightning and Cloud bring them in to visit."

Xanxus was abruptly _really grateful_ for that damn charm. Because he had a feeling that if he hadn't been spelled into a facsimile of mental balance he'd be seriously freaking out. Kids in the abstract were one thing; kids in _five minutes_ were another matter entirely.

* * *

The five minutes passed far too quickly; Xanxus had managed to sit upright without waking up his wife and the Sun had helped arrange some Conjured cushions –could all magical people Conjure regardless of Flame-type? – behind him so he was comfortable, but he'd barely had a moment to get a proper look at his wife's face when the door opened again.

This meant that Xanxus was wrestling with a tangle of muted feelings including wistfulness, pain, joy, regret and relief when he looked up to see who was intruding. She'd been so _young_ when he married her, a week ago before his freezing. Now she was a grown woman and he… he wasn't a grown man yet. Flame-induced maturation meant he was closer to being grown than a Latent would be, but still had a few years of filling out to go even though he had reached his full height a year ago.

She was still beautiful though. More beautiful, even; if she looked like this while sleeping, how much more stunning would she be with her eyes open and full of fire and passion? Her hair was even longer than it had been –much longer– and was less curly than he remembered, but that might have been due to the extra length. She was wearing a high-collared dressing-gown and slippers, but the dressing-gown had ridden up slightly around her knees to reveal a few inches of white, lace-edged night-dress and Xanxus' hands itched to remove the dressing gown entirely so he could appreciate the full picture.

But now there were people coming into the room and he couldn't. Wouldn't. His wife was not for public consumption.

The Lightning walked in first; early twenties but older than the Sun, with green hair and eyes and the gait of someone with serious combat experience.

_Power: controlled, channelled and productively directed. Devotion: complete, unfettered and all-encompassing. Brilliance: keen, curious, expansive and unconventional. Love. Generosity. Selflessness. Cunning. _

Xanxus wasn't sure if he wanted to kill the man for feeling that way about his wife or steal him for being so damn competent. Even if he only spoke English he would be a far better Lighting Officer than Levi.

Behind him were three children and even through the spell muting his emotions Xanxus felt his stomach roil with nerves.

Two five-year-olds and a toddler, all three dressed ridiculously formally considering it was first thing in the morning, if the light he could see coming through the room's window was any indication. The older boy had his face, his _exact_ face matching the pictures of when he'd been five that his grandmother kept on her mantelpiece. He was slightly fairer-skinned, but he had the same hair, same nose, same ears, same chin and cheekbones. Only the eyes were different, being steely grey rather than bloody scarlet. The facial expression wasn't anything Xanxus had ever worn though; too calm and non-judgemental.

The girl had his eyes, crimson irises peeking out from narrowed eyes set in a face strongly reminiscent of his wife's and topped by wild curls barely restrained in pigtails. She also had his personality, definitely; that scowl was a smaller, cuter version of the one he saw in the mirror.

"Papà!" The toddler crowed, wriggling out of his older siblings' grip and charging at the bed, pulling himself up the blankets and bed-frame and crawling closer. Not wanting his youngest to wake her mother when she had apparently had absolutely no sleep for two whole days, Xanxus picked up the toddler and held the little boy against his chest, the way Maria-Chiara had showed him to after Erica's son was born. Hector was bigger than the newborn Amadeo had been but he didn't squirm the way Xanxus had expected. Instead the auburn-haired, blue-eyed toddler that didn't really share an obvious resemblance to him or his wife pressed his face into the bandages across Xanxus's chest and went limp. Having the boy poking at his chest wasn't exactly comfortable though, as it made him all too aware of the injuries hidden by the bandages; they ached.

"Papà," the toddler repeated sleepily, patting the spot just to the right and slightly below Xanxus's heart; exactly where the Varia Boss had always considered the core of his Flames to be. His son _recognised_ his Flames.

Hector was a _very_ sensitive Sky, Xanxus realised; he'd have to take steps to protect his little boy from bonding with unsuitable and unscrupulous people before he was old enough to really know what he wanted. He didn't want his son getting hurt like that.

His son. _His_ son. His _son_.

He had kids. God help him, he was a parent. What was he going to _do_?

Xanxus gently rocked the toddler in his arms to buy some time to think in. Thankfully his emotions were still thoroughly smothered, otherwise he'd have had an embarrassing meltdown by now.

His older son and daughter had followed their younger sibling and were now standing by the side of the bed, staring at him intently. Storms, the both of them; the boy was a Rain-secondary and the girl a Cloud-secondary, both fully Latent.

"Where were you?" the girl –Cassiopeia– demanded.

Xanxus stared at the five-year-old; somebody had _definitely_ inherited his temper. Behind the children the Cloud he had sensed –but not really paid much attention to yet– made a small sound of disapproval.

"I mean, where have you been, Papà?" his daughter corrected herself, moderating her tone slightly. Well, discipline was clearly not an issue; that was good. Xanxus recognised in retrospect that Nono had done him a massive disservice by allowing him to run roughshod over everyone and it had only been his grandmother's timely intervention that had saved him from turning into a spoilt brat like Massimo.

"Imprisoned," he replied curtly, eyeing both his older children with interest. These two had been conceived on his wedding night; he'd always known that once was enough, but seeing these two small people who were complete strangers to him, yet instinctively demonstrated so many familiar mannerisms… the boy's apparently-passive watchfulness was something he'd always done when he was younger, blending into the background so people wouldn't notice he was there while they talked about stuff they wouldn't mention when they knew he was present.

Thinking back, it was pretty damn miraculous he'd never heard about his lack of Vongola blood that way.

"For nearly six years?" His son asked, and yes there was the scepticism he'd been expecting. Smart kid; just like Xanxus himself had been at that age.

"I don't remember any of it," the Varia Boss admitted candidly; he'd always respected the people who told him the truth as a child, so his son probably would appreciate direct honesty.

"He was in stasis, Marius," the Sun still sat at his bedside drawled quietly.

Both twins clearly understood what this meant, suggesting that an upbringing that involved magic instilled a different mindset from very early on.

"So you didn't know you were gone for six years?" his daughter asked.

"It feels like last week that I married your mother," Xanxus said truthfully, glancing down at the scruffy-haired toddler in his arms; his youngest had fallen asleep. It was odd to be trusted like that, even by a child that didn't know any better. It was even odder to not have people trying to take the baby _away_ from him.

The girl nodded. "I forgive you for missing our birthday then. All five times. And Christmas. And Mama's birthdays. And Hector being born." She paused. "My name is Cassiopeia Melania Black and I'm named after Mama's Great-Aunt Cassiopeia, who raised her after Grandma Lily died, and Great-Great-Grandma Melania, who was Great-Great-Grandpa Arcturus's wife before she died. Great-Great-Grandpa Arcturus helped raise Mama too. You can call me Cassie."

Which was an introduction quite unlike anything Xanxus had ever heard before, but the strong sense of family and connectedness threaded through it was very steadying. Xanxus had spent his early childhood entirely without family ties beyond his mother, then the family he'd thought was his –the old fart was a _liar_– had been ripped away from him shortly after he turned sixteen. If he'd known who he was when he was five, really _known_ about his family and if he'd been named after any of his relatives, he'd probably have been more stable.

"And you?" He asked his grey-eyed son. Introductions mattered, even if he'd already been told what his kids were called.

"I am Marius Alexander Black," the boy said proudly, "named after Great-Great-Uncle Marius, Great-Great-Aunt Cassiopeia's brother who is still alive, and after you." The five-year-old beamed. "Mama showed me your name on the Family Tapestry to prove it."

Xanxus nodded to cover up the rather-less-than-completely-muted whirlwind of emotion that statement inspired in him. He had a name? One that wasn't 'Xanxus', which he'd long since come to realise was a corruption of something else? What _was_ his name? Was there a family name on this tapestry as well? Did they know who his father had been, or if his mother had other, saner relatives? Hell, had his kids _met_ any of those relatives?

"Your father is tired and you two have classes," the Cloud said briskly, catching Xanxus' attention as her words revealed her to be both female and oddly tactful. "He will still be here this afternoon."

"Yes, Governess," the twins chorused, turning to leave. Xanxus took a moment to scrutinise the Guardian responsible for his children's' education.

_Awareness, keen and hungry with an edge of teeth; loyalty as imperturbable and unchanging as the laws of physics. Fierce judgement, icy calculation and cruel humour; aloofness from the everyday, but keen scrutiny of the subtleties and undercurrents. Attachment, recognised and accepted. A drifting wisp capable of becoming a stifling cloudbank at will. _

The tall, thin, pale blonde caught his eye just long enough to smile predatorily at him before closing the door behind herself and her charges; she'd left him with an armful of sleeping toddler.

Well, a toddler, a Lightning Guardian he didn't like very much, a Sun Guardian he could maybe grudgingly respect and his wife, who was still dead to the world with her head in his lap, never mind the revelations he was still reeling from.

Oh yes, very _definitely_ a Cloud gauging his worth. He'd thought the in-laws would be bad; clearly the Guardians were going to be _worse_. At least he knew that now, before he met them all, instead of finding it out later and he could probably use it somehow. Then again if Draco was any indication, it was likely several of his wife's Guardians were in-laws as well as Guardians. That could get awkward.

The main issue he was facing was that he didn't know anything substantial about his wife's Guardians, relatives, magic or magical society in general and he really didn't want to reveal the depths of his ignorance –that never made a good impression– which didn't leave many topics of conversation available. Bringing up the Vongola or the Varia would give the wrong impression –and he was six years out of date there anyway– he could find out about his wife later from her personally which left… his kids. He could ask about them. Likes, dislikes, about their education, any friends and other important details like when their birthdays were…


	118. Chapter 118

Beta'd by the stellar Insane Scriptist.

Seriously though people, I am _incredibly _touched by how many of you are reviewing. You all rock! Best readers ever!

* * *

**Of matrimony and awkwardness **

In the end Xanxus didn't actually need to make nice with his wife's Guardians: seconds after her Cloud had left with the older children the door opened again to admit a young Storm wearing pale green, who waved an actual magic wand in the air over him for a few seconds, paused with vacant eyes much in the manner of Mists responding to something only they could see, then politely asked Xanxus if he would be agreeable to taking a few potions –potions! – and then going back to sleep.

"Why?"

"Two reasons," The probably-a-nurse said pleasantly. "Firstly, your body will recover faster that way; and secondly, if you sleep then Lady Potter will probably stay asleep for longer too. Her magic is still stabilising after the loss of your Flames and disturbing her prematurely might be damaging."

"My Flames?" Xanxus echoed warily. He knew he was missing something here that was _important_ and this seemed a likely candidate.

"According to the medical records left by Healer Davis, Lady Potter has been carrying your Flames and magic around inside her from the moment you were frozen right up until your defrosting; almost six years, time in which she underwent her magical maturity and gave birth twice," the nurse said matter-of-factly. "It appears that her no longer having your power within her has upset her own internal balance, hence her inability to sleep these past two days and her abrupt crash as soon as she was permitted access to your bedside. My scan showed that her personal magic is indeed unbalanced, but her family magic countered any possible damage and her internal equilibrium is already being restored. I would prefer that she sleep as long as possible, which since she is in synchrony with you at the moment means that your sleeping would assist her recovery."

"What potions?" Xanxus asked. The explanation had been detailed but not too technical, clear but not obviously dumbed down; the nurse had taken his question seriously and the man's concerns were valid. Xanxus didn't want to hurt his wife any more than he already had, so letting her sleep was important. Equally, speeding up his recovery meant he'd be able to get out to that testing range and set things on fire sooner. That calming charm was a temporary measure and wouldn't last forever.

"A restorative draught, a nutrient solution, an oculus potion for that eye of yours and a draught of peace to help you sleep," the nurse said briskly. "Healer Davis says that you need to dream so your mind can come to terms with your change in situation, so I can't offer you dreamless sleep. The draught of peace completely relieves anxiety, which should enable you to rest properly." The nurse then glanced at the two Guardians. "Knight, Consul, would one of you take heir Potter elsewhere?"

"He'll wake up and scream," The greenet Lightning said calmly; whether he was Knight or Consul was not clear, but Xanxus was leaning towards him being Knight. It was the way the Lightning moved compared to what he was seeing in the Sun's mannerisms. "Better to let him stay with his father until he wakes up by himself."

The nurse snorted and rolled his eyes. "Then would one of you please hold him while the other one helps me get the Lady properly into bed? I don't want her waking up because she's cold and closer contact with her husband can only help."

Xanxus noticed that he wasn't being consulted, but did not think it was because the nurse was dismissing him; more that the Storm recognised that Xanxus didn't have all the facts yet and was doing that mildly annoying medical professional thing where the doctor or nurse attempted to shelter him from unpleasant facts until he was considered well enough to be able to process them properly. Well, that or he thought that Xanxus wasn't going to argue about having his wife in bed with him.

He could live the presumption this once, but once he was well enough to get out of bed he was going to find out _everything_ he'd missed, both on his wife's side of things and on the mafia and Varia side, then never let anybody fob him off ever again. It was probably going to take _months_ but there was no helping that. He did have nearly six years to catch up on and an entire society's worth of information to discover about the magical side of things as well as learning more about his wife.

In the end it was the Lightning who held out his hands for the toddler; Xanxus paused just long enough to let the green-haired man know that he was not about to let himself be pushed around before handing his son over. Then while the Lightning cradled the sleeping child the Sun carefully picked up Xanxus' wife in a bridal carry so the Storm nurse could pull back Xanxus' blankets and help the injured Varia Boss slide most of the way down into bed again before they slipped his wife in next to him. The blond aristocrat –because Xanxus knew hereditary snobbery when he saw it– then removed her slippers, but when he reached for the dressing gown Xanxus batted the hand away.

"I'll leave that to you then?" His cousin-in-law said, stepping back.

Xanxus wanted to burn that amused smile off the Sun's face, but didn't; he was in too vulnerable a position to get away with that and his wife wouldn't be happy if he maimed one of her Guardians. So he just ignored the man and very carefully peeled the dressing-gown off his wife's sleeping body, starting with undoing the belt and then flicking open the buttons. The Sun walked over to the Lightning and started a hushed conversation in an unfamiliar Latin dialect, which Xanxus also ignored in favour of carefully removing the dressing gown from his wife's body and smoothing down her nightdress. That he was being afforded nominal privacy with their unconscious Sky indicated a level of trust he hadn't actually been expecting from either of the men. After all, married to their Sky or not, they knew absolutely nothing about him as a person. Well, in terms of personal knowledge; they might have compiled a file on him for all he knew.

It was a very pretty nightdress, with a deep v neckline, hidden buttons down the front of the bodice making it slightly fitted, lots of very small white-on-white embroidery patterns with tiny cut-outs integrated into the designs all over said bodice and in strips down the sleeves to patterned cuffs. The skirt of the nightdress was plain white, but the linen it was made of was so very fine that Xanxus could just about see the contours of his wife's body through the fabric. The skirt fell to mid-calf, where it ended in another cutwork and white embroidered border. Her hair was spread across the pillows and down her back in a fall of red-lit black waves and her long eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly as he smoothed the nightdress against her skin.

Dumping the dressing gown on the chair the Sun had been sitting in, Xanxus pulled the blankets back over the both of them. Seeing his wife like this was _very_ arousing, but unfortunately the nature of his injuries meant that right now arousal _hurt_. Hopefully nothing was permanently damaged, but he rather wanted the potions he was being offered now and wouldn't turn down a painkilling one either. Ow, ow, _ow_; the calming spell had definitely worn off as this couldn't have happened otherwise. The pressing fury and smothered panic in the back of his mind was just confirmation.

"Here," a glass beaker was held up to his face. Xanxus sniffed it and coughed; it smelled strongly of several unfamiliar herbal things and slightly of rotten eggs. Seriously?

"Yes, potions frequently smell vile," the nurse said dryly, reading his expression of disgust easily. "No, that doesn't mean you can avoid drinking it; the draught of peace doesn't actually taste at all bad and that's the last one, so you won't have a bad taste in your mouth at the end."

Xanxus resigned himself, accepted the beaker and threw the dubious-looking liquid down his throat as quickly as possible; as soon as he had swallowed it he could feel his pain fading. Magical medicine clearly worked very quickly. The next potion was bright orange, but Xanxus drank it anyway; it made his covered eye sting slightly, but in a good way. The third and last had a silvery vapour rising from its pearly green surface, which was extremely disconcerting but did fit in with what Xanxus personally felt magic should look like, so he drank that too.

Abruptly all his worries evaporated; they didn't matter. What would be, would be and he could deal with it when it came about. His muscles eased, his mind cleared of everything except the warmth of his surroundings and his very cuddly wife lying next to him. His eye was already closing when a familiar Lightning-presence placed his youngest son on top of the blankets and oblivion followed almost immediately after.

* * *

Dorea surfaced slowly from sleep, languor and lassitude clinging to her body like wet clothing and filling her mind with fog. She didn't _want_ to wake up; she was warm inside and out, her magic humming happily and her banked inner Flame resonating low and gentle with the bright, fierce Flame of her husband beside her.

Husband. Beside her. Awake, lying on his side with one red eye watching her from his bandaged face and a smirk on his lips as he played with her hair.

The rush of hurt and fury was too sharp to resist; Dorea wedged her right elbow into the mattress for leverage and punched her husband squarely in the throat with her left fist. The shock and pain on his face as the blow knocked him back hit her like a bucket of ice water but by then it was too late; panicked breathlessness washed over her through their wedding bond and Dorea quickly sat up and leaned forwards so she could touch her husband's throat.

"_Anapneo_," she said firmly, using the word to focus her will and steady her mind. The magic left her hand instantly and reopened her husband's windpipe, which had definitely hurt but did mean he was able to breathe and would continue to be able to breathe. Going by the crunch under her knuckles she'd just crushed his larynx and that _really_ wasn't how she'd pictured this reunion going.

"Sorry," she added as Xanxus lay on his back and took in long, hoarse breaths, visible eye wide and staring at her face as she leaned over him, fingers still resting lightly on his throat. For a moment Dorea was terrified that he might push her away, but instead her husband relaxed back into the pillow and shook slightly. It took her a few moments to realise he was laughing silently.

"What is so funny?" She demanded through gritted teeth. He'd better not be laughing at her!

Her husband opened his mouth, made a weird hoarse sound and winced. "Not you," he managed to croak in English before switching to Italian. "_I deserved it; deserved worse. I've been a dreadful husband. You deserve better; I will do better, I promise._"

The honesty and unhappily determined earnestness painted across his face gave Dorea a funny wobbly feeling in her stomach and she could feel her cheeks flush pink. Why did he have to be so _intense_ about things? It wasn't fair! She couldn't stay angry with him looking at her like that, like he was expecting her to refuse his apology and make him jump through hoops!

"_You don't have to _do _anything,_" she countered firmly. "_Just be here, with me. Stay with me now, please?_"

The way the skin tightened briefly around her husband's eyes was definitely a wince; Bastiano winced like that too, barely noticeable unless you were paying close attention and could read the subtle cues. Blaise was far easier to read, so long as he wasn't being deliberately difficult. "_I will stay, I promise; even when I return to the Varia I will always come home to you,_" her husband swore fervently, sitting up slightly and gripping her free hand with sincere and ferocious earnestness. "_I am never, ever going to abandon you ever again; I should never have done so at all._"

Dorea huffed unhappily. "_The past is over and done with; it can't be changed. Do not lose yourself in it._"

"_I won't,_" he agreed, "_But I can't forget it. And I do want to make it up to you._"

"_You don't have to,_" Dorea said quietly. Having her husband dutifully doing things for her because he felt guilty… she wasn't the kind of woman to find any pleasure in that.

Her husband gave her an inscrutable and penetrating look from a lidded eye. "_I want to,_" he said evenly. "_Will you allow me the privilege?_"

Dorea was forcibly reminded that her husband did not just _love_ her, but was _in love_ with her. She'd forgotten what it was like, to be the focus of such passionate scrutiny; her pink cheeks reddened. "_If it pleases you, husband mine,_" she said quietly, eyes dropping to the sheets where his bandaged left hand was wrapped around her right, his wedding ring clearly visible.

Xanxus lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, one after the other. "_It would please me very much,_" he rumbled, deep voice dropping lower until it was almost a purr. The effect was ruined when something in his throat caught and he wheezed, making Dorea giggle at his visible disgruntlement.

"I'll ring for somebody to fix your throat," she eventually managed to gasp out, taking her fingers off his throat and tapping the backs of her fingers against the wall above the head of the bed. The wall chimed softly, prompting movement in her husband's eyebrows.

"The wall's Charmed," Dorea explained; Theo had discovered that a lot of magical terminology was also used by Mists, if generally to denote different things. A Mist would have described the wall as being Altered or Enchanted, for instance, but the implications would come across clearly.

The door opened moments later and Trey walked in, wearing a white apron over her green Healer's robes and a matching white cap over her hair. "You're looking much better, Rhea," she said approvingly. "Does your husband need his bandages changing?"

Dorea cringed. "Er, I crushed my husband's larynx," she admitted, glaring sideways at said husband as he shook with silent laughter again.

Trey paused. "Is there any particular reason _why_ you did that?" She inquired, voice light but steely.

Dorea's face heated again. "I woke up and he was there and…" she trailed off.

"Ah," her petite friend said understandingly, "I see. Well then Lord Potter, sit up properly so I can get a good look at your throat."

Her teenage husband was clearly slightly weirded out at being addressed as 'Lord Potter', but sat up and kept still as Trey waved her wand over the injury. "There; healed," the Slytherin Alumnus said with a smile, tucking her wand away again. "Try saying something please."

* * *

Xanxus glanced from Dorea to the smiling Sun and back again. "My wife has two Sun Guardians?" he asked, surprised and intrigued by the fact that not only was his throat in full working order again but that all the swelling had vanished too. Magical healing was clearly far superior to the Flame-healing he was used to. Then again he'd already been aware of that; he'd woken up earlier to a still-sleeping wife and a distinct lack of toddler son and noticed that his eye and other wounds felt far less sore. Still, if waving a wand could heal a person so easily, it made him wonder how much damage he'd taken that bandages and potions were necessary.

"Dorea's way of arranging Guardians is slightly different to what I'm told is the usual mafia method," the Sun nurse –or was this person a magical equivalent of a doctor? – said easily. "She and I do share a Flame bond, but I do not want to be a Guardian, considering all the responsibilities and duties the position demands. I want to run an infirmary and heal people. So Dorea allows me to do so and has selected another, unbonded Sun to carry out Guardian duties for her."

This Sun felt warm and gentle like a summer's morning, capable of inflicting considerable damage but disinclined to do so. He'd come across quite a few Suns like that in Vongola Medical; not quite pacifists but people who disapproved of violence as anything except a last resort and who would put their enemies back together again after ripping them apart, scolding them all the while.

Which meant that there was a _third_ Sun out there, one he hadn't met, who was his wife's official Guardian; interesting system. "Not Draco Malfoy?" Xanxus inquired carefully.

"Draco didn't want to be Guardian for similar reasons to Tracy," his wife explained; so this Sun was called Tracy then? It was good to know names; he still didn't know what Knight or Governess were called after all. "He has many other responsibilities already, being a Lord in his own right, and he's not really very social even though he can fake it decently when he has to."

Xanxus had noticed that the other Sun was what the Mafia generally called 'inverted', indicating he had the opposite personality type to what was considered 'classic'; Classic Suns were outgoing, touchy-feely and energetic, like Lussuria was. Inverted Suns on the other hand were aloof, contained and somewhat anti-social.

"Three Suns, then?"

"Four," Tracy the Sun-medic said briskly, leaning closer to poke at his bandages. "Dorea has two official Guardians of each type, plus various additional 'shadows' who either bowed out of the Guardian role or weren't considered. She's the head of two different Families after all, so one set per Family was important, especially when the Families she is head of have such contrasting values."

His wife had _twelve_ Guardians, plus an unspecified additional number of bonded Flame-users. Xanxus felt slightly faint; he only had _three_ bonded Guardians and they were all unofficial, so were technically just 'bonded' rather than 'Guardians'! In the Vongola being a Guardian was an officially recognised position, so claiming it meant getting a stipend so that if a Guardian so chose they could not do anything except follow their Sky around. However on the downside, a Guardian was _expected_ to not want to wander far from their Sky –unless of course they were a Cloud– and that could be a bit limiting. Xanxus had certainly noticed how bored certain of Nono's Guardians looked half the time. He had bonded with three of his Officers and two of the others had _wanted_ to be bonded to him, but Squalo and Lussuria had agreed with him that their being official would be stifling and come with unavoidable responsibilities like attending stupid parties, so his bonds were not officially confirmed. They were his Officers and that was recognition enough.

Of course his foster brothers and the old fart would know Squalo, Mammon and Bel were his bonded Guardians just by paying attention, but it not being official meant that they couldn't be pressured into making proxy decisions on his behalf, nor punished for complicity in his actions. He'd been plotting what had looked like a coup when he bonded with them, after all.

However he had only thought he had another three Guardians to worry about in addition to the in-laws; finding out instead that he would be facing another _ten_ –probably more than ten– was intensely uncomfortable. The last person to make him feel this unsettled had been his grandmother and it wasn't a very nice feeling.

"How is the dragon?" some woman said uncomfortably close to his ear.

What.

Xanxus glanced sideways and barely managed to prevent himself from recoiling; there was a Mist _right there_, almost nose-to-nose with him. Protuberant, surprised-looking silver eyes stared straight at him from a pale face surrounded by slightly untidy blonde hair held in place by a multitude of hairclips shaped like pac-man ghosts.

_Thick, swirling mist lit by distant sunlight so the droplets shine and twinkle disorientatingly in every colour of the rainbow. Watchfulness and brilliance; awareness of things it was better to be ignorant of. Humour, kindness, whimsy; sibling attachment and mild adoration. Insatiable curiosity and an implacable thirst for knowledge._

Xanxus had met a lot of scary Mists in his time; he was Varia Boss after all and his grandmother's Nebbia had a reputation too. But this Mist was right up there in his top three of 'Mists who are _seriously_ disturbing', alongside Kuchisake and Maínomai. Kuchisake was another Sunny Mist; Sunny Mists were frequently the most worrying ones, because they combined their Misty whimsy and contrariness with Sunny keenness and willingness to work hard. Maínomai was Electric rather than Sunny, but he did have a Sun-tertiary exacerbating his flakiness and whimsy. That Maínomai managed to _stay_ Varia Quality despite having the attention span of a hyperactive goldfish was part of what made him so disturbing; if he had been fully in control of his mind and body chemistry he would have been competition for Mammon as Mist Officer and could quite possibly have made a decent shot at being Varia Boss. It wasn't like the flighty Mist didn't have the skills or intelligence for it; he simply lacked the focus to keep track of all the little details that the job required.

The rest of what made Maínomai disturbing was that he was far too nice. It was really, seriously unnerving for Xanxus; he had to have an agenda! Nobody was that nice without having an agenda! It just didn't happen! Xanxus hadn't worked out what it was yet, but it was probably something more long-term which involved a lot of soft manipulation and would benefit the kleptomaniac Mist somehow.

"Your dragon has airsickness," the Mist said seriously to his wife. "The changes in altitude and wind currents are disorientating him. He needs to equalise internal and external pressure so he can place himself properly."

Well, at least the wild, weird metaphors were not beyond his ability to decipher; this Mist thought he was off-balance. Xanxus had a feeling this was the pot calling the kettle black, considering she was wearing a pink-and-lime-green paisley sundress, excessive quantities of turquoise jewellery and rollerblades in an eye-gouging shade of orange.

"I'll go fetch one of his anchors," the Mist went on dreamily. "Which one to get? Not the Cursed one; Curses are terribly destabilising. Not the shrike chick either; not old enough to understand why stability matters. The swordfish it is then!"

This lunatic thought she could somehow get Squalo to come _here_, wherever here was? Unless things had _seriously_ changed that Squalo would be in the Varia Headquarters or else on a mission; either way he'd be surrounded by Varia.

Then again, this Mist was fucking scary. Not overtly, but the sheer _power_ she exuded made his instincts gibber worse than Mammon ever had. However Xanxus had only ever met Mammon _after_ he got Cursed and the toddler always complained about how it had significantly reduced his power levels…

"Remember to be kind, Luna," his wife said absently, as though she wasn't authorising the abduction of one of Xanxus' Guardians from inside Varia security.

"Of course!" The Mist said brightly, Conjuring an orange tweed deerstalker on her head and a ridiculously large magnifying glass in one hand. "Your Investigator is on the case! Soon the mystery of the lost dragon will be solved!" With that the batty blonde opened a door that appeared behind her in midair and walked through it into nothingness; the door closed behind her and vanished.

His wife chuckled. "Only Luna," she said fondly.

Xanxus found it rather ironic that the lunatic Mist was actually _called_ Luna. He also wondered –with no small amount of mean glee– how loudly Squalo would shriek at being abducted by a deranged Mist. It was a real shame he couldn't be there to see it.


	119. Chapter 119

Beta'd by the bold Insane Scriptist.

Reviews are... OVER FIVE THOUSAND! ^swoon^

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**Of lunacy and reunions **

Squalo was in his office, sorting through his paperwork and returning a few files to their shelves, when the section of floor he was stepping onto abruptly evaporated. As he overbalanced forwards the 'hole' spread, revealing itself to be the mouth of a wide pipe that was actually floating just _above_ the floor and only intersecting with reality in a strictly two-dimensional fashion. As he tumbled down Squalo swore that he was going to have _words_ with Mammon about this; Varia HQ was covered by a _Territory_ for Christ's sake! Mists breaking in like that shouldn't have been possible!

Unless of course the Mist in question was better at Territories than Mammon was, which considering the toddler was an Arcobaleno who _specialised _in Territories shouldn't have been possible. Well, it wasn't likely; Squalo knew better than to think that anything was impossible because he was Varia and they did the impossible regularly.

Then the pipe he was falling headfirst _down_ spat him _up_ and he landed on a small, grassy sward next to the pipe mouth. Squalo instantly stretched out his senses and looked around, trying to get his bearings. It was mostly pointless, since this was definitely a Territory, but it gave him something to do and, Mist-drama being what it was, would probably give him insight into this Mist's mind and the Rules in place.

The floating gold coins, oddly sheer cliffs and geometric landmasses, isolated ponds, chunks of land casually defying gravity were all deeply strange, but what really made Squalo's heart sink were the red-and-white plants with the teeth he could see emerging from pipes and planted in various other locations. He'd never been overly interested in gaming but the Varia had regular Nintendo tournaments –Mario Kart was popular– and he knew Piranha Plants when he saw them. He was at the mercy of a Mist who was a Super Mario freak; could this get any worse?

Yes it could; it could _always _get worse when you were dealing with Mists. He was at least wearing his own clothes rather than being dressed as a short plumber. If he upset whoever had created this place it would _undoubtedly_ get worse and a clothing change would only be the beginning of his suffering.

"Welcome!" A dreamy voice said from right behind him. Squalo spun around, hopping away from the speaker and deliberately not drawing his sword. It wouldn't do him any good here.

This had to be the Mist who had grabbed him; either present in person or speaking through a projection. She –male Mists were generally too proud to use female avatars– was dressed as Princess Peach in a poofy pink dress and white opera gloves, but the image was rather spoiled by the searing orange rollerblades on her feet and the dozen hairclips shaped like pac-man ghosts holding her blonde hair out of her face. The ghosts were even wriggling back and forth like their arcade-game counterparts…

"Who are you?" Squalo asked, then wondered why the hell he'd asked that. Something about the Territory messing with his brain-to-mouth filter perhaps? Mists could do that and Territories were made so that any Rule the Mist came up with would remain binding until you left the area it contained.

"I'm Princess Dirigible Plum," the floating Mist said airily, "and you are the brave Shark Knight!" Squalo could _see_ the capital letters there; _literally_ see them, because she had a dammed _speech bubble_. "You are needed at the castle!"

"How do I get to the castle?" Squalo asked cautiously, ignoring his own speech bubble as he tried to bring to mind everything he knew about the various Mario games, "and how long do I have?"

"Follow the star!" The self-proclaimed Princess Dirigible Plum said, obligingly Conjuring up a blue Power Star that spun gently in the air for a few moments before drifting slightly off to the left. "You have as long as it takes you to reach the castle, but the better your time the more points you get!"

"What do the points get me?" Squalo inquired warily. Some Mists _really_ didn't like it when people did too well at their games, while others were all the more delighted by a victim's competence. "And what's at the castle?"

"Points mean prizes!" The lunatic Mist chirped. "You can track them in that little box above you,"

–Squalo's eyes twitched up to the little transparent box with a translucent white '0' in it floating above his head–

"and for every thousand points you get an extra life! Lose all your lives and you end up back here with zero points; extra points are awarded for stylish victories and for defeating every single enemy in a section. As for the castle, it's the exit! Have fun!" She then exploded into pink sparkles, leaving Squalo alone with his spinning blue star and the annoying box that proclaimed him to have zero points.

Well, if there was a guaranteed exit and a promise of prizes, Squalo couldn't see anything wrong with cutting loose a little. He wouldn't show off _all_ his tricks –this could easily be an espionage attempt– but he could give a few away for the intimidation factor. Pulling out his sword, the Rain Officer followed his star.

… Bel would _never_ hear about this. Squalo would make sure of it.

* * *

Squalo wasn't even halfway to the castle when he decided that Super Mario was much more fun in person than when played on a videogame console. The game physics made his various flashier sword moves much more impressive too, since gravity worked more slowly and was less strong generally. It being a Mario game there were of course a large number of highly specialised 'enemies', some of which he couldn't identify on sight or remember the appropriate neutralisation techniques for, but a spot of cautious trial and error enabled him to work things out without getting himself killed.

Well, not more than once and Squalo wasn't going to tell _anybody_ that he'd been eaten by a homicidal piano. He'd gone and made sure to thoroughly smash the damned thing afterwards in revenge for that stunt. The 'death' had thankfully only hurt for the split-second of impact and then he had been reset back to the beginning of that specific 'level', but he hadn't enjoyed redoing it all when he'd been almost at the end.

He wasn't entirely sure how much time passed before he reached the castle, but it didn't really matter: he was in a Territory so if the Mist running it wanted, no time at all could have passed out in the real world.

Or a week could have gone by; you never knew with Mists. The only reason it was unlikely to be years rather than days was that a Territory had to be sustained and Squalo was pretty sure that if he went missing for long enough Mammon would be able to find the Mist who had made off with him and pressure her into giving him back.

That clearly hadn't happened yet, so it was unlikely that very much time had actually passed.

However once Squalo was standing outside the very large and grand front doors of the ridiculously twee castle, his points meter well up in the tens of thousands, he felt a twinge of misgiving. It couldn't have been that easy, could it? Yes, he'd been made to do a whole lot of very silly things in the name of winning points and reaching the castle, but what kind of Mist created a Territory this elaborate and then abducted a Varia Officer all in the name of entertainment?

Well, a crazy one would, but Squalo was used to a slightly more purposeful brand of crazy, since that was what most of the Varia's Mists indulged in. Unless they had filmed all this and were going to attempt the blackmail route, which would at least be new.

Squalo considered opening the door or smashing it open with a kick, then decided that, since it was a castle and the creator of the Territory was the self-styled Princess Dirigible Plum, then it was probably meant to be her house; the winged plum on the flag was also a dead giveaway, as it did fit with the idea of a 'dirigible plum'. He therefore sheathed his sword and knocked politely.

"Welcome!" The pink-frocked princess declared, the doors slamming wide open as she appeared in an explosion of sparkly light. "You get an extra twenty thousand points for finishing before lunchtime! Come in, your prizes await!"

Well, at least he had some idea about timing now; he'd fallen through the floor at ten in the morning and it was probably not one o'clock yet. Under three hours wasn't bad, all things considered, when he knew he'd walked, run and swam at _least_ twenty miles since getting kidnapped.

Stepping through the double doors, Squalo found himself back in the real world and standing in a large, airy atrium with a grand staircase in front of him, the lunatic Mist slightly off to one side wearing more normal clothing. If indeed a pink-and-lime-green paisley sundress, a kilogram of turquoise jewellery and those same garish orange rollerblades could be considered 'normal'. She was still wearing pac-man ghost hairclips, but at least they weren't wriggling anymore.

"Come on in and welcome to my Lady's home!" The Mist said airily, waving at her surroundings. "Your prize is a free pass to visit any time you like, a scarf Altered to make you less noticeable to law enforcement, feather-light socks for jumping small buildings in a single bound and your choice of lunch! Be sure to order it soon though, or else the kitchens won't be able to rustle it up."

"What time is it?" Squalo asked, eyes darting around his new surroundings. He had noticed the reference to 'my Lady' and was almost _certain_ it was the same 'my Lady' as Knight and Executioner belonged to. "And who are you really?"

"I'm the Investigator, but you can call me Luna," the Mist said earnestly, large silver eyes blinking dreamily at him. "My Lady needs your help with her dragon; he's all disorientated and needs a calming presence to remind him that arson often offends. Oh, and it's half-past eleven."

Considering what Squalo knew of magic and the Zabini –never mind all those damn books Bel had been either buying or borrowing from Sabina somehow– an actual real dragon being the issue was not out of the question. However that he was being called on to calm the dragon down suggested that Luna the lunatic was speaking metaphorically. That he'd only been in that Territory for an hour and a half however spoke very highly of her talent and skill… and the sheer power she exuded easily put her on par with Mammon. Possibly even pre-Curse Mammon.

"I'd like tuna carpaccio, baby new potatoes and steamed asparagus for lunch, followed by key lime pie," Squalo said promptly; if the kitchen could manage _that_ with barely two hours notice he'd be impressed, but wasn't expecting them to succeed. Key limes might grow in Sicily and asparagus might still be in season, but good tuna was hard to find. Then again, stranger things had happened.

The Mist waved a hand and sent a Conjured cartoon parrot flying off down a corridor to the left. "Come on, the dragon awaits," she said sweetly, rolling forwards across the marble floor.

Squalo did not believe for a moment that the 'Lady' who had two highly competent Lightnings and a Mist this capable did not have at least one Rain at her disposal. So why had she gone and ordered him abducted? Especially when this was clearly her _home_, not somewhere you brought a mafia assassin if you were wise.

"Voi! Wait up!" he called, hurrying after the Mist on wheels. He might nominally be a guest, but that didn't mean he wanted to find out what would happen if he wandered off on his own here. Knight could clearly do some impressive things with Clauses and security and that wasn't even his specialty; Squalo didn't want to find out the hard way that this Lady had a Trap-master or something on her staff.

"So why does your Lady have a dragon anyway?" Squalo asked once he'd caught up, voice back at its usual volume. This hallway had a decent echo to it. Being as loud as he was, Squalo had picked up a fair appreciation and understanding of acoustics.

"Every princess needs a dragon," The Mist said matter-of-factly, "to keep out the riff-raff, dispose of incriminating evidence, add to her consequence and generally prove to all and sundry that she is indeed a _proper_ princess. If a princess doesn't have a dragon then people start thinking up ridiculous tests involving peas and piles of mattresses and things get rather ridiculous."

The mental images that conjured up… Squalo was going to have a headache by lunchtime, he knew it. "Voi! She's royalty?"

"By marriage," Luna the Lunatic assured him. "Of course she's technically royalty by conquest as well, but we don't mention that because she gets embarrassed and it wasn't much of a kingdom anyway; she's better off without it, truly. Her new realm is much nicer and the subjects are properly appreciative."

Squalo filed that in the back of his mind for later as a door slightly ahead and off to one side flew open, disgorging a small child in a burgundy velvet frock with lacy cuffs and black curly hair in high pigtails. The little girl spun around, noticed him and paused, just as a very familiar Lightning emerged from the room she had just exited.

That was the annoyingly polyglot older blond he'd met in Sabina. Wait, this Lady had a connection to the Zabini?

"Voi! What the devil are you doing here?" he demanded loudly, pointing at the man.

The man smiled. "I live here," he said mildly. "What are you doing here?"

"I brought him, Barty-dear," the Mist said dreamily, pirouetting in place. "Be nice."

"I am being nice," Barty replied, that damnable smile widening. "I'm not teasing him about not knowing as many languages as I do, am I?"

Oh that–! He did not! "Voooiii!" Squalo bellowed, taking several threatening steps forward.

"Why are you so loud when you're quiet?" A high, precise childish voice demanded from around waist level.

Squalo glanced down and almost swallowed his own tongue: looking up at him from a fair-skinned, chubby face were Boss's eyes. Boss's eyebrows too; bloody scarlet irises bored into him as those oh-so-familiar brows communicated suspicion, curiosity and a demand for information.

"It makes people under-estimate me," Squalo blurted out, still in shock and not watching his tongue quite as well as he should have. The fuck! Boss had a kid? When had that happened? How had he missed that happening!

"Ah," the eyes lit up in understanding. "Are you here to see Papà?"

A whole tapestry's-worth of loose threads came together in Squalo's mind and he was momentarily blinded by the accompanying revelation. Knight's Lady was affiliated with the Zabini, who had made it clear they would be defrosting Xanxus as soon as they possibly could. His Boss had a kid; his Boss's kid had a _mother_ who would probably want to give him what-for after going missing for most of six years.

Boss was _here_. Here and _awake_.

He turned on the Mist. "Dragon?" He demanded.

"What else do you call one so fiery who hoards with such ferocity?" Luna asked curiously.

Okay, fine, so it did fit Boss to a tee; that wasn't the point!

"Where is he?" The Rain Officer demanded loudly.

"I'll take you!" The little girl stated decisively, grabbing his right hand and dragging him down the hall at a decent speed; Squalo could keep up easily at a gentle jog. Which was a good thing, because his brain was still busy slotting together all the various implications of the Zabini connection and the girl leading him onwards; he wasn't really in any shape for activities requiring concentration.

"So who are you anyway?" The girl asked as she led him out of the building, down some steps and across a lawn.

"I'm Squalo, Rain Officer to the Varia," Squalo said shortly, confident that the kid wouldn't know what most of that meant anyway.

"You're named after a fish?" So the kid knew Italian despite sounding like an upper-class Brit.

"It's a Family Tradition to be named after animals," Squalo explained.

"Oh. I'm Cassie and I'm named after my great-great-aunt Cassiopeia, because she was awesome and really strong," the little girl shared. "And it's Traditional for Blacks to be named after stars and constellations."

Black… at least now Squalo had a _name_ to stick to this mysterious Lady, even if was just a generic surname. "Oh?" He asked as they passed through a wide but narrow stretch of woodland.

"Uh-huh!" Cassie said brightly, her grin fierce and proud. "My Mama's father was called Sirius, Great-Great-Grandpa was Arcturus, Mama's got a cousin Draco and there was crazy Great-Aunt Bellatrix who killed Grandpa Sirius."

That sounded distinctly mafia with all that infighting; of course Boss would get involved with a mafia woman. Although England didn't really _have_ mafia connections, not beyond the Tommaso Famiglia who didn't really count anyway. Well, didn't have mundane mafia; _was_ there a magical mafia?

"Why're we in the gardens?" Squalo asked instead.

The girl who was probably his Boss's daughter glared at him. "This is where the medical laboratory is, silly!" She pointed at the single-storey building ahead and slightly to their left that looked a lot like an orangery; not too different from a greenhouse but built mainly of bricks with glass only along the south-facing wall. There were proper greenhouses away to the left, lined up parallel to where they were walking. "See?" She didn't wait for him to answer though and instead let go of his hand so she could run ahead; Squalo picked up speed so he could keep up.

The door Cassie ran into opened easily, so Squalo followed the girl inside with minimal feelings of trepidation.

"Hullo, kitten, what brings you here?" asked a tall, freckly man with mousy hair who had stalled Cassie just inside.

"Papà has a visitor!" the girl said impatiently. "I brought him!"

"So you did," the man agreed, looking at Squalo through lidded eyes. The Rain Officer tensed; another Mist? One that reminded him slightly of Nevada… However the man turned his attention back to Cassie.

"I thought your Auntie Luna was bringing him?"

"She was being slow!" Cassie complained.

"Well, where did you leave her then?" The man asked in that reasonable adult tone of voice that had always sounded patronising to Squalo.

Cassie clearly agreed with him; she hit the Mist in the leg. "Uncle Fra-ank! I didn't leave her anywhere! Auntie Luna goes anywhere she wants!"

"True, true," the Mist agreed, nodding self-importantly before turning to look Squalo in the eye: "My wife's a wonder, she really is. Don't you agree?"

This man was _married_ to the crazy Mist? The _other_ crazy Mist? Since this Frank had just proven himself to be at least as crazy if not crazier than his wife for having married her. "Her skills are very impressive," Squalo conceded warily.

"And just think, you haven't seen her really exert herself yet," Frank the Mist said with a sinister smile. "Third door on the right, by the way."

"I knew that!" Cassie complained hotly as Frank walked past Squalo, who gave the other man as wide a berth as the corridor allowed.

"You may have done, Cassie-darling, but our guest did not. Did you, Squalo Superbi?"

They knew his name? They knew his name. Hell, they probably had files on all of the Varia Officers, considering they were Zabini-affiliated.

"I didn't," he admitted shortly before striding ahead of Cassie towards the door the male Mist had indicated. Pushing it open revealed a green room with a big, comfortable-looking double bed with his Boss sitting up against a mound of pillows and reading a book, so covered in thick, jagged white scars he looked like an extra in a bad horror movie.

"Shark?"

"Vooi! Boss!" Squalo bellowed, relieved beyond measure to see his Sky again. "What the hell did you go and do that for!"

"Like I take orders from you, _Kasusame_."

"VOOOIII!"

* * *

Translations 

Kasusame = angelshark (Japanese), although the _literal_ translation is 'dregs-shark' or 'scum-shark'.

Nevada has been mentioned in 'Parenting is not a Varia Quality'.


	120. Chapter 120

Beta'd by the outstanding Insane Scriptist.

This chapter has so. MUCH. Subtext. So much that writing it all out would have tripled the length, easy. Most of it is therefore _staying_ subtext.

* * *

**Of family history and its implications **

Xanxus was feeling restless and twitchy this morning. After Luna the lunatic had left, Tracy the Sun had come in with a jar of salve and informed him that he could either take a shower or have a sponge-bath; the shower was more dignified so he had chosen that. He'd also got a good look at his injuries after taking off the bandages while in the bathroom, which while very sore still did not actually look all that serious: no inflammation, no open sores and no obvious scar tissue. Oh, there was a _lot_ of skin that was unnaturally white and slightly translucent, but it was real skin that stretched properly and had actual feeling in it. A few tentative pokes had proved that.

The soreness was under the ragged patches of pale skin though, so Xanxus had a feeling that he undergone the magical equivalent of extensive skin and tissue grafting. That suggested that he'd had fairly extensive frostbite and would have looked a whole lot worse if it had been the mafia defrosting him rather than his wife; Sun Flames were all very well but didn't work as well as they might when there was a lot of tissue that wasn't actually salvageable.

His eye he left covered; he had no idea what was going on under there and didn't want to risk damaging his eyesight. The thick, spiky diagonal band of new, sensitive white skin running from his right temple to the left side of his jaw made it very clear what had happened to his eye and he was lucky to still _have_ it, never mind have it useable.

The nurse from earlier had implied it was salvageable though, which was hopeful.

Irritatingly, when he returned to his room after showering his wife had vanished; Tracy was still there though and there was a large, star-shaped silver jar on the bedside table closest the door. The other bedside table was loaded down with a stack of hardback books, all looking worn and well-read.

"This is Star Grass Salve," the Sun told him as he stood there in the towelling dressing gown that had been hanging in the bathroom, taking the lid off the jar and showing him the green ointment within. "It's very good for easing soreness and preventing scarring, so you need to rub it all over your injuries. I can do the ones on your back or I can call for David to do it instead."

"David?" Xanxus asked, suspecting she meant the Storm nurse from yesterday. Where was his wife? This sort of thing fell under the kinds of things spouses did for each-other, didn't it? Was she still angry with him?

No, probably not angry; she'd been _furious _when she punched him in the throat but after that instant she'd just been unhappy and uncomfortable. Did she just not want to touch him now? That wasn't good. 'Not angry' wasn't much of a starting point for building a relationship, since anger at least suggested that she _cared_. He didn't like not knowing what was going on and the faint awareness of his wife's feelings he had wasn't actually very helpful; she was concentrating, she was stressed, she was unhappy. She was also over _there_, north and slightly west of him; again, not very helpful when he was on bed rest and had very little idea of what she was doing or why.

"David Nolton, the staff nurse on day-duty who brought you your potions yesterday," Tracy clarified, confirming Xanxus' guess.

"Where's Dorea?" He wasn't complaining; he _wasn't_. He was just concerned for his wife's well-being.

He was also crap at lying to himself.

Tracy took has lack of decision as an invitation and guided him over to the bed, the slid the dressing gown off his shoulders so she could rub the salve into his neck and upper back. "Dorea's probably in her office unless she's having breakfast still," the Sun said, interestingly not using any Flames at all to speed up assimilation into his skin. Maybe magic and Flames did not interact predictably?

"Office?"

"Well, she's the head of two Families and both of those have considerable business and political interests," the Sun explained, "which of course need regular maintenance and involve a whole range of responsibilities. It's a bit tricky at the moment as a lot of the more longstanding investments are in Britain and certain rather loud and well-thought-of parties there are really _not_ happy about how she wrapped up the civil war there, never mind approving of certain of the choices that were made while restructuring the government. Of course she didn't actually _make_ most of those choices, but she did ratify them and she's a convenient scapegoat, what with being so powerful, influential and conveniently out of the country."

Xanxus growled. His wife had won a war, put a government back together again, then actually _left_ rather than hold onto her position and people were bad-mouthing her behind her back? People who had probably run away and hid while the war was actually going on rather than get stuck in and fight back?

"Who?" He demanded, twisting so he could look the medic in the eye.

Tracy looked back at him with an expression so coolly calculating he was briefly reminded of Lussuria's rare moments of seriousness. "If you promise to apply the salve to your injuries morning and evening you will be well enough to leave my care tomorrow morning," she said rather than answer him directly. "Dorea's business is her own, of course, but several of her Guardians help her with the paperwork and I'm sure she wouldn't turn down extra hands."

Yes, he had promised not to stick his nose in his wife's Family business hadn't he? But this was personal slander, not business. "I want to learn about her and my new Family," Xanxus agreed. "I didn't realise marrying her would make me a Lord." It was a really odd thought, that he, the son of a whore, was now a member of the aristocracy. Magical aristocracy perhaps, but it still suggested far more respectability than even a mafia Don could aspire to.

"I'm afraid that you are not only Lord Potter, but also Regent-Consort Black," the Sun said dryly; "your son Marius is technically Lord Black, since the Black Family inherits through male primogeniture, but he cannot claim the title until he is of age and has met certain specific Family standards. Dorea is therefore Regent Black and overseeing things for him."

"That sounds awkward." It also sounded dumb; why couldn't women inherit? They were no less capable than men and his grandmother had certainly been a better Donna than the old fart was a Don.

"You will find that there are annoyingly sensible Magical reasons for gender-specific inheritance," Tracy said wryly, "which are very complicated to explain and not yet fully understood. However since Dorea was worried about you getting bored I took the liberty of having some books sent over. Those ones are about magic; a condensed history of its usage in Europe and the wider Mediterranean, an overview of how some of the various family-specific arts work and a few more generic ones on how magic is studied and practiced."

There were eight books there; the thinnest one was at _least_ an inch thick. "Thank-you," Xanxus managed to spit out. It seemed his complete ignorance of all things magical was not at all secret and he needed to make an effort to educate himself. He could do that. He'd been planning to since before he'd been frozen.

"You're welcome; knock on the wall if you want any more books. Dorea's library is ridiculously extensive, so just a description of what you're interested in will be enough to find a book on the subject," the Sun assured him, having by now worked her way down to his lower back.

"If there isn't one?" Xanxus asked provocatively.

Tracy snorted. "Then the deficiency will be promptly rectified; there are a lot of avid bibliophiles living here, I'm afraid. I'm not one of them but Dorea has three among her Guardians and is related to another one who is doing research on her behalf. The prospect of there _not_ _being_ a book available to consult…" she chuckled. "Such a crime against knowledge would not be borne!"

Xanxus huffed. The mental image she conjured up was pretty funny, but also very reassuring: if there was _that_ much in the library then he could probably avoid making a fool of himself, so long as he knew where to find what he needed to know. Which would mean starting with the generic books he'd been provided and taking notes on what looked important or interesting.

"Is there something I can write on?" And preferably something he could write _with_ as well, but that was implied.

"I'll fetch you a notebook and a fountain pen; I rather doubt you're up to using a quill," Tracy promised, stepping away from him. "There, I expect you can manage yourself now. Once you're done just change into the new pyjamas; you don't need any more bandages and the skin needs to air. I'll be back in half an hour with writing materials and your breakfast; I'll see to your eye then as well. Is there anything specific you'd like?"

"Coffee?" Xanxus wasn't going to touch the quill comment with a barge pole. Not when one of the books would probably explain that.

"I'm afraid your stomach isn't cleared for coffee yet," Tracy said apologetically, "but I can arrange a hot chocolate."

"Please."

"Very well then; I'll be back with the writing supplies and your breakfast in half an hour!" The Sun left. Xanxus took a long look at the books then turned his attention back to the salve; the sooner this was dealt with the sooner he could start rectifying his ignorance.

* * *

Xanxus had slightly lost track of time after eating breakfast and Tracy deciding to let him use his eye for a bit, to ensure it really was all in working order. Reading the print in some of the books was a bit difficult to begin with, but as he became engrossed Xanxus forgot about the ache and concentrated on what he was learning and jotting down notes. Remembering normal history and how it paralleled some of the magical milestones mentioned was very interesting, for instance, as were the various essays on magical inheritance that showed a bit of how magic –despite being primarily a matter of blood and body– did have certain spiritual aspects that probably crossed over quite a bit into Flame territory.

He'd been reading that book and dipping into the book on magical disciplines so as to get a proper understanding of what the various family inheritances actually _meant_ when the door opened to reveal Squalo of all people.

A Squalo who was four inches taller than Xanxus remembered and broader through the shoulders, with hair that fell down his back past his waist; wait, that promise to not cut his hair had been for real? Xanxus had disregarded it, partly because even then he'd known he was _never_ going to be Don Vongola due to not having the blood for it. He'd thought it was like when people said they'd eat their hat; an expression of commitment and confidence but not a _literal_ promise. Apparently it had been.

"Shark?" Six years was a long time and the scrappy teenager he remembered was now a grown man. People did change.

"Vooi! Boss! What the hell did you go and do that for!" Or maybe not; Squalo had just confirmed that, regardless of his extended leave of absence, he was still the Varia Boss and still Squalo's Sky. Oh, and that their relationship was going to be allowed to continue from exactly where it had left off. It was a tremendous relief to know that some things really _hadn't_ changed.

"Like I take orders from you, _Kasusame,_" He retorted, relieved beyond what he was comfortable actually expressing.

"VOOOIII!" His Rain bellowed, shaking a fist –a prosthetic fist– at his Sky before slamming the door shut behinds himself and flopping into the chair beside the bed.

"You look like shit," Squalo said bluntly.

"It's not going to scar," Xanxus assured his Rain, eyes falling back to the books and turning a page.

"Didn't know you had a kid." Oh, so Squalo had met one of them on his way over; Xanxus wasn't entirely sure which one because something about his sickroom made sensing what was going on outside of it impossible, even if the door was open. His wife was the glaring exception to that rule and he had no idea how that worked, but he was still going to take advantage of it to build a proper relationship with her as soon as possible.

"Found out yesterday," Xanxus admitted; "three kids." He still wasn't entirely sure what to _do_ with three kids, but suspected that certain of his wife's Guardians might be willing to offer advice that was actually useful. Tracy might not have been a Guardian but she clearly considered him to be an important part of her Sky's life, which was more than –for instance– the Cloud yesterday did.

The Lunatic Mist would probably be willing but he'd have to decipher what she was saying and he didn't for a moment believe he knew enough about magic to catch everything she might reference.

Squalo, interestingly, did _not_ shout. "Triplets?" He asked instead in a remarkably normal tone of voice.

"Twins and a younger one," Xanxus said, eyeing his Rain curiously. This was different; not a bad different though.

Squalo frowned, clearly unsure how his Boss would manage to have one child younger than the others when he'd only just found out about all three of them.

"How?"

"Magic," Xanxus said, just to see how the Shark would react. His non-reaction suggested that Squalo had encountered magic a few times since Xanxus had been frozen in Don Vongola's basement.

"Who told you?" Squalo asked, clearly referring to magic rather than the children.

"Wife," Xanxus said succinctly, jotting down a note and turning a page.

"Voooi! You're _married_?" Ah, there was the reaction Xanxus had been expecting; what, had the Shark thought he'd have kids _without_ getting married? With _his_ upbringing? Seriously? He sent his Rain a withering look.

"When did that happen!" Ah, of course: Squalo had known where he was just about all the time since becoming his Rain and had in fact _been _with him pretty constantly in those five months leading up to the Coup.

"August third," Xanxus told him, just to see what reaction he would get.

"A _week_ before you spat in Nono's eye?" Squalo asked loudly, looking vaguely disapproving.

Xanxus didn't like the feeling of being judged by his Rain so decided to poke the shark a bit more. "First time I met her."

"Voi, you had an _arranged_ marriage?"

Xanxus shook his head, turning another page. "Met her; proposed; got married."

Squalo snorted. "You don't mess around, do you Boss?" He paused. "She was fine with that?"

"Family difficulties," Xanxus said succinctly; he wasn't entirely sure what she'd gone through in his absence but he had a feeling most of those difficulties had been resolved. If there were any lingering issues he was more than willing to do his part, especially considering he had thus far utterly failed in achieving anything remotely husbandly beyond getting her pregnant twice and he'd only been technically involved the second time.

Then there was a knock on the door and the conversation ended.

* * *

Blaise had decided that it was his job to bring his brother-in-law who was his mother's baby brother up to speed on the subject of his Zabini heritage and responsibilities, which the rest of his family had been happy to let him claim. They had provided him with all the material he'd asked for though, from the ancient scrolls through the sociology guides to the fully up-to-date copy of the royal family tree that included everybody within three degrees of the direct line of inheritance.

That was a genuine monster of a document and Blaise was glad the print was small; the damn thing went back to the tenth century BC!

So when he heard from Luna that Squalo Superbi was visiting Dorea's husband, the Zabini prince decided that he wasn't going to get a better chance that this; the sooner his brother-in-law was informed of his heritage the better and the Rain Officer would be able to corroborate on various details. It helped that he'd met the swordsman before.

He knocked on the door of the room in the medical labs that Xanxus was currently inhabiting, just for politeness' sake, then opened it, his books and papers floating along behind him.

"Hello there," Blaise said to the red-eyed and messily scarred man, who was sitting bolt upright in the bed.

"Who the hell are you?" Xanxus demanded even as Squalo Superbi's eyes widened in recognition.

"I'm Blaise Zabini," The Rain said with an evil smile, conjuring up a table to rest all his paperwork on, "and I've got good news, bad news and really complicated news." He barely paused, barrelling onwards. "The good news, as I'm sure you've noticed, is that we're related and I can tell you _exactly_ who you are; I've even got your birth certificate in here," he waved at the pile of books, scrolls and files. "The bad news is that you're going to have a devil of a job catching up with everything you need to know, but I expect you already knew that."

Xanxus grunted like Bastiano did when he was expected to communicate before he'd had his morning coffee; a 'you-know-the-answer-why-are-you-asking' kind of grunt.

"The complicated bit… well it's a long story but you need to hear it," Blaise said firmly, reaching for the older scrolls. "I should be able to get through the basics in short order."

The only indication of agreement from the current Heir Zabini was his closing the books he had been reading and setting them aside, turning his notebook to a new page. Squalo Superbi turned his chair so he could look at both Blaise and his Boss, his eyes sharp and his mouth firmly closed.

"Right, I'll start by saying that Dorea pegged you for a Zabini right away, because you look like one," Blaise said bluntly. "However since you didn't identify yourself as a Zabini, she thought it might have been your mother's maiden name or some such you never found out about. Then you went missing, which meant we had to find you and finding who you were was our first step. It was only while trying to hunt down your exact connection to the wider family that a whole load of other shit came out, which then had to be dealt with and was a big old mess, but that's getting ahead of myself; I'll start at the beginning, to give you some context.

"Firstly, the Zabini bloodline has a _documented_ history going back to the twelfth century before the Christian era, which is when our principality was officially founded," Blaise began, "but the bloodline can be traced back considerably further, through the age of Silver into the age of Gold; the ages of gods and titans.

"The first recorded Zabini was Orestes Sabine, who by virtue of being eldest of a mixed family group moving into the Sabina area was made leader of the settlement. Everyone in the group shared the same ancestry, but Orestes was the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of the firstborn son of the Palikoi, so he was Family Head."

"The hot spring spirits?" Squalo asked.

"Lava spirits actually; twin sons of Hephaistos by the Titan Aitna. Generally speaking, the majority of the Olympians were human wizards; very powerful and long-lived ones due to all of them being at least half Titan, but still human for all that," Blaise said, bluntly summarising several thousand years of very complicated history into two sentences. "The Palikoi met and fell in love with several of the Seirenes, who had migrated to Sicily from Crete to escape persecution. The Seirenes, or sirens, were barely one-quarter human –if that– being the offspring of the river-god Akheloios or Achelous and one of the Muses; Achelous was a son of Oceanus and either Tethys or Gaia and the Muses were born of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the latter another Titan.

"Incidentally, nobody really knows for certain whether the 'mother' of the sirens actually bore them from her body or created them using hers and her lover's blood as part of some kind of experimental breeding project; either way, sirens had vulture wings rather than arms, tail-feathers and clawed, scaly legs. However their heads and torsos were of stunningly beautiful women –and the rare man– their voices were hypnotic and enthralling and they lived off the magic leeched from their surroundings as much as off carrion.

"The children of the sirens by the Palikoi were all fully humanoid and as many were male as female, although all could assume full siren form at will. From their fathers they inherited the ability to summon fire and were all completely fireproof." Blaise paused; it seemed Xanxus was getting the picture, although from the look on Squalo's face he was getting a slightly different picture. Interesting.

"However being a species that preyed upon humans meant that the sirens weren't exactly welcome in Sicily, so they left, moving on up the coast of the Italian peninsular in search of somewhere more secluded. Most of the pureblood sirens settled in the islands that would later be named after them, not far from Capri, while the ones born humanoid –or human-ish– settled further inland a while later, in the hills and mountains of central Lazio. Which brings us back to Orestes, who while not really royalty is still considered to have been the first Prince of the Sabines and the founder of our nation. Our royal line is descended from him, an unbroken line of father to son stretching over three millennia, and our Family Magic is most strongly concentrated in the person of our Principe, the Head of the Family who leads us and embodies our nation.

"No Zabini has been able to sprout feathers since before five hundred BC and we're nowhere near as naturally captivating as we used to be, but we're still all fireproof and there's a strong physical resemblance," Blaise went on. "Only those close to the royal line and magically capable can conjure fire these days, but even just five hundred years ago the fire was almost universal to the Zabini. Ricardo Vongola was technically Ricardo Zabini in fact, since his father took on his mother's name when he married her."

"So I _am_ related to Secondo," Xanxus said, clearly amused by the irony.

"He's a distant cousin several times removed from several different directions," Blaise said cheerfully, "but that wasn't my point. My point is that you are a royal Zabini through _both_ your parents, which is why you have the red eyes and have difficulty sympathising with human idiocy; you're a lot more siren than most and it shows. Not a bad thing; just a thing to be aware of. There are books you can read on the sociological history of Sabina and how we make the differences work for us and there're a few behavioural guides for parents with unexpectedly siren children. And indeed books for very siren parents so they can understand their bafflingly human children." Blaise pointedly removed all those from the pile and placed them on the bedside table behind Squalo Superbi. "Have fun with them."

The pale Rain Officer of the Varia instantly grabbed all five books, glanced at the titles then put four of them back, opening the one he had kept on his lap. It was, amusingly, the one for parents of siren children. Also an interesting choice; for his Boss's children or for the human perspective?

"I'm royalty?" His sister's husband looked stunned. It was usually hard to tell with red-eyed Zabinis, but Blaise was by now familiar with the cues after months of living with Bastiano. Siren instinctive behaviours bred very true.

"Your mother was Mariella Zabini, a second cousin of the most recent Principe Timoteo III," Blaise said delicately. "She wasn't magical and her father was a prejudiced arse, so she ran away from home aged eleven and ended up as a prostitute in Paris's magical district. A very good brothel actually; well-managed, legal and all kept according to the appropriate codes. Then when she was nineteen Timoteo Zabini, the Head of her Family, visited her brothel and engaged in a three-month affair with her."

"The _fuck_?" Xanxus demanded quietly.

"Yes, sorry, you're a prince," Blaise said flatly, "but it gets worse. Because Timoteo Zabini only had one child, a daughter, and she wasn't even married yet at that point. So illegitimate or not, you were born the Heir of the Principality of Sabina, by Blood and Right and Magic. Your mother _knew_ this because she kept up with current gossip, so probably became pregnant on purpose so as to live the rest of her life in comfort and security, which would have happened if the old Principe had done his duty by her and you."

"What."

"So far as we've been able to determine," Blaise said tiredly, "your mother retired from prostitution as soon as she confirmed she was pregnant, spent the first two years of your life living off her savings and raising you as befitted a royal prince, multiple languages from the cradle and all, then once you manifested the family fire she took you to your father, who by this point had just been given a grandson by his daughter; me. A Grandson he believed would inherit, which pleased him very much because he never got over his wife's death and her blood taking the throne was a nice dream. Except then there you were, a bastard by some prostitute, his son and heir. He didn't take it well."

Xanxus laughed; it was not a nice sound.

"There is magic which can erase memories," Blaise said, because this bit was important even though it was also very dangerous to share, "and the more memories blanked out, the harder it is for a person to recover from the loss. Timoteo Zabini erased from your mother's mind every trace of the Zabini Family, not realising that she herself was a Zabini; incredible blind stupidity, considering she looked like one and that he had slept with her in the first place for her resemblance to his late wife Aurore Zabini. But erase her memories he did and in doing so completely destroyed all her recollections of her childhood, her identity and her own son's name. Then he dumped both his only son and said son's mother in a slum at the opposite end of Europe and left them both for dead."

"Fucker." The teenager had closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists.

"My mother wasn't very impressed either," Blaise agreed. "Oh, and since crimes against the Family Heir are Capital Crimes, he's been removed from office pending trial; my uncle is currently running the country with a bit of help from Dorea. Technically his punishment is in the hands of the person wronged, so let me know when you decide what you want done to him: decapitation, immolation –that takes _hours_ for Zabini by the way– evisceration, dismemberment…"

Xanxus opened his eyes. "My name is what?"

"Alexandro Timoteo Zabini; your mother called you 'Xandru' when you lived in Paris," Blaise told him. "According to her madam, aged two you pronounced that as 'Xansu'."

Xanxus very deliberately covered his face with both hands and leaned forwards so his forehead touched the blankets.

"I'll leave all this here for you to go through," Blaise said, turning to Squalo. "Lunch will be in a bit over an hour; someone will come and tell you about ten minutes beforehand so Xanxus can decide whether he wants to get dressed and join us."

"Who's 'us'?" The pale swordsman asked quietly.

"Dorea –my Sky and your Sky's wife– her kids, her other Guardians and any other relatives floating around the building today," Blaise replied.

"We'll let you know then," Squalo Superbi said flatly.

"I'll let myself out," Blaise said, promptly doing so. Well, on the plus side nothing had gotten set fire to. On the minus… he should probably talk to Tracy about letting her patient out to the range this afternoon so he could blow off steam.


	121. Chapter 121

Beta'd by the ecletic Insane Scriptist.

Last update of this set, as RL is intruding and Muse is being uncooperative. Still, enjoy it!

* * *

**Of ballistics and introspection **

Squalo wasn't sure if he hated the Zabini prince for dumping all that on his Boss and then just _leaving_, admired his style in the sheer smoothness of his delivery of a salvo of emotional bull's-eyes, or was impressed that his fellow Rain had managed to roll off his spiel without giving in to the dark, roiling depths of the fury lurking under his voluble façade. Blaise Zabini was really rather phenomenally angry at his grandfather for the man's actions against Xanxus and therefore the wider Zabini family, to the point that he was seriously advocating for patricide. And _meaning_ it; most people making such comments didn't mean it so genuinely and whole-heartedly. But Blaise Zabini was almost as Stormy as he was Rainy and he was completely, utterly committed to making his own grandfather _suffer_ for his cowardly stupidity. Possibly by burning him to death, judging by how that option was voiced and the added detail of it taking hours.

That the slightly older man had managed to allow so little of that venom to seep into his exposition was very impressive; it had still be incredibly obvious to anybody sufficiently versed in reading Flames though, which both he and Boss were.

Speaking of Boss… nothing had been set on fire yet. That wasn't a good sign. Generally, when pissed off Xanxus blew up, blew whatever pissed him off up and them his mood blew over, leaving him grouchy and sarcastic but not outright homicidal. However the few times he had seen his Boss get _really_ angry, Squalo had noticed that Xanxus stewed; stewed in his own Wrath, which fed off itself and grew to horrifying proportions as he plotted disturbingly detailed and vicious vengeance on whoever had wronged him, everybody they knew and all the people who considered them in any way admirable.

Which was what had happened to Nono during the not-a-coup, come to think of it; Timoteo Vongola's reputation for benevolent omniscience had never quite recovered from that.

That a lot of Xanxus' current anger was self-directed… his Boss was a Stormy Sky, although he was almost as Cloudy as he was Stormy. The problem with Storms was, they _could_ reduce themselves into a greasy spot on the ground if they hated themselves enough. Like how losing their Territory could drive a Cloud to madness and mission-suicide.

… and fuck it all, that explained a _lot_ about Xanxus' actions and choices in the eight months between his finding out he wasn't a real Vongola by blood and the not-a-coup. Mission suicide for the good of the Territory he _wanted_ but _could never claim_. What a shitty mess.

Although it seemed that his Boss had a whole new Territory already and waiting for him, bigger and better than the Vongola and that actually _wanted_ him in charge. Then again, his Boss was never one to jump because it was expected of him.

That was another Cloud-trait, right there.

Why hadn't Squalo noticed this before? Oh yes, he'd been fourteen; nobody was all that emotionally competent at fourteen, not even Rains. It was lack of experience and mental immaturity conspiring against you.

Then the door opened; Xanxus hadn't moved from where he was pressing his face against his knees as his Flames raged invisibly inside him so Squalo glanced at the intruder, whom he already knew wasn't Flame-Active.

It was a man in his mid-twenties, about the same height as his Boss and prince Blaise but considerably broader and stockier, with chestnut hair, dark olive skin and raptor-golden eyes. He also had a passing resemblance to both Zabini, but it was fairly mild: something in the cheekbones and jawline, but no more than that. He was dressed in a footman's uniform, charcoal grey rather than true black, worn over a crisp white shirt and a tawny waistcoat. He also had no fewer than four knives hidden on his person, knuckledusters in his pockets and a cosh camouflaged by the fall of his tailcoat; clearly well-prepared for the potential necessity of evicting overly difficult guests by force.

"Sir," the footman said respectfully in the Sabine dialect, indicating that he probably _was_ a Zabini to some degree or other. "I brought these for the prince." He tapped the large crate perched on his shoulder with the hand stabilising it. It was a decently big box but didn't look very heavy; it probably had a lightening Enchantment of some kind on it.

"What is it?" Squalo asked, since Xanxus clearly wasn't going to.

"Things for him to smash," the footman said candidly. "Purebloods always feel better after a bit of deliberate destruction."

Squalo remembered bottles of wine thrown at his head, Dumb Varia idiots launched out of windows and Levi getting kicked downstairs. "Voi, that's normal?"

The footman smiled, walking into the room and around the bed, stopping a decent way out of Xanxus' reach and setting the crate down on the carpet, taking the cover off and pushing it closer to the unmoving Sky. "His grandfather was infamous for throwing things, to the point that _everybody_ gave him decorative china on notable occasions, so he wouldn't run out," the solid brunet shared with a sly smile. "Better crockery coming at you than furniture, after all."

Xanxus' hand shot out, snatched something from just inside the top of the box and _hurled_ it at the footman, who tilted his head just far enough to one side for the small vase to wiz past his ear and shatter against the wall.

"Pregnant Zabini are the worst," the footman confided, as though Xanxus hadn't just thrown something at his face. "The princess would throw with both hands at once, to herd you into a corner, then once she was sure you were pinned she threw things that were on fire."

Squalo could totally see that, disturbingly; he would have been happier without a mental image of his Boss as a woman stomping through his brain and throwing flaming crockery at people while high on hormones.

Two figurines, a teacup and a china bell followed the vase, the footman dodging each throw as he calmly headed back towards the door. "If he finishes that crate, knock on the wall," the man said, pausing in the doorway and ducking a ballistic plate that shattered against the wall of the corridor behind him. "There's a lot more in storage." He then shut the door behind him, leaving Squalo shut in a small room with his angry Boss and a hell of a lot of projectiles within arm's reach.

Fuck, this was going to be dodge training all over again… but better than furniture getting thrown around or him getting tossed out of the window.

* * *

By the time of the knock on the door heralding lunch Xanxus had reduced a significant quantity of decorative plates, cups, vases and other knick-knacks to scattered fragments and herded Squalo back and forth across the room eight times. The Rain had cursed and sworn at him the entire time at a decently high volume and at one point had even drawn his sword to parry a particularly dense barrage of plates, but after over an hour of meticulous destruction Xanxus was feeling better. Still nowhere near happy, but his fury had subsided to a low simmer and he was able to push it to the back of his mind for the time being.

Going to lunch meant getting out of his sickroom and spending time with his wife and kids, as well as meeting more of her Guardians and relatives and potentially meeting more of his own relatives as well. He wasn't going to miss it, even if he still wasn't really in any fit state to be civil. He'd just have to keep his mouth shut; his presence would have to be enough.

He'd also found out that magic, like Mist Flames, could be used to make things larger on the inside than on the outside; he'd definitely thrown enough crockery to empty the crate twice over but it still looked full. Was still stacked tidily too… He'd never seen Mist Flames used to preserve order on the inside of an enlarged space and maintain accessibility as it was being emptied, but that didn't mean it wasn't possible. It just meant that nobody had considered attempting it yet.

Xanxus was more interested in how the magic was applied to the crate; was it the magical equivalent of an Alteration, or just an Enchantment? Did magic follow different rules to Flames in the mechanics of imbuing objects with energy? The books he'd leafed through prior to the revelation of his heritage suggested that a Charm was the magical equivalent to a Mist-Enchantment, but rather than holding until the creator let go of it, Charms seemed to imbue an object with a specific quantity of energy and 'ran' until the energy ran out. Enchantment was the magical equivalent of Alteration –which was definitely going to lead to confusion later– in that it imbued objects with permanent effects, but there seemed to be a range of different ways of doing so which had widely differing effects. For instance, some Magical Enchantments seemed to behave erratically after a certain amount of time, implying spontaneous mutation, while others were still as reliable and predictable as the day they were made, even centuries and _millennia_ later.

There had to be a tangible difference in the creation process to create such different results, otherwise how could a wizard know if his special toy was going go on working forever or just crash one day and take him with it?

Xanxus was currently differentiating the two kinds of magical Enchantment as structured and non-structured Enchantment, as the main difference seemed to be that one was prone to mutation and the other wasn't. Well, once he'd finished with this set of books he could ask for more and the differences would probably be pretty well spelled-out once he was into more technical manuals.

His wife had implied that he would be able to use magic and he wanted to find out what he could do with it. So far it was looking like the answer to that question was, 'anything you want to do with it so long as you can be bothered to work out how', which was very interesting indeed. That there were Families who specialised in things like necromancy and prophecy and temporal manipulation implied that the limitations of magic were far more remote than those that applied to Flames… or perhaps it was simply that people had been experimenting with magic for so much longer? The history text indicated that people had been experimenting, documenting and building on the knowledge of their teachers for over five-thousand years; the Vongola in comparison was barely four-hundred years old and Flame-training was taught by rote rather than encouraging variety.

It had come as a shock to Xanxus to find out that the Varia had the widest library of Flame techniques in the Vongola by a factor of at _least _eight, despite being not much more than fifty years old. Which was really depressing when you thought about it; technologically speaking the Vongola was on the scientific cutting edge, but Flame-wise they were still in the Stone Age.

It was a tremendously irritating realisation, especially when you noticed that the _reason_ they were still in the metaphorical Stone Age was that the entire Mafia was so obsessed with Giotto and his Guardians that every last Flame-user was trying to _be_ them rather than find out what they, personally, were good at.

Xanxus had only come to that realisation about five minutes before Blaise Zabini –his nephew? – had strolled into his sickroom and upended reality, and quite a lot of the chinaware had been sacrificed to assuage his ire at such ridiculous narrow-minded dogmatism. The Varia were _assassination_ specialists! That they were several miles _beyond_ the cutting edge in Flame research and technique development said _really terrible_ things about the Vongola and the mafia generally!

Then came that knock on the door, which caused Xanxus to pause in his wilful destruction of personal property –his own personal property but still– and prompted the shark to open the door, his feet crunching over the fragments of china and grinding them further into the carpet.

To a Storm who looked _exactly_ like him. The _fuck?_

No, not exactly like, Xanxus amended as the doppelganger walked inside, carrying a small pile of clothing. Even discounting the rather extensive evidence of his recent magical frostbite treatment, there were differences. The shape of the stranger's eyesockets, a dimple on his chin, a slight curl to his hair; they were not identical. But his man –teenager actually– had his own _exact_ height and build, the same angular eyebrows and most noticeably, the same scarlet eyes. He was also vaguely familiar, or at least his Flames were; Xanxus didn't get the impression he'd been Active for very long though.

"I'm Sebastiano Zabini," the stranger said with Xanxus' own _exact_ voice. "I brought you some clothing for dinner; there's a range and if there's nothing you like I'll call for something different." He paused. "I work for your wife; technically for you as well now."

"As what, exactly?" Xanxus demanded, shifting across the bed so he could grab the pile of clothing and see what he had to choose from. The crate with all the china was on the floor on the side of the bed away from the door, but he'd pulled out a whole stack of plates and a few whole ones were still lying on the covers.

"Your body-double," the Storm said with a wry not-quite-smile, the feathers at his temples swaying slightly as he inclined his head in a small bow. "Very few people in Sabina are aware that our Heir was even missing and nobody in Britain outside of the princess's family is aware that you have thus far been a consistently absent husband. I am the third body-double to enter her employ, but I may yet not be the last."

That his wife had gone to the effort of finding _body-doubles_ said a lot about how precarious her situation had been while he was on ice; it said a lot about the nation he had just found out he was prince of that the upper levels of their government had enabled her deception, too. Upper levels of their government who were probably all his close relatives; well, at least he didn't have to worry about his wife getting on with her in-laws… he just had to make nice with _his_ in-laws. That thought pinged something uncomfortable somewhere in his head and heart; he'd missed something important but he'd have to figure out what later.

The clothing wasn't bad, actually: slacks and rather comfortable-looking leather trousers, high-quality shirts in three slightly different cuts and a scaly black jacket-coat-thing. Plus silk underwear, very fine woollen socks and his boots. His actual Varia boots that he'd been wearing when he got frozen that had somehow survived and been rescued. They'd rescued his _boots_ for him.

"Are the boots alright?" Sebastiano the Storm asked, the hesitant concern looking utterly incongruous on his face because it was _Xanxus_' face and he was pretty sure he'd _never_ looked like that in his _life_. "The princess insisted we rescue them; the shirt was a lost cause and the trousers were cut off during surgery, but your feet were in good enough condition that the only damage to the boots was to the laces."

"Fine," Xanxus managed, still staring at his boots. His wife had no clue what his boots meant to him, couldn't _possibly_ know why they mattered, yet having a faint inkling that they _had_ mattered had been enough for her to insist her people make an effort to save them for him.

Was it possible to fall in love for somebody _again_? Because this was what it had felt like that first time, last week and nearly six years ago; a pain so exquisite it was almost like pleasure, terror and joy and desire so intense even his bones ached. She'd rescued him, had her people fix him up better than any Sun could ever dream of achieving and saved his boots as well.

What had he done to deserve a wife this amazing? Scratch that; how was he going to ensure his wife understood how _much_ he appreciated her impossible perfection? They'd gone from strangers to spouses and skipped all the intermediate stages –well beyond being engaged for all of five seconds– and he had some _serious_ catching-up to do, which _definitely_ had to include some proper courtship; his wife deserved no less.

Unfortunately he had no experience whatsoever of how to go about doing that. He had ideas, sure, but hearing about how he was significantly other than human meant he was a bit wary of just following his instincts blindly and trusting it would work out. Yes, his wife was effectively his soulmate –he'd gleaned that much from her description of how she'd found him– but that meant they _complemented_ each-other. It didn't mean that they had the same tastes and preferred communication methods. The same core values yes; everything else was up in the air still though.

Regular people dated, didn't they? Went to dinner together, walked in parks, talked, shared hobbies and all that shit? Okay, it would probably be a good idea to lie low for a while so the old fart didn't notice he was out and about when he should have been on ice still, but that wouldn't be hard. The world was a big-ass place and the Vongola only had a presence in a tiny slice of it.

Xanxus stripped off his pyjamas, picked out a pair of boxer shorts at random then pulled on the leather trousers –which were very supple in a heavily broken-in way so they were probably borrowed from somebody else– a loosely cut shirt and the scaly jacket-coat. The he pulled on the socks and his boots, standing up and flexing his feet in them. A bit stiff, but not bad considering; whoever had cleaned them up had definitely oiled the leather and although they probably weren't Flame-proof anymore they were still comfortable as sin.

The shark was in stealth-mode again, moving silently across the parts of the floor not piled high with broken shards; he hadn't said a word since Sebastian the Storm had showed up. Xanxus would have to ask his Rain Officer what he was thinking so hard about, because that was definitely the shitty shark's thinking face. He could do that later though; right now he had lunch to attend.

* * *

Squalo walked across the grounds to lunch on automatic, trusting his instincts to keep him from walking into anything or tripping over things as he followed Sebastiano and his Boss. He knew he was in shock, but knowing it didn't make it any easier to get _out_ of it.

Boss was in love.

Yes, he was married with kids he hadn't known about but there could have been any number of reasons for that; that his wife had apparently been in a bad place at the time was one of them, since Xanxus liked to hide it but he had a soft spot for vicious scrappers in tight corners. Any lady who could steal Boss out from under the Vongola and had people like Knight, Executioner, Veritas and Luna the Investigator at their beck and call was definitely Quality, so it was probably a good match even though there'd apparently not been much time for the newlyweds to get to know each-other.

Boss being in love though? Squalo honestly hadn't expected _that_. He was also completely terrified, because love was one hell of a hole in Boss's defences and meant his wife could _seriously_ hurt him if she wasn't paying attention. Xanxus was badly shaken right now so his masks were thinner and flimsier than usual and well… six years was a long time. His wife –Dorea prince Blaise had said her name was– had been effectively widowed for most of six years after knowing Boss for barely a week –probably a lot less considering Xanxus had been visible and preparing for the not-a-coup then– and had gone through two pregnancies in his absence. She'd also been going around with body-doubles so people wouldn't know her husband was missing, dealing with whatever 'family trouble' Boss had alluded to and colluding with the Zabini to _find_ Boss, while raising kids and running her own Family.

Definitely a Quality Lady; probably also one who wasn't very happy with her husband for various reasons. That he was sixteen still was likely an issue, since she would definitely be in her twenties by now; that'd be awkward for anyone. That they barely knew each-other would also be a problem because Dorea Black had likely been brooding and grieving and second-guessing herself for five-years-and-change so that would be a hell of an obstacle to his Boss getting a happy marriage.

Squalo paused for a split-second, his stride barely stuttering as they reached the main house and walked along a corridor he hadn't seen before and up a flight of stairs. Was he seriously considering giving his Boss romantic advice? He was; damnit, he must have gone crazy at some point and not noticed. But. That look. The way Boss had stared at his boots as Sebastiano the eerily-identical-to-Boss Storm said that Dorea Black had ordered her people not to damage them.

He'd never seen Xanxus look so damn _vulnerable_ and damn it, he never wanted to see it again! If that meant sharing details of his past experiences concerning women, well… it wouldn't kill him.

He wasn't going to name names though.


	122. Chapter 122

Beta'd by the brilliant InsaneScriptist.

Yes, I'm updating again! Wednesday to Tuesday -with Sunday off- as I'm going on a ten-day family holiday next week and won't have garanteed internet access. Many, **many** thanks to everybody who wrote appreciative reviews during the pause: reading them kept me motivated despite the struggles with RL and finding inspiration. This was a hard, HARD set of chapters to write.

So, on with the show!

* * *

**Of preparing to socialise **

Somehow Squalo managed to overtake Boss and Boss's body-double between the hallway and the dining room door, which was hellishly disconcerting because Boss _never_ let people breeze past him like that and the teenage doppelganger was acting far too meek for someone who felt like a hormonal thunderstorm about to bludgeon somebody's head off. Yet somehow it _was_ Squalo who walked through the double doors first, so he was the one who stopped dead as nearly twenty people –okay, seventeen people not including the four kids currently ignoring him– all glanced his way.

Glanced, not turned. Squalo could pick out the ones with actual combat experience as opposed to just extensive combat training by how their eyes flickered but their heads stayed still, looking for all the world as though they were ignoring him while actually scrutinising his every move. It was the petite redhead who really pinged as a combat veteran, which was interesting because Squalo was pretty sure she was one of the younger adults present. That didn't mesh with the rest of what he'd picked up so far of Knight's-Lady-who-is-Boss's-wife, but that just made the puzzle more interesting.

One thing he was sure of was that everybody in the room knew exactly who he was, with the possible exception of the kids. One of whom was not actually Boss's kid since Boss only had the three; probably the platinum-blonde, milk-pale toddler in the frilly, pastel green frock who looked old enough to be coherent but young enough to not be thinking logically yet. Squalo remembered Delfina in that phase; it was utterly baffling but thankfully very short and took place in the year before he took over the Varia. Blonde not-Boss's-daughter was probably about three then.

The other three kids all had more olivine skin tone, although the reddish-haired toddler was way out on the pale end compared to the black-haired twins. And fuck, Squalo was so, so glad it was the girl he met earlier and not the older boy, because Cassie had been bad enough but meeting a five-year-old Boss-double with pale eyes would have been _worse_. He looked like the kiddie pictures of Xanxus from Donna Daniela's mantel come to life.

Squalo deliberately dragged his gaze over to the adults, because they could not possibly be worse and would probably be wonderfully distracting. They were all very considerately ignoring him and Boss, who had come up behind him, and were continuing their own conversations around a long table noticeably barren of anything more substantial than nibbles. There was no adult Sky present, so clearly dinner hadn't started yet. That was good; it gave him time to get a feel for those present and the power dynamic. It also gave Boss time to get a good look at everyone and settle into himself, which would help too. That Dorea Black wasn't here yet might pose a problem, but wouldn't provided she arrived reasonably soon.

Moving away from the door, Squalo staked out a nearby side table with its own small offering of bread sticks, olives and slices of ham and slouched against the wall, watching avidly. Boss followed him, stealthy in a way none of the Vongola would ever credit him as being capable of, deftly folding up a thin sheet of ham and sliding it past his lips as he stood with his back half-turned to the rest of the room. He was probably feeling out the gathering with his Flames, which would give him a different perspective to the one Squalo was getting with eyes and ears.

Seventeen adults, two of them slightly more familiar than the rest: Executioner and Knight. Barty the Lightning Linguist was not present, but was probably going to show up so as to taunt him more. Three exceptionally capable Lightnings all attached to the same Sky was completely unfair and probably only the tip of the iceberg; Seer was part of this group as well, if potentially only on the fringes, and Lightning was actually the most common Flame-type. The reason the Mafia had trouble was that mafia-raised Lightnings tended to die young due to ingrained Stupid, so the high attrition rate made them seem rarer than was actually the case.

Freakier was that there were two Clouds and three Mists in the room and nothing had exploded, imploded, smashed or warped yet. There weren't even raised voices or venomous undercurrents ratcheting the tension levels higher with every deliberately chosen syllable. Instead there was a polyphonic susurrus of polite chitchat, friendly gossip and amicable flirting; Squalo had heard the dumbass stories about Sky Brainwashing that floated around the wider mafia –especially popular in Families which didn't have Skies– and had always discounted them on principle because _Stupid_, but maybe there was something to the tall tales after all? Because this could not be natural. That supermodel-thin blonde in the ultra-conservative dress over there was _definitely_ the Crocodile who came to tea with Ottava and the Cloud had Luna the Lunatic well inside her personal space and jabbering at her about something, hands waving and hair fluttering in a way that would set off any _normal_ Classic Cloud. But Crocodile was just standing there, face placid and a wineglass in one hand, _paying attention_ and occasionally commenting in what appeared to be a constructive manner.

Never mind that Frank the Mist apparently had a _twin_ who was flirting in a ridiculously over the top fashion with the other Cloud –another woman, this one a curly-haired brunette in a sleek suit– and somehow not having his head ripped off for his presumption. Well, _that_ Cloud was at least a Storm-Cloud; Storm-Clouds could get odd about Mists, as Pýř and Maínomai's longstanding partnership proved. Squalo found it deeply strange that most Clouds and Storms considered Mists to be varying degrees of irritating, yet Storm-Clouds and Cloudy Storms frequently _liked_ the flighty illusionists for some reason. It was as though the double negative cancelled itself out, which wasn't at all logical and should not work yet somehow did.

* * *

Clouds were the rarest Flame-type after Skies; that there are two of them in the same room said a _lot_ about the quality of the pool Boss's wife has been drawing her people from. There was definitely some kind of elite collective of wizards and Flame Users out there that this Dorea had been skimming off the top of. And off the bottom and the sides as well; there were _four_ Suns in the room, all of them with a different feel to one-another. Four different kinds of Sun-training, all in one place? The Vongola didn't have that. The Varia didn't have it because they were an assassination group so they only took killers –which one of these Suns certainly was– but the Vongola only has two training paths available for Suns and that was one more than was available to all the other Flame-types.

If you were a Sun in the Mafia you either learned to fight or to heal; part of what made Luss Quality was that he was so well-versed in both. Currently in the room with Squalo were a Sun-killer, a Sun-healer, a Sun-academic and a Sun-spy. Well, the spy probably called themselves a secretary or some such rot, but Squalo could sense the keen intelligence lurking under the fluttery exterior and the steely spine underpinning the tooth-rotting cheer. It was emotional intelligence, not the razor intellect that the Sun-academic had, but Squalo knew better than to underestimate people just because they didn't score well at school. Emotional smarts were what made the best infiltration-style assassins.

Then there were the Rains. Male Rain was Blaise Zabini, Prince of Sabina –and now Squalo knew why the guy wasn't the _Crown_ Prince– who was both comfortably overpowered in terms of Flame reserves and very tidily controlled. He'd also changed into a completely different outfit at some point in the past hour and was currently deep in a discussion with Frank the Mist, three very long, brown feathers hanging from a short braid at the crown of his head rather than the magpie feathers he'd been wearing last time Squalo saw him. The feathers definitely meant something; he'd only seen certain Zabini wear them and those Zabini got extra deference from other Zabini. An instinctive siren thing maybe? Did Boss's feathers fit into the same spectrum?

Female Rain was wearing Seer's face; another set of identical twins? There was a surprising abundance of twins in the room, all things considered, especially if you included 'people who look practically identical'. However where Seer's reserves were moderate, this Rain's Flames were noticeably below the threshold for Activation. There was still something about her though, something that was just that little bit different to every other Flame-Latent Squalo had ever seen. Maybe because she had magic? He couldn't sense it –he still wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for so hadn't worked out a work-around yet– but having it would affect a person's Flames in some way and he could maybe pick up on that.

It was interesting though to realise that two physically identical twins could have completely different Flame natures. Most sets of identical twins in the mafia had identical or strongly similar Flames, rather like Frank the Mist and his twin did. Frank and Twin were both Mists, but Squalo suspected they had different secondary Flames. The dining room was too crowded with total strangers for him to be able to pick up that kind of nuance right away, but there'd be more than enough time later to get to know people better.

Both Storms, like both Clouds, were female. Interesting how many women there were in the group; even Donna Ottava had bonded with more male Guardians than female. Then again, the mafia –even the Vongola– suffered from ingrained misogyny and the expectations for women were far more restrictive than the ones for men. In a more equal social setting there would of course be more women becoming Flame-Active and a female Sky would naturally seek out and bond with Guardians of the same gender, what with bonds being all about things a Sky and their Guardians had in common.

One of the Storms was the veteran redhead he'd noticed earlier; she was short, slim and freckly, reminding Squalo slightly of Mab. This redhead was however several inches taller than the Faerie Queen, had much redder hair and was somewhere between sixteen and twenty-nine years old; it was hard to tell with women. She was also much calmer than any other Storm Squalo had ever met, her Flames banked and barely noticeable at all. Most Stormed roared, raged, rumbled, thundered, crackled or at least hummed; even Sekti had a low-level burn hissing gently under the surface and he was the calmest Storm in the Varia.

The other Storm was about average height, stunningly attractive and dressed like a fifties fashion plate; every last one of the Harpies would be jealous of those perfectly symmetrical facial features and would instantly attempt to copy that apparently artless poise. The ornamental blonde felt Latent, but there was more than enough power there that Squalo didn't quite trust his own senses. Then again, maybe this Storm didn't _want_ to be Active? She had the kind of controlled grace that Maria-Chiara possessed, the awareness of and control over her surroundings that the very best of Housekeeping shared. That might be this Storm's role, even though it would be unthinkable in mafia circles to have any member of Housekeeping eating at the table with the Family unless they were also Family.

There were far too many Flame-Actives here for Squalo to be able to pick out which ones were Guardians as opposed to hangers-on or allies; he'd have to wait for Boss's wife to show up and then see who reacted like they were bonded. Looking for rings didn't really help either; just about every adult present was wearing a Flame-ring of some kind, even the two adults whose Flames he couldn't get a grip on somehow. The guy felt sort-of Sun-ish but not quite and the lady –definitely a _lady_ and not just a woman– was vaguely Misty but not really. Maybe they were self-taught? Self-taught Flame Users could come up with really odd applications for their Flames sometimes, to the point of not feeling like regular mafia-trained ones at all due to the degree of specialisation. Flames were spiritual after all: belief was a factor in both manifestation and control.

* * *

When four Zabinis walked into the room through one of the side doors Squalo was forcefully reminded that his Boss was royalty: all four instantly looked at Boss _first_, ducking their heads slightly in automatic deference before each moving on to talk to somebody else. Definitely some kind of protocol for acknowledging the most important person in the room while deferring to said person's decision to lie low on the outskirts of the social dog and pony show. Boss didn't so much as twitch back at them, but he probably hadn't been expected to; Zabini royalty was clearly held to very different standards than the regular modern kind. What little Squalo had seen suggested that to the Zabini, 'Principe' meant 'magically-slash-divinely-appointed-despot', in the sense that whatever the Principe wanted was what would be made to happen. Xanxus didn't like frilly courtly formalities? Fine; they would be promptly excised from all interactions in his presence without him ever having to ask. He wanted to observe the room? They'd all politely ignore him until he chose to join the conversation.

It was so sensible and practical an attitude compared to the bootlicking and brown-nosing that went on in even the smallest of Vongola gatherings that Squalo was almost jealous. The Varia didn't do formal of course, but most of the Varia didn't do polite either so it cancelled itself out. It did mean that the initiative was entirely in Xanxus' hands, but that was how Boss liked things anyway so it wasn't a problem. The respectful distance was actually helping Boss stay on an even keel, because small-talk was one of the things Boss considered pointless and was therefore one of the first things to go when he was irritated. That he could not only get away with not making any but was tacitly permitted to not even _try_ was really very promising. Maybe small-talk was one of the things more siren-like Zabinis considered pointless or incomprehensible? That would make sense, as would the Zabini therefore not considering it a social necessity for their royals, who were likely considerably more siren than most of the rest of the population. Squalo only had common sense to go on so far, as he had barely been able to open that book before Boss started tossing breakables in his direction and hadn't stopped until his body-double showed up.

Squalo was briefly entertained by imagining how the Vongola would scramble to deal with such protocols, where rather than all line up to suck up to the Boss they had to talk amongst themselves and hope that the Boss wanted to come over and talk to _them_. It would make for a much more streamlined and productive Famiglia, that was for sure: everybody would be working their hardest in the hope that their efforts would merit personal commendation rather than spending all their time trying to say the right things at parties.

Then the double doors at the far end of the room were thrown open and Dorea Black –it could only be her– strode in, unbuckling a sword from her waist and wearing a calf-length deep green leather dress that looked like the modest Victorian answer to body armour; actual fully functioning body armour rather than the 'only in movies' kind since it went right up her bust to cover her neck and didn't invite a blade to the sternum with the shaping of the chest. Black curly hair was knotted up high on the back of her head, her cheeks were flushed, her knuckles reddened and there was a hint of electric scorching in the air; somebody had been sparring with a Lightning.

As though summoned by Squalo's thoughts, Barty the Irritating stepped into the room behind his Sky and accepted the sword and sword-belt handed back to him, handing them on to a footman who appeared and then disappeared, closing the door behind him.

"Mama!" It was a toddler squeal; the little Sky who had been napping on Knight's shoulder and sucking his thumb made a scrambling break for freedom, almost falling off his perch in his hurry to reach his mother. Once placed on the floor the little boy ran headlong up the room, the adults all shifting out of his way as Boss's wife dropped gracefully into a crouch so as to sweep her son into her arms as he reached her.

"Baby boy," Dorea Black said lovingly, her Harmony singing around her and slipping easily into tune with the Flames of every last person in the dining room, Squalo included. Now _that_ was quite a talent there and he could maybe see a little why Boss was in love with her, if she was naturally like that. "Have you had a good morning?"

"I painted, Mama, an' sang, an' went 'sploring!" the toddler crowed. "Gwee 'tuck my pic-chures in Nurse-ree an' told me 'tory!" The little boy paused, gazing at his mother solemnly. "Mama, we got my-no-tore?"

"No, poppet, no Minotaur," the very arresting brunette said, vivid green eyes shining with warmth and love.

"Why dere lah-bee-win unna house?" Having heard the question and recovered from the shock of such a very _receptive_ Sky, Squalo was actually rather interested in the answer; why _was_ there a labyrinth under the house and, more importantly, why was it so poorly secured that a toddler could get into it?

"The labyrinth is for Mama's pet snake, Hector darling," Boss's wife said to their son, settling the boy on her hip and walking towards the table.

"For Fizz?"

"No, for Baz; Baz is a very _big_ snake and needs lots of space. Which is why I built a labyrinth for her: she's too big to fit in the house."

"Oh." The toddler then promptly lost interest in the conversation in favour of pulling on his mother's hair and sucking on one of her bangs. Squalo meanwhile was contemplating how big a snake had to get before it could be considered 'too big to fit in the house' and none of the answers he was getting were particularly comforting. It had to be some sort of magical snake species to be that big as snakes mostly just got longer rather than rounder unless they were digesting something, never mind the existence of another, smaller snake having been confirmed –one called 'Fizz' of all things…

Then Squalo noticed that Boss had ghosted past him while he was distracted and was now looming over his wife, staring intently at her face as he carefully tucked another loose bang behind her ear. Well, hopefully this wouldn't go _too_ badly…


	123. Chapter 123

Beta'd by the inspired InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of the complexities of communal dining **

Seeing his wife stride into the dining room with a sword on her hip and wearing an armoured dress made of deep green leather, her Flames singing around her and fizzy with endorphins from sparring, Xanxus was once again reminded why he'd proposed to her seconds after first setting eyes on her. If she'd shown up looking like _this_ he might not have managed to get as far as proposing. How such an encounter might have gone seared across his brain, but was interrupted by his youngest entering the picture and getting swept up for a hug. His wife was a very doting mother; one more reason to love her.

Filing the conversation about labyrinths and giant snakes for a later date, Xanxus walked up to his wife and reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, savouring the softness of her skin under his fingertips, the flutter of the pulse in her throat and the needle-sharp spike of lust that darted through his sense of her emotions. He felt a swell of satisfaction that his ability to affect her hadn't changed.

"_Wife_," he said simply in Italian, not bothering with anything more than that when she could doubtless feel him just as well as he could her.

"_Husband_," she responded, amusement flickering as she side-eyed him from under long, curling lashes. He moved his hand to the nape of her neck and tilted her head up, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers, enjoying her presence and the way her Flames intertwined with his, sliding across and around and through until it wasn't entirely clear where his ended and hers began. He could feel her breathing easily falling in time with his own, sense her tension and mild confusion fading into comfort and simple awareness, sense their son succumbing to the drowsy serenity of being wrapped in the Harmony of both his parents.

Then Xanxus stepped back again, not wanting to be too intimate in public; there would be a time and place for that later. His hand did linger on his wife's neck for a little longer though, toying with the short curls there, before sliding down her spine to rest in the small of her back. Perfectly appropriate for in public, yet satisfying the urge to stake a claim in front of all the many bonded Guardians present. Yes, she was their Sky, but Dorea had been _his_ wife long before she had bonded with most of _them_. He knew that, even though he wasn't sure how he knew that. It might be from their mingling Sky Flames.

The shark had moved a little closer and was watching his wife and youngest son with shrewd eyes; Xanxus wasn't worried about what his Rain and Second would think of his spouse though. She was his soulmate after all and had proven her Quality by sneaking him out from under the old fart's nose. The quality of her Guardians was another major point in her favour; while most of them weren't really to his tastes he could see how they fitted with his wife and complemented her skills. That older Lightning lurking behind her though, the one who'd taken her sword… he was Quality. Utterly obsessed and more than halfway insane, but still Quality for all that. Miles better than Levi about it too; this was _intelligent_ obsession and brutally honest self-awareness of said obsession, coupled with a profound understanding of the individual he was obsessed with. It would take an exceptionally cunning Mist to sneak into _that_ mind and take advantage, because this Lightning knew his Sky _exactly_ and was fully aware of his own shortcomings.

The Lightning also had a mind so heavily fortified the only way Xanxus had managed to get a feel for him at all was by piggybacking his wife's bond with the man, making it even more unlikely that a Mist would ever manage to manipulate him through his obsession. Good.

"_Names_?" he asked, tilting his head slightly forwards.

"Right, introductions," his wife said in English before raising her voice slightly. "Blaise, would you?"

Xanxus' nephew walked around the table, both the older children right behind him. "Of course I will," the Rain said amiably, making the hair on the back of the Varia Boss's neck prickle when he smiled in the same way Xanxus himself did when he'd set somebody up to take a nasty fall. "Squalo, this is Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter, Princess-Regent Zabini, Lady-Regent Black, the Lady Potter, Slytherin and Peverell, Conqueror of Britain and Vanquisher of Voldemort. Dorea, this is Squalo Superbi, Captain of the Varia, Vassal of Sabina."

Squalo looked like he knew what some of those titles meant; it was all in how his pupils constricted and the twitch in his jaw. Dorea offered the shark her hand and he accepted it, lifting it and bending over it slightly but not actually letting it get within ten centimetres of his mouth. "My Lady, I am honoured," the shark said in English, his Canadian twang clearly distinct from Blaise's melodic and faintly Parisian accent.

"It is a pleasure to meet my husband's most capable and responsible subordinate," Dorea said in return. "I have heard so much about you."

Such a loaded statement; Xanxus wondered what exactly he had missed and how his wife had come to hear 'so much' about the shark. Possibly to do with how she'd gone about getting him out of the Vongola basement? There had to have been some seriously in-depth espionage and infiltration going on for her to have succeeded in extracting him without anybody noticing.

"If only I could say likewise, my Lady," Squalo replied dryly, letting go of her hand. "Your people were however quite exceptionally tight-lipped."

Xanxus' wife waved the comment away. "I _am_ their Sky; it makes them overprotective."

He'd have to ask the shark about which Guardians he'd met and when; that sounded like an interesting story and would give him some insight into how the hell the Vongola had been infiltrated. He might not give a shit about the old fart but the Famiglia still mattered to him. Well, specifically he had people who mattered to him in the Famiglia, so anything that adversely affected the Famiglia could endanger them. His wife's infiltration may have been done with the best of intentions, but if she could do it so could more maliciously-minded people.

"Now the other introductions, if you would Zee," Dorea added pointedly as people started to wander over to the table and sit down.

"Yes, yes, as you wish," the Rain said with a bow and almost-mocking obsequiousness. "Little ones, this is your Papà's chief minion; his name is Squalo. Squalo, this is the Lord Black, Marius Alexander, and his sister the Heiress Black, Cassiopeia Melania. In my Lady's arms is the Heir Potter, Hector James. Heirs to the various other titles will likely be forthcoming at a later date."

Dorea's right hand flicked at Blaise and the prince yelped, hand flying up to cup his rapidly reddening ear. "Sorry! I-promise-to-be-good-now-stop-it!"

She lowered her hand and the Rain took a relieved breath, then stuck his tongue out at the two giggling five-year-olds. "And this is why you never cheek your mother," Blaise added; "she always makes you regret it."

Xanxus was actually enjoying the rampant Rain-humour and seeing the shark get poked at, which was why he hadn't insisted his nephew get to the point and point out who everybody else was. Really though, thinking of Blaise as his nephew was plain ridiculous when the guy was not much younger than him chronologically and considerably older than him in terms of actual physical age.

"Right, _proper_ introductions," Blaise drawled, turning around to face the table where just about everybody was now sitting down and continuing their conversations with the people on either side of them. The free chairs were in the middle of the side of the table they standing by –four spaces– and another three spaces opposite. "Xanxus, brother-in-law, standing behind my sister is Barty, who goes by Negotiator. He's the children's primary bodyguard when he's not shadowing Dorea and catering to her whims, so get used to him."

Xanxus glanced at the greying blond Lightning, who smirked back at him before walking past Blaise to herd the children around the table and into the empty chairs on the other side of it. Interesting that Blaise referred to Dorea as 'sister' though; what was the relationship there? Family alliance? Some kind of adoption? It was clearly formal enough for the Rain to prioritise Xanxus being 'brother-in-law' over 'uncle', which was significant.

"Sit down and I'll point out everyone else," Blaise continued, taking Hector from Dorea and pulling out the left-hand centre chair for her to sit in before sitting himself to her left. Xanxus sat immediately to his wife's right, Squalo taking the last free chair on his other side. Xanxus found himself directly opposite his eldest son, with Barty opposite Dorea and Cassie opposite Blaise.

Blaise settled the toddler into the highchair that had mysteriously appeared between him and Dorea then continued his introductions.

"Opposite Squalo is Odile, who goes by Governess and is also called Crocodile; she is one of Dorea's Cloud Guardians. To Odile's left is Elladora, who is the baby sister of Draco, also known as Consul, who is on Elladora's left. Bastiano you already know and at the end of that side of the table is Valentina, who is Xanxus' first cousin on his mother's side. At the right-hand end of the table next to Valentina is Fay, who goes by Socialite and is a Sun Guardian. On Fay's other side is Gaetano, another cousin and one of the body-doubles. Then on our side of the table next to Gaetano is Leo, who goes by Fool and is the other Sun Guardian. To Leo's left is Padma, who goes by Secretary and is a Rain Guardian. On Padma's other side is Neville, an old school friend and Peer of Magical Britain. Then on Squalo's immediate right is Ginny, who is both Trouble-Shooter and Hatchet-Woman and a Storm Guardian. Opposite me is Rence, who goes by Knight and is Lightning Guardian; Squalo I believe is passingly familiar with him already."

Squalo snorted quietly, indicating that the familiarity was more than just 'passing'.

"To Rence's right is Jerry, who goes by Thing One and is married to Hermione, who is sat on _his_ right. Hermione goes by Lawyer and is the other Cloud Guardian; to Hermione's right is Luna whom you have both already met, is Mist Guardian and goes by Investigator, and to Luna's right at the end of that side is Frank who goes by Thing Two, is married to Luna and is Jerry's twin. At the left-hand end of the table next to Frank is Sibilla, who is both my fourth cousin once removed and my third cousin, and next to Sibilla is Millie, who goes by Executioner and is already known to the Varia. She is also a Lightning Guardian."

Now that definitely had a story behind it; Xanxus could understand why his wife would want one of her Guardians to be in touch with the Varia somehow, but he wasn't yet sure what the Varia got out of the connection. Beyond Millie the Executioner being a highly capable Lightning and socially competent, of course; proving that Lightnings could be both trained fighters and socialised was unfortunately something that needed doing.

"To my immediate left," Blaise went on, "is Susan, another long-time friend and guest, and to her left is Daphne, who goes by Steward and is a Storm Guardian. To Daphne's left is Tracy, who goes by Matron and at the left-hand end of this side of the table is Emilio, another of Xanxus' maternal cousins."

Xanxus had to wonder how many cousins he had now; here he was, sitting at the dinner table with his wife, eleven of her twelve Guardians, a further five bonded or allied Flame-Actives, two cousins he'd never even heard of before and three slightly more distant relatives. It was pretty surreal even without adding in his three kids. That the missing Guardian was a Mist –despite there being a further two Mists at the table already– was rather suggestive; they were probably the one responsible for infiltrating the Vongola and might in fact still be there tying up loose ends.

Thankfully the food started arriving then, so Xanxus was able remain silent and concentrate on enjoying the meal.

* * *

The kids finished eating first; well, his eldest two did. Hector seemed happy to play with the remains of his first course and across the table Elladora Malfoy was utterly captivated by her much older brother's table manners and was attempting to mimic them, even though her hands weren't yet strong or dexterous enough to hold the cutlery the right way. She was still trying though and her brother was praising her efforts extravagantly.

"So how was your morning, Marius?" his wife asked just as his daughter set down her knife and fork on her plate, neatly lined up and perfectly horizontal.

The grey-eyed five-year-old looked up from his scraped plate with a tiny smile. "I did rune-reading with Governess and I finished the puzzle you gave me last week!"

"Well done! How did you do it?" His wife asked, clearly interested rather than just making conversation. Marius almost glowed at the attention, his face becoming more animated and his hands waving as he plunged into a detailed and startlingly technical exposition on rune languages, correlation not being causation, interlocking layers and how they had to be unravelled concurrently –who was teaching his kids these words, no, he knew who since he'd met the twins' Governess but why– and how metaphoric imagery meant that any singular rune could have multiple meanings so it was important to properly gage the function of a 'ward' before attempting to deconstruct it.

"Very good," his wife praised as his eldest son finally ran out of words and a servant arrived to clear the plates. "You are definitely advanced enough now for me to take you to Black Manor to work on the Wards there." So his son being instructed in 'wards' had a practical magical motive behind it, probably relating to Marius being Lord Black and Dorea being Lady-Regent Black. He could put that much together, although he still didn't understand why his wife couldn't do it by herself beyond the possibility of their being family magic issues.

"Thank-you Mama!" Marius looked ecstatic.

"Cassie, you were working on puzzle-boxes this morning weren't you?" His wife asked as new plates and serving dishes were brought in for the next course. "Barty said you managed to instruct him in taking one apart with only three fatal mistakes today."

"Detecting triggers is _really hard_, Mama!" His daughter complained, pouting. "And why is the order you unravel spells sometimes different to just the opposite of the order they were put on? It doesn't make sense!"

This complaint prompted another technical monologue, this time from his wife with occasional interjections from Governess, both Cassie and Marius chiming in at certain points or repeating stuff back to prove they'd understood the lesson. The specifics made very little sense to Xanxus but the general concepts were decently clear: his eldest children were being taught about security layering and detecting traps, subjects which carried a lot of implicit usefulness along with the obvious explicit ones of being able to break into and out of places. Security layering taught you how to defend yourself and determine how well secured a place was, as well as how to set your own security traps. Similarly, detecting traps taught you how to set them, how to avoid making it easy for the people coming after you to detect and unravel your own traps and gave you insight into the background of the person who had set the trap based on its composition and intent.

All very useful skills to have, skills which taught a person to be open-minded and inquisitive without being reckless or foolhardy; probably vitally important skills to have as well, considering the amount of magical security the building and grounds they were in likely had. Being able to activate or selectively deactivate the defences in an emergency would be a vital necessity for his kids. Xanxus approved completely.

"Mama, when is Shīfu going to come back?" Cassie asked upon finishing her tuna, again neatly lining up her knife and fork across the centre of the plate. "He promised to teach us new moves and hasn't yet."

His wife paused in cutting up her asparagus, emotions fluttering across caution, sorrow, anger and frustration before settling again. "Marius, Cassie, you both know that I-Pin is your Shīfu's ward and not actually related to him?"

"Yes Mama," Marius said seriously, "I-Pin said her Papa was Shīfu's student and that he made Shīfu her godfather which is why he is her guardian now."

"Well, I-Pin's family have decided that, now she is showing promise in her training, they want her back with them," his wife said calmly, her inner ire not even showing in her Flames. "Shīfu however is concerned that I-Pin's family are more focused on advancing their agenda than on I-Pin's wellbeing, so he has returned to China to speak with them personally on the matter."

"Is I-Pin alright?" Cassie asked perceptively.

"She has Shīfu looking after her, doesn't she? Of course she will be!" Marius interjected.

"I am sure that your Shīfu will ensure that everything turns out for the best," Dorea said placidly, her serenity undercut by vicious satisfaction. "In the meantime, why don't you write to them? You could practice your calligraphy and find out about what I-Pin has been up to since returning to China."

"Yes Mama."

Xanxus wondered who 'Shīfu' was, while completely approving of his kids having some kind of hand-to-hand training. Flames weren't everything and obviously magic wasn't either. Apparently they'd had a friend as well, which was promising; contacts outside of the immediate family were always useful. That his wife was supporting them in maintaining the relationship indicated she considered it a valuable one. Encouraging her children to write letters implied that she had an address to send letters _to_, or at least a trusted courier that could track down their location. Also interesting...

"Can we send her a mirror, Mama?" Xanxus paused; there had to be some kind of subtext to that request, because the words did not make any kind of sense by themselves. Some kind of magically enchanted artefact?

"That's an excellent idea, Cassie, but you should ask your Shīfu first and get his approval," his wife said warmly. "In the meantime you can help your Uncle Jerry work out how to translate the commands to work in Chinese, since I-Pin's English isn't very good."

"Can we do that this afternoon, Mama?" Marius asked.

"That's up to your uncle, Marius."

"Sure they can," said Jerry from his seat to the left of Rence, who was on Cassie's left. "They can help me with the Chinese runes, since I've not had much practice with those." That was the Mist married to the Cloud he was sat next to and Xanxus really had to wonder how a Cloud and a Mist could possibly manage to fall in love and get married without murdering each-other and everybody else in the blast radius. Especially when the Cloud was a _lawyer_ of all the things…

"Have Leo help you too," Dorea suggested to the Rainy Mist who had a Flame-bond to her despite not being her Guardian; "he's good at them."

"Do I get a choice?" Asked Leo from the far right-hand end of the table.

"Please?" Both Xanxus' older kids chorused, eyes wide and pleading.

"Fine, since your mother said so," the Sun capitulated easily. "I'll help you both practice your hand to hand until your Shīfu comes back as well, okay?"

"But tomorrow, not today," Cassie said firmly.

"Yes, tomorrow," Leo said indulgently, his Flames radiating amusement and affection.

"Good," Cassie sniffed as her plate was cleared.

* * *

Squalo was freaking out a bit –okay a lot– on the inside, but since shouting would definitely be impolitic right at the moment he was keeping his mouth shut and watching all the people at the table and how they interacted. Boss seemed oddly comfortable despite being surrounded by total strangers, but then again they were mostly his wife's Guardians and Boss's Flames were so heavily meshed with his wife's right now they didn't quite register as individuals, so that was a possible explanation for that.

And fuck, _eleven_ Guardians? Plus bonds to three of the other Flame-Actives present? That was _serious_ shit, right there. Dorea Black-Potter was _powerful_ and _dangerous_. Well, so was Boss; they did at least match there. Dorea was also much more open in terms of Flames than any Sky Squalo had ever met before, which might go a way to explain why she had twice as many Guardians as usual plus additional bonded. Not being mafia was probably a factor there, as likely nobody had ever told her that Skies were 'supposed' to have just one Guardian of each Flame-type.

Double fuck, Boss was married to the chick who'd tidily wrapped up that magical civil war in Britain and taken over the government for a few years; Bel had been very interested in that and there'd been a phase of buying piles of back-editions of Sabina newspapers so the teenager could track how that had unfurled. Squalo had ended up reading a lot of the information too, partly so he'd know what the hell the prince was going on about but mostly for the commentary, so as to get a feel for how the various magical communities were reacting to what was going on. The general impression he'd got was that Europe thought Britain had been desperately deprived and so out of touch with the rest of the world that a brief stint under a teenage dictator could only be an improvement. Reading about the laws being put in place –and the laws being revoked because what was that shit– had convinced Squalo that the commentators had been right. It had also convinced him that Lady Black-Potter was a ruthlessly principled woman who put her people before just about everything else and he'd actually wanted to meet her.

Well, now he had, sort of. He'd been introduced at least and his impression of her hadn't changed. Ruthlessly principled, shamelessly attached to her people and didn't give a damn what anybody outside her chosen family thought of her.

She'd be good for Boss, who cared a bit too much about what certain people thought of him even when those people were morons. People like Nono, for instance, who was prejudiced as shit.

Watching his fellow diners was fascinating though: Squalo had never shared a meal with so many different non-hostile Flame-Actives in his _life_ and it was incredible how much _more_ he could intuit just because nobody at the table was actively hiding their thoughts and feelings and nobody wanted any of the other diners' dead. The former just didn't _happen_ in the mafia, not even at strictly Family gatherings, and in the Varia the latter was practically normal.

Knowing the titles of those present gave him more clues as to their role in Boss's wife's household, as did knowing which of them were Guardians. There was also the fact that being bonded didn't necessarily correlate with being a Guardian, which was completely fascinating when Dorea Black-Potter had so _many_ bonded Flame-Users to choose from. Three bonded Suns and only _one_ of them was a Guardian? That indicated a completely different Guardian selection criteria to the one employed by the mafia. Equally fascinating was that of the identical Mist-twins only one of them was Sky-bonded, which suggested a major and traumatic event which only one twin had been present for. Twins usually bonded together or not at all, especially identical twins, and Squalo was itching to ask how that had managed to not happen here.

Closer observation of Secretary –called Padma– suggested she was indeed Seer's identical twin, partly because she had a very faint secondary Lightning Flame in addition to her primary affinity. That some of the Guardians were Latent also said very interesting things about what Boss's wife considered to be important characteristics in a Guardian and Squalo really wanted to know what those characteristics were. Being bonded was clearly 'desirable' rather than 'necessary', but it wasn't the deal-breaker most mafia Skies considered it to be. If given a choice between a bonded and unbonded candidate a mafia Sky would pick the bonded one every time; having not one but _two_ bonded Suns passed over in favour of an unbonded one was something that definitely had to be investigated. Similarly, being Flame-Active was clearly another desirable trait rather than a necessary one because both Secretary and Steward were Latent. Well, that was what they felt like and he hadn't noticed so much as a flicker or flare of Flames to suggest otherwise from Steward. Squalo refused to believe that the two Rains and Storms at the table were the only ones Dorea Black-Potter had in her following; she had two Clouds and Rains were both far more common than Clouds and far more gregarious. He wasn't even going to consider the possibility of a Storm shortage, not when every single Zabini at the table was either a Storm-primary or Storm-secondary. Only the two body-doubles were actually Flame-Active, but as they were both Storm-primaries… there had to be something special about Daphne the Steward. It probably involved magic somehow.

This wasn't a specially arranged show-dinner, it was a gathering of all the people considered 'family' currently present in the building so it made sense that some of Boss's wife's people were missing; with their own families, working elsewhere or even on holiday. Obviously there'd be people missing, like a second Mist Guardian. She had two of all the other types, so it followed there'd be two Mist Guardians and since two of the three Mists at the table had not been designated as Guardians, there was a forth one out there somewhere.

Squalo tried not to think about where that missing Mist might be or what they might be doing. If he didn't know he didn't have to share his suspicions with anybody. Wait, no: now Boss was free he only had to share his suspicions with Boss and leave it to _him_ to take it further up the chain of command. In that case, the missing Mist was probably how they'd got Boss out of the Vongola basement without anybody noticing; what a security nightmare. He'd have to find out who the Mist was and meet them, so as to get a feel for their style and agenda. That Dorea Black-Potter had not just one but _two_ Mists able to waltz through mafia security like it wasn't even there was really bad news, because if her Mists could do it so could other ones. It might be a magic thing, but that wasn't exactly an improvement. Not everybody would be 'nice' enough to drop a kidnap victim in a survivable Territory or heal them up from injuries incurred before their kidnapping.

There was also the subtle mindfuck of the meal being tuna carpaccio, new potatoes and asparagus, just like he'd requested an hour ago. Not just his meal; _everybody's_ meal. There was other stuff too –peas and spring greens and carrots and rice– but any kitchen that could change their meal plan an hour before the meal and still feed thirty people, with all the food being of the highest possible quality, was definitely cheating somehow. You _could not_ get thirty portions of top-quality tuna in under an hour! Reality did not work like that!

Well, at least the Storm Guardian he was sat next to didn't seem to mind that he wasn't making any kind of conversation at all. She wasn't actually making much conversation either, beyond occasionally adding her fifty lira to the conversation Neville the Guest was having with Draco the Consul and Padma the Secretary. Lingering exhaustion maybe? She did feel a bit tired under her steely calm and being called Trouble-Shooter implied she did a lot of travelling.

Squalo found it interesting that Boss's wife had a personal hit-person in addition to an executioner and a lawyer. He also wanted to know what Blaise's Guardian title was, because the implications in those titles were _interesting_. Like there being a 'fool', a 'socialite', a 'consul' and a 'matron', never mind a 'negotiator'. Some of those titles were definitely intended to be half in jest, all in seriousness because Barty the Negotiator gave off the impression that any 'negotiations' he personally engaged in would wind up with the other party dead and in pieces the moment they insulted his Sky. Equally, the twin Mists had some of the most apparently uninformative titles in existence… except said titles were probably a Dr Seuss reference, which was warning enough.

His Boss's wife's sense of humour was shaping up to have a lot in common with Xanxus's. Well, common ground was a good thing, right?

Then dessert was served –key lime pies, six of them– and Squalo wondered if it would be possible for him to sneak into the kitchens later to find out how they'd managed it. It wasn't like he'd _ever_ been able to eat key lime pie anywhere in Europe outside the Varia Mansion before now!

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Translations 

Shīfu = teacher, master (esp. in martial arts) Chinese


	124. Chapter 124

Beta'd by the cute InsaneScriptist.

This is the chapter that had me stalled for two months; it really did **not** want to be written but I got there in the end!

Also, something's up with the site so I can't respond to reviews at all and they aren't registering for chapters, but I _am_ still receiving them and reading them! I really appreciate the feedback! Please don't stop!

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**Of facing uncomfortable revelations **

After lunch the two five-year-olds dragged the Fool Sun and the Mist-twin married to the Cloud Lawyer away to keep the promises made during the meal –both Mist-twins were clearly equally crazy although in slightly different ways– leaving Boss's wife with just one child to wrangle. Dorea Black-Potter –and was that actually her married name or should there be a 'Zabini' in there somewhere too? – promptly picked up the toddler, waving away Blaise Zabini's aborted attempt to take her son from her.

"Nap time, popkin," she said gently, tapping the little boy's nose with one finger.

The toddler yawned, then pouted. "Don wanna nap, Mama," he complained. "wanna 'tay wi' you and Papa."

Dorea Black-Potter glanced at Boss, who did that barely-visible twitch-thing that was his version of a nod of agreement. Not to be confused with the completely different barely-visible twitch that indicated vehement disagreement; Boss took effort to read even for people with Varia Quality.

"Very well, but you have to be quiet, baby boy," she said firmly, looking her youngest son right in the eye. "Your Papa is tired too."

"Pwomise, Mama," the toddler said solemnly, nodding repeatedly before reaching out towards Xanxus, who had stepped closer to accept his offspring from his wife. His Boss cradled the kid against his shoulder with an ease that suggested he'd done this before. Maybe not with his own child, but he definitely had experience. Probably with Erica's eldest, Squalo realised; he'd have to tell Boss about his niece's second-born at some point as well. Not to mention the deaths of his grandmother and older siblings and all the associated years of Vongola news.

Boss's wife then raised an eyebrow at Boss, who lowered his eyelids slightly and shifted his weight. Squalo knew what that meant, but that Boss's wife clearly did as well was a bit surprising when Xanxus had admitted he'd barely known her for a week before getting put on ice. Of course Dorea Black-Potter was clearly familiar with a whole host of other Zabini, so maybe she was simply very familiar with dealing with siren-blooded individuals and all those barely-visible cues had a genetic component? It was a nice theory; Prince Blaise's extremely-abridged history lesson suggested that sirens were at least partly avian and birds really didn't do facial expressions the way mammals did.

She then turned and led the way out of the dining room through the door she'd come through earlier, along a slightly less extravagantly decorated hall and through a door into a large, airy room with a grand piano, three sofas, a fainting couch and four armchairs spread across it. The room itself was large enough to be an entire apartment, a large bay window with seven glass panels taking up half of the outside wall and a ceiling so high you could probably do some pretty impressive acrobatics without ever getting near the chandelier.

Xanxus made a beeline for the fainting couch, sprawling along it and settling his son on his chest so the toddler was lying almost flat, one hand cradling the boy's neck and upper back. Squalo flopped onto a sofa across from his Boss, watching curiously as Boss's wife waved a hand at an armchair and made it float closer, setting it on the floor in front of and turned towards Xanxus so she was properly within his field of vision without him having to turn his head. She wasn't blocking his view of the window either, which suggested more awareness than any other non-Varia woman bar Ottava and the Harpies had ever shown for sightlines and such.

More interesting was that Boss had his back to the door; that was an uncommon level of trust there. Yes, his wife _was_ half-facing the door, but Boss wasn't usually that trusting, not even of his Guardians.

"_You have questions. So,_" Boss's wife said gently in Classical Greek after settling herself, reaching over the arm of her chair to place one hand on Xanxus' knee, "_ask away._"

Boss hummed, eyes staring blindly up at the ceiling for several long moments. His wife didn't seem in any hurry though, letting him take all the time he wanted.

"_You know my family,_" Xanxus said eventually in the same language.

Dorea inclined her head very slightly. "_I have known Blaise since my school days,_" she explained, "_and we adopted each-other as siblings then. His mother _–_your sister_– _I have come to know better more recently, as I have many of your closer cousins; particularly the ones with young children._"

"_Playmates?_" Xanxus asked, glancing down at his son, who was clearly dozing off.

"_Yes. Your family are all very concerned for my and our children's safety, so only allowed a limited number of people near us,_" Dorea explained. "_Nobody not a Guardian, sworn into my service or more distant than a second cousin has been allowed near me in years; the body-doubles are the exception among my in-laws. Of course my own allies and relatives were another matter, but there was an adjustment period for us all._"

"_Protective,_" Xanxus commented.

Dorea snorted lightly. "_Not wanting their prince to find fault in their actions and choices either; I have been dissuaded on multiple occasions from doing things on the basis that 'your husband would kill me if he found out I let you do that'._"

Squalo did not laugh, but it took effort.

"_Such as?_" Xanxus inquired, head tilting sideways so he could get a better look at his wife's face.

"_There are legless dragons at the bottom of the Estate,_" Boss's wife said casually, "_and I have not been permitted to visit them unescorted, despite my being able to understand and be understood by them. Which is ridiculous: Luna has gone to visit them many times on her own without anybody considering it dangerous to her health and she not gifted in speaking with serpents._"

"_I would not have liked hearing about that,_" Xanxus admitted frankly, "_but I would like to see them for myself before deciding that I would or would not be comfortable with you doing it in the future._"

"_They are currently nesting, but we can visit once the young are fledged,_" Dorea said with a warm smile.

Xanxus made a vague sound of assent; there was another pause, but it wasn't an uncomfortable one. On Boss's chest his toddler son let out a gentle snore.

"_I am still sixteen,_" Boss said eventually.

"_Only two lunar months short of seventeen,_" Dora corrected, smiling wryly. "_Stasis does terrible things to your personal time, I'm afraid._"

"_So since I was frozen two months before my seventeenth birthday, I'm going to be seventeen in two months?_" Xanxus drawled. "_How does that work?_"

"_While in stasis you were outside time,_" Dorea explained, "_and since coming of age has magical significance, it takes place after you have experienced that much actual time passing. So magically speaking, your birthday is now the thirtieth of June and that is when you will become fully adult by magical standards. Magical people come of age at seventeen, as that is when their magic matures fully and their core stops growing._" She paused. "_You can still keep your actual birthday, as it being the day you were born on has not changed, but your birth-date is no longer at the same time as the day you start your next year of life._"

"_How often has this come up in the past that your people have a system for it?_" Squalo felt compelled to ask.

Boss's wife smiled. "_Are you familiar with the tale of Sleeping Beauty?_"

Squalo twitched. "_No way._" He refused to believe it!

"_True, the particular method used there does not in itself place a person outside time,_" Dorea agreed serenely, "_but petrification, as suffered by the victims of Medusa, does. Gorgons are not uncommon in certain parts of the Mediterranean, so dealing with the after-effects of petrification is something we've been doing for millennia._"

Gorgons. Millennia. Squalo had known that magical society was well-established, but _seriously_ they had documents from that far back?! He'd been under the impression that Sabina was an exception, a single unusual country rather that just another nation. It was clearly one of the oldest –if not _the_ oldest– country around and rather eccentric, but that the entirety of magical society had long since adapted to things like stasis and who knew what else was a shock.

"_Stasis was at one point a very popular method of trapping non-magical people trespassing in magical areas,_" Boss's wife went on agreeably, "_which is likely where all those stories of spending one day Underhill and emerging sixty years later came from; people getting in, but getting caught in the security system on the way out and not being released until the wards were reset. It happens._"

It happens. What. The. _Hell_? Squalo had no idea what his face looked like right now but it must have been a picture because Boss was sniggering.

"_Stasis was also popular for keeping hostages as you didn't need to feed them, tracking spells don't work properly to trace the location of a person in stasis and the victim can be returned in exactly the condition they were taken in. Which is what I initially thought had happened to you, by the way,_" Dorea added, glancing at Xanxus. "_Keeping a prisoner in stasis is just stupid though; your victim comes out just as furious as they went in what feels like no time at all later to them, then gets even angrier because it's years later and you've destroyed their life._"

A perfect summary of why Squalo thought Nono had gone senile and it was coming from a total stranger; the Vongola was utterly fucked if people who weren't even involved with the mafia could see it.

"_I'm sorry for getting myself frozen,_" Boss said quietly, reaching down to wrap his hand around his wife's. "_I didn't think things through properly and expected the old man to be braver than he actually was. I was stupidly optimistic and you paid for it; thank-you for coming for me._"

"_You're my husband, I couldn't possibly let anybody keep you away from me,_" Lady Dorea Black-Potter said blandly. "_It would set a dreadful precedent and my few surviving political opponents would get _ideas_. Besides, hunting you down has been an extremely productive exercise for all concerned. This does _not_ mean you get to do it again though,_" she added, glaring at Xanxus. "_Dragons are not supposed to need rescuing._"

"_Oh, I'm a dragon, am I?_" Boss definitely liked the sound of that, going by the massive grin.

"_Fire in your soul, viciously destructive when irritated, violently possessive, far more intelligent than people give you credit for and inclined towards piling up great big mounds of treasure stolen from other people,_" Dorea said blandly, "_without even going into the tendency to extort people with violence, killing heroes while mocking them to their faces, destroying people verbally and enthralling the weak-minded. Oh, and Blaise thinks it's hilarious, because being his adopted sister makes me a princess and I married you rather than trying to run away, which is what a marginally sane person would have done._"

Boss had been grinning like crazy throughout this litany of reasons he was secretly a giant fire-breathing lizard but he actually burst out laughing at his wife's last comment. Actual real laughter that shook his whole body as he slumped on the fainting couch so he didn't roll right off it; cradled gently against Boss's heaving chest the kid slept on, completely dead to the world.

"_I'd have chased you,_" Boss said eventually, still grinning toothily, "_and killed anybody trying to take you away from me. I'm still going to kill anybody who tries to take you away from me._"

"_I want very much to kill the person who took_ you_ away from_ me," Dorea said wistfully, "_but my Poet advised against it. Insisted it was a family matter, so should be left to you to deal with as you saw fit._" She sighed heavily. "_I still want to have Lawyer file a restraining order against him on your behalf though._"

Squalo was wondering who exactly 'Poet' was and if he could send them a bouquet or fruit basket or something as thanks for persuading Boss's wife –who'd conquered a respectably-sized magical nation before she was even old enough to vote– not to completely obliterate the Vongola, when the mental image of Nono's reaction to having a restraining order filed against him on Xanxus' behalf shoved all other thoughts aside.

"_I want to be there and see his face if you do that,_" the swordsman said eagerly. "_It would be _epic_._"

"_I'd rather put off dealing with the old man for as long as possible,_" Xanxus admitted, looking down at his youngest son and running fingers through the boy's untidy hair. "_If he knows I'm out he'll have expectations and so will everybody else; I've got better things to be doing than pander to them, or even deal with the fallout of them expecting me to pander to them._"

"_Fair enough Boss,_" Squalo said agreeably, "_so long as you don't expect me to keep on doing the paperwork._"

"_The extraction team left a decoy behind when they recovered you,_" Dorea said, smiling at her husband, "_so if you lie low they probably won't notice you're missing for a while. Poet thinks they're most likely to notice the difference in Quiet Week, whenever that is._"

Poet was definitely Boss's wife's inside man –or woman– if they knew about what went on in the Iron Fort during Quiet Week; that meant they was probably a Mist. Possibly even the Mist Guardian who hadn't been introduced yet, which would make sense really. Squalo had to wonder why they were called 'Poet' though; was it an indication of their combat style, favourite hobby or sense of humour?

"_Two months will have to do then,_" Xanxus said pragmatically; "_Shark, no telling anybody before then._"

"_As you say, Boss,_" Squalo promised. He'd have to obfuscate a bit with Bel and Mammon, who as Boss's other Bonded were the ones most likely to notice something had changed, but two months wasn't all that long. In fact he should probably start coming up with excuses now, because Mammon would definitely have noticed his abduction from his office and he needed a decent excuse for that. He could tell the miser that it had been a Mist affiliated with Knight's Lady, which was the truth, and that she'd wanted him to test a Territory for her. That she hadn't asked first could be waved off as Mist-nonsense and the promised gifts –which he hadn't been given yet– would hopefully be distracting enough that the Mist Officer wouldn't think to dig deeper. He also needed a way to discreetly transport the paperwork to Boss and back, but Boss's wife's people would probably have a magical solution for that.

Speaking of which… the Continent's magical newspapers he'd been reading back-issues of for info on Lady Black-Potter and her exceptionally effective and liberal-minded coup had dated back to ninety-six, at which point said Lady had been 'technically underage'. Those comments had stopped about halfway through ninety-seven, so Squalo had assumed that she'd turned eighteen then, which would mean she'd married Boss when she was sixteen. But just now Dorea had told Boss that his _next_ birthday would mark his magical coming-of-age, which would be his _seventeenth_.

"How old were you when you married Xanxus?" Squalo asked in English.

"Fifteen," Dorea said easily. "Why?"

Xanxus jerked like somebody had knifed him. "Fucking _fifteen_?" He demanded hoarsely.

"Er, yes?" Boss's wife looked utterly baffled by their horrified expressions. "Fifteen's old enough to marry in Magical Britain, so long as you've passed the appropriate exams. I passed them all and a few of the advanced exams as well, so there was no question of my being capable enough to manage a household or otherwise take care of myself should the need arise."

"I thought you were sixteen," Xanxus said quietly.

"No, fifteen; I performed the marriage ritual three days after my birthday."

Barely fifteen then; Boss looked sick and Squalo didn't think he looked much better. One of the things Boss had been really _particular_ about was that kids between the ages of fourteen and sixteen could mess about with each-other if they felt like it, but anybody _past_ their sixteenth trying to get it on with a kid _deserved_ to be killed as slowly and messily as possible. Not that sixteen-year-olds were in any way more mentally mature than fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds, but sixteen was the legal age you could actually marry in Italy so it marked the boundary between kids fooling about and adults making choices they then had to damn well deal with the consequences of.

That Erica Lanza had been raped aged not-quite-sixteen and Boss had helped his niece cope with the aftermath probably had a lot to do with Xanxus' attitude there, along with his childhood as the son of a whore. Boss had very _definite_ ideas about consent, adulthood and responsibility, which had been a factor in Tyrant deciding he liked Boss enough to give him a shot at leading the Varia. Finding out he'd accidentally crossed a few of his own lines, cultural misunderstanding or not… Boss was going to be reeling for a while, never mind the other revelations.

"I… sorry, I…" Boss said, sitting upright and handing his son over to his wife, who was now looking deeply concerned. "Consul mentioned a testing range?"

Dorea nodded and the door to the hallway opened, revealing another footman with Zabini features, this one at least middle-aged but probably older. "_Yano, take the prince out to the testing field please,_" she said in Italian as Xanxus rose abruptly to his feet. "_Show him the obstacle course and the Flame-runs as well._"

"_Of course, princess,_" the footman murmured, bowing first to Dorea and then to Boss. "_Highness._" He turned and walked out of sight, Boss striding swiftly after him.

"Is my being a year younger than he thought really that important?" Boss's wife looked seriously distressed, which didn't help. Well, it wasn't exactly a fight but as first misunderstandings went, this one was a doozy.

Squalo took a moment to gets his thoughts all lined up. "It's not bad, exactly," he hedged, "but in the mafia, the age of adult consent is sixteen. We're raised to respect that and that once you're sixteen, you never, ever try anything with anyone younger than that; you can wait until they're sixteen too if they matter that much to you. Fourteen-year-olds and fifteen-year-olds can mess about together and experiment a bit, since Italy's general age of consent is fourteen, but once you're sixteen you're adult and if you start shit with a kid, you have damn well _earned_ as messy a death as the kid's Family brings down on you."

"Oh." Dorea looked shocked. "Er… in magical society there isn't much, em, 'messing around' before marriage. Well, not involving actual sexual intercourse of any kind, that is: firsts have power, you see, so a marriage ritual will always be more powerful and lasting if both parties are each-other's firsts. Some marriage rituals won't actually _work_ if one or other party has given their first away already." She paused, cuddling her son for a few seconds. "Rape's a capital crime in modern magical society, worse than murder even because you've ruined a person's entire future and their eventual spouse's future too. It is traditionally grounds for a Declaration of Enmity and Feud as well, which is basically a legally sanctioned inter-Family war; no matter how elitist and isolationist, no wizard or witch is going to rape another." She smiled bitterly. "Raping non-magicals is another matter entirely, of course, or so some claim."

Squalo was reminded of Costanzo Zabini and his utter incomprehension of why a person _wouldn't_ be burned alive for rape. Magical culture certainly wasn't any more or less civilised than mafia culture, but it was definitely _different_. Hopefully the differences wouldn't ruin his Boss's marriage before he and his wife got to know each-other properly. Squalo actually liked the woman his Boss had married based on what he'd read and seen of her so far, plus Boss _was_ in love with her. This could very easily turn into a complete mess…


	125. Chapter 125

Beta'd by the mellifluous InsaneScriptist.

Yes! Reviews are working properly again! The next update will however be on Monday, not tomorrow.

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**Of truth and misdirection **

Boss was barely out of the room five seconds before the Guardians descended en masse: the Lawyer and the Steward arrived first, but were followed in short order by Prince Blaise, Knight, Consul and his baby sister and Neville the Guest. The men instantly started moving furniture around –other than Prince Blaise who took the sleeping toddler off his Sky– as Daphne the Steward firmly moved Boss's wife over to the piano and the Lawyer turned the chair Dorea Black-Potter had just vacated to face Squalo and sat down in a very decisive manner.

"So what happened there, exactly?" she asked, her accent suggesting a suburban London upbringing and very unlike her Sky's crisp but not overly snobbish upper-crust tones.

Squalo glared at the Cloud. "Boss found out she was fifteen when he married her," he growled, taking extra care to keep his voice low enough that the lady in question was unlikely to hear him over the casual chatter of her Storm and Rain, who were bracketing her on the piano stool and leaning with their Flames in a way Squalo hadn't actually ever seen before. He'd have to see what that was about later and find out what it was supposed to do, so he could determine its utility.

"So it's a consent issue," the Lawyer deduced, her focused expression softening into commiseration. "I never really thought about it until afterwards, when I was talking to my parents and they were completely horrified that my patron had married so young. My parents aren't magical, you see," she added, "and wizarding society doesn't really have an age of consent as such, so of course it never got talked about at school."

So the education system was the main gateway for access into wizarding society for people of a non-magical background; good to know. Also, the 'no real age of consent' thing was kinda horrifying, despite being the reality in a number of other Asian and African countries where there was only a marriageable age limit –some of which were horrifyingly low– and sex outside of marriage was completely illegal. The Magical situation was slightly less horrifying when added to the insanely harsh penalties for rape, actual exams you needed to pass before being allowed to marry and the fact that sexual exploration was culturally discouraged beyond a certain point, but it still wasn't great.

"Patron?" He asked instead, sensing an interesting topic of conversation.

"Dorea is from a very traditional family," Hermione the Lawyer said, settling herself more comfortably in her chair and folding her hands together on her knees, "and traditionally, members of the ancient and noble magical houses sponsor magical children from a non-magical background through school as a way of furthering the family's influence and bringing in new blood. This gives people like me access to positions we would otherwise be unable to reach, since the entire job market is built on connections and social influence rather than demonstrated skill. Dorea has been sponsoring me since we were both twelve." She paused, frowning for a moment. "I have done what I could since leaving school to make the system more meritocratic, but effective change requires social participation and legislation can only take you so far, especially when there are valid magical reasons for a lot of apparently trivial things that never get explained in school."

Hermione the Lawyer was therefore one of the people who had participated in the legal overhaul that Magical Britain had undergone under the Lady Potter-Black; also good to know. Considering she was said Lady's Cloud Guardian –if not a fully Bonded one– she had probably been one of the leading voices even though she couldn't even have been twenty for most of that time. She had likely been very busy even if she'd 'just' been put in charge of the team of people involved in doing that; overhauling centuries of laws, compiling historical research and so on was not exactly a small task. Definitely a very capable individual, which was probably why Boss's wife had decided to sponsor her in the first place; people like that tended to be really annoying as kids though, which said interesting things about Dorea Black-Potter's ability to strategise in the long-term.

"So Alexandro was shocked and angry upon discovering he married a fifteen-year-old, blamed himself and retreated," Hermione summarised. "Perfectly reasonable; I would personally have been disappointed had he reacted otherwise, considering."

"Considering what, exactly?" Squalo asked.

The Cloud smiled at him, a small, sharp smirk accompanied by lidded eyes and lowered brows. "Considering how fanatical all the other Zabini I've met are about children. Not about protecting children exactly, but about equipping them to deal with the dangers of the real world and ensuring they have a safe place in which to grow into themselves. Red-eyed Zabinis can apparently go either way; some are hyper-protective, some just don't care."

That if Xanxus had turned out to be the latter type, steps would have been taken to ensure he did not take any frustrations out on his children, did not need to be said to be clearly understood. Squalo could respect that; it was also interesting that while Dorea Potter-Black seemed to be able to read and understand her husband effortlessly, her Guardians had no such insight despite being just as familiar with other Zabini. Some kind of built-in marriage thing perhaps? Boss's wife had mentioned marriage rituals and how some of them had specific requirements, so a ritual intended to bind two people together like that might well create a bond comparable to a Guardian bond.

The mention of there being a typical Zabini method of raising kids that involved training rather than sheltering did explain a _lot_ about Boss's attitude towards Bel back when the brat Prince joined the Varia though. Lots of Zabini-things were turning out to be instinctive and Boss had always listened to his instincts. Generally to great effect.

Squalo was about to ask a question about how the transition from normal to magical society worked for people who _didn't_ have a patron, but at that moment a soft chord rang through the room, melancholy and sweet. Turning, the swordsman noticed that Knight was now standing right behind his Lady, hands cradling her shoulders as she coaxed a complex minor tune out of the piano. Blaise and Daphne the Steward had both moved from the piano stool to a sofa, sitting with Draco the Consul plus toddler sister and Neville the Guest in a loose arc along the side of the piano so their Sky could see them as she played.

Boss definitely would not like the way Knight was touching Dorea Potter-Black if he was here to see it, so it was a good thing he wasn't. Squalo didn't want to see it either though; in fact he should be getting back to the Varia before Mammon decided to come looking for him. Even though leaving meant Boss would be here by himself –well without his own Guardians anyway– it was safer all around for Boss to be here than with the Varia. If Boss came home right now then there'd be playful assassination attempts to 'get his head back where it belongs' and Boss would not be in the mood to either humour them or hold back from vaporising them. Best to let Xanxus work out his temper on inanimate objects and have time to himself to cool down, think things through and make his own decisions. They could talk about work-stuff after Boss had his personal life a bit more together.

They'd also need to talk about Family stuff; fuck. Squalo wasn't looking forward to _that_. Putting together a dossier was probably a good idea there, as he could leave it with Boss after hitting the high points in person and then Boss could get back to him with questions once he'd calmed down again. The crate of breakables might run out while Boss was working through things and Squalo preferred to avoid having things tossed at his head.

* * *

Getting walked out the front door of Boss's wife's fancy house made Squalo want to swear: it was literally _right next to_ the Varia Mansion. Well, not _right_ next to perhaps –that wasn't possible with how much land there was around the Varia Mansion– but the grounds were definitely adjacent and how the hells had they not noticed this? He could see the roof from here! Not in any great detail due to the distance and the trees in the way, but it was still uncomfortably close for something the entire Varia had until now been utterly blind to.

"Magic," Luna said airily, reaching up to wrap a pastel blue silk scarf around his neck. "You can see what's really here because you have an open invitation, but to everybody else it's just boring and not worth remembering."

They _definitely_ needed to somehow acquire a few Varia capable of using magic, because the potential there was just incredible. Maybe one or other of the former werewolves Tyrant had picked up in Germany last summer after Pýř killed their alpha might have the potential? Of course magical schooling seemed to be an indoctrination process and there were definitely laws about not using magic in front of people who didn't know about it, but with Boss being the heir-apparent of a magical nation he could probably bend the rules a bit. Some sort of vassalage arrangement so that private tutoring could happen, at the very least? Boss's kids clearly had several tutors and seemed to be performing well above average, even compared to their peers in the upper echelons of the Vongla-affiliated mafia Families. The former werewolves might never be Quality but it wasn't like Housekeeping wouldn't find plenty of things for them to do to keep them busy and useful regardless, _especially_ if they had a Magical talent.

"And here are your socks," Luna added brightly. Squalo looked down at them and cringed; they were a horrendous shade of fluorescent orange with white feathers patterned into them. White feathers that _moved_, he amended as the feathers fluttered. He should probably have been trying to work out how that was even _possible_ but mostly he just felt resigned.

"Seriously?" he grumbled.

"You should try them," Luna said seriously. "I'm sure they'll be very useful in helping you avoid the grontwargles."

Squalo didn't have a clue what those were, if they even existed at all; the Mist could just as easily be messing with him or using some kind of obscure code. Still, this _was_ his Boss's wife's Mist Guardian and thus far she seemed the sort to be infuriatingly straightforward in her actions while using her words and manner to distract you from what was going on right under your nose, so trying on the socks was probably a smart move. She didn't seem the type to booby-trap gifts; going by the names that was more her husband and brother-in-law's shtick. Squalo therefore sat down on the low, decorative wall edging the main drive and tugged off his boots and socks so he could try on his 'prize'.

The first thing he noticed was that as soon as the eyesore socks were on his feet he felt less… anchored. As though gravity had suddenly stopped working for him. There had been a significant reduction in gravity inside the Mario Territory, but this was much more noticeable. Squalo very cautiously put his boots back on and rose to his feet, pocketing his other socks and taking care not to move too quickly. He then took an experimental bounce; barely enough force to rise onto the balls of his feet.

Propelling himself a full foot into the air had not been what he had expected to happen; at least landing was equally light and easy on his knees. That the gravel didn't crunch underfoot as he landed was however intriguing.

Hmm… this warranted experimentation. Squalo was vaguely aware of Luna the Investigator wandering off while humming the Super Mario theme tune, but it didn't really register as significant. That he might be able to walk over short grass without leaving a trail, on the other hand, _was_.

Taking careful steps until his sense of balance adjusted to the new and near-weightless state of affairs, the Rain Officer of the Varia set off back towards home.

* * *

Mammon had noticed the instant Squalo vanished from Varia Territory; however he still had no idea _how_ the shark had disappeared from his office in the middle of the morning. Not wanting to create a panic –which would undoubtedly happen if anybody else noticed that the Captain had evaporated– Mammon had instantly Conjured a Mist-double of the Rain Officer and had it continue to do the paperwork. It wasn't like any of it required skills or information that Mammon lacked; he would be charging Squalo for his time once the Rain returned though. He never worked for free.

The only way Squalo could have disappeared was another Mist, one who had found a weakness in the weave of the Territory and exploited it. Mammon set aside his research into Ottabio's recent peculative activities and started going over the layered and complex weave of the Territory covering the Mansion and its grounds, with particular focus on Squalo's office, trying to find the hole.

Time passed. The Squalo-double approved missions, read reports, sent a few reports back to be re-written –there were _rules_ and _guidelines_ available to the Varia and nobody has any excuse for _not using them_– and grumbled in the usual shark-fashion while doing so. It did not read the intelligence reports, because the real Squalo needed to do that to make leadership decisions and Mammon refused to get involved in those.

Lunchtime came and went; Mammon ate, but was not at all pleased with the situation. He had not found a weakness, which meant that the flaw was in his thinking somewhere: whoever had taken Squalo had done something Mammon had never considered possible, so he could not rectify or guard against it. Running up against mental limitations was tremendously irritating, as you couldn't see them until people pointed them out to you. He couldn't even _trace_ the Rain Officer, as there were no Mist echoes not belonging to Varia members and none of those were fresh anyway, so Mammon couldn't even follow a trail and hunt down Squalo that way.

It was infuriating and as soon as Squalo got back –because the man _would_ come back _alive_ or else Mammon would bind his ghost to the mansion for all eternity– the Mist Arcobaleno was going to _demand_ an explanation.

Mammon eventually sensed Squalo enter the boundary of the Varia Territory and immediately transported both the Rain Officer and himself into Squalo's office, dispelling the copy of the Captain a moment after they both arrives, so Squalo could see Mammon's work.

"Voi, Mammon!" The Captain responded in true shark-fashion before switching over to being the professional he was. "How much do I owe you?"

Mammon named a sum, most of his attention on the scarf he was sure Squalo had not actually owned before today.

"I'll write up a proper remittance advice form and submit it," Squalo said, glancing across the desk.

"And a report?" Mammon asked. Squalo had been abducted from inside Varia Territory by an unknown Mist, so an Information report on who, how, why, what, where and when was required in the interests of ensuring the event did not repeat itself.

"Not actually possible;" Squalo said wryly, "turns out Knight has a Mist colleague with a playful streak."

And part of the Varia's terms with Knight included not investigating any of his Lady's people. Mammon pouted. "Playful streak?" He asked instead.

Squalo's expression went from ruefully amused to faintly embarrassed: "I got dumped in live-action Super Mario," he admitted sourly. "It took hours to play my way out, but none of it was more than very temporarily damaging and I got prizes, one of which was a free lunch."

Mammon felt his lips twitch; there was, as all Varia knew very well, _no such thing_ as a free lunch. That Squalo had needed to earn his by fighting Piranha Plants and other Nintendo inanities was quite possibly the most hilarious thing the Mist Officer had heard all year. It also had the potential for being a blackmail goldmine, so Mammon was going to keep it to himself for the time being. "The scarf was another?"

"Yes; apparently it makes me less noticeable to law enforcement, but I haven't tested that and I can't even tell if it's an Alteration, an Enchantment, something completely different or all of the above blended together," Squalo explained, unwinding it from around his neck. "I'll have to put her basic description in our dossier on Knight's Lady's people, so nobody does anything Dumb if they run into her, along with her title –which is 'Investigator', incidentally– but I really don't think anybody is going to mistake her for anything other than what she is."

"Which is?"

Squalo folded the scarf over the back of his chair. "Way out of everyone's league except yours," the Rain Officer said succinctly, "but not malicious."

That Squalo was _certain_ of that said a great deal more than would ever get written anywhere or even spoken of aloud after this one point on time. Mammon felt a vague, deeply-buried thrill at the possibility of a challenge. Not a truly testing one –this was after all not an opponent bent on stealing Mammon's power base– but still interesting.

But that was something for later.

"The scarf is woven from spider silk, not silkworm silk," Mammon said instead, "so it's not actually a Flame Isolator like regular silk is. Judging by the Alterations –and I've not seen this style of Alteration before– spider silk takes Flame working very well when pristine, but only does so once; after that it is saturated and sheds further changes." Mammon adjusted his perception of reality. "It's not from any normal spider species either; each thread is a single filament, not woven." It would probably stretch very well and be highly damage resistant: spider silk was one of the strongest materials in existence.

Squalo stared at the scarf. "That'd be a fucking _massive_ spider," he said eventually, voice conversational. "How the hell do you farm giant spiders?"

Mammon hummed thoughtfully. He suspected magic, but since they couldn't investigate Knight's Lady actually _saying_ so would mean not pursuing that line on inquiry. However if he said nothing and just happened to investigate magical wildlife separately… that was completely different, wasn't it?

"I could find out but it would cost you," Mammon said.

"I'm not _that_ interested," Squalo retorted. "Will it do what Investigator said it would do?"

Scrutinising the actual Alterations –an entire tapestry of them– Mammon was actually impressed: this was beautiful work. It wasn't just Mist-work either: woven into it was that same unknown energy that had made up Maínomai's curse, the Lycanthropy Curse and was inherent in the physiology of best of the Cavallone horses; an energy that the werewolves in Housekeeping called magic, for all that Mammon was sure it followed its own set of rules.

"If you are consciously breaking a rule, you will appear unimportant and irrelevant to the people responsible for enforcing those rules," Mammon decided. "If rule-breaking is accidental you will be visible, but law enforcement officials will be influenced into leniency and will forget to document your offense; may later forget you committed it at all, in fact. It's very subtle. It's all inherent to the scarf, so it may even work on other Flame-Users since it works like a trap rather than an active manipulation."

Squalo nodded. "I'll test it next time I take my bike out."

The Carabinieri did take a lot more interest in speed limits and checking people's paperwork was in order in summer than in winter, so the Captain wouldn't have to look too hard to find a police car to buzz. If it did work as it was supposed to then it had an infinite array of possible uses: carrying banned items onto planes for instance, or raiding police evidence lockers. Would it work to obscure a hacking attempt from firewalls? Mammon had so many questions.

He wasn't willing to pay for the answers though, so they would have to wait for the time being. If nothing else, they could always make their own version of the scarf later; probably not as an actual scarf though, as people who weren't law enforcement would notice them wearing scarves on hot days and remember the oddity.


	126. Chapter 126

Beta'd by the loquatious InsaneScriptist.

* * *

**Of acceptance and adaptation **

_Fifteen._

Another two animated puppets and a decent-sized boulder were reduced to ash by an oversized fireball. Not having his guns to focus his Flames through meant that being utterly furious was having a somewhat detrimental effect on his ability to regulate how much damage he inflicted, but at this point Xanxus did not give a shit.

_Fucking __**fifteen**__!_

He'd married a fifteen-year-old and that was just…

Three more puppets and a distinctly mythological Mist-construct were vaporised as Xanxus tried to find the words to articulate all the things he found wrong about the situation. Having words helped him to filter out what was really important from what was just reactions and emotional noise.

What bothered him _wasn't_ that marrying at fifteen was illegal in Italy; Xanxus was not _that_ much of a hypocrite, thank-you. He was a professional assassin and knew very well that he only followed those laws he found convenient, right up until they weren't anymore. No, his issues with his wife's age were all tangled up in his upbringing and the morality he had chosen for himself, which made locating suitably clear terms to express his standpoint that much more challenging.

In the mafia –or at least in the Vongola-influenced bits of it– fifteen years of age placed a person in the grey area between childhood and adulthood, where some of the rules were more fluid. You were definitely old enough to work –which in the mafia basically meant 'old enough to kill'– old enough to not have a legal guardian if you chose to renounce them and old enough to pledge your life in service to a Boss, but ironically were _not_ old enough for your Family to sell your body in an arranged marriage. You had to be at least sixteen for that. Even more ironically, fifteen was nowhere near old enough to get into sex work: you had to be eighteen for that to be legal and that was a law the Vongola was extremely scrupulous about following.

Sixteen was when girls started getting displayed on the marriage market, although the older, more influential Vongola-affiliated Families did not seriously consider any offer made for a woman's hand before the young lady in question was most of the way to eighteen. Xanxus, as a supposed Vongola Heir and the youngest and most infamous at that, had been one of the poor sods having sixteen-year-olds shoved _at_ him, even well before he reached sixteen himself. He'd ignored the trash and terrified the scum that got too close of course, and following his sixteenth birthday –which had been when he'd gone poking around Nono's papers and discovered he wasn't Vongola– he'd been too deeply engrossed in plotting vengeance to even think about women. Then Squalo and the Varia had happened, which had made most of the trash back off, and then he'd met Dorea…

…who had been only just _barely_ fifteen.

_What kind of scum did it make him that now he was past the shock he didn't actually _care_ how young she'd been back then? It wasn't like she was still fifteen now. Fuck, he was more disgusting than he'd previously hoped._

_Dorea didn't think he was scum though._

Xanxus blew up three serpentine Constructs and one vaguely equine one. Self-loathing was a deeply ingrained habit he was going to have to break before it fucked up his marriage any further. That was going to be painful.

_Also terrifying, because how the hell do you stop hating yourself? _

He should probably find a priest to talk to. Not the Vongola-associated one though; he didn't want to risk exposure like that, even though the priest probably wouldn't rat him out on purpose. Just meeting up with that one would be a massive risk he'd much rather not take, especially when he probably wouldn't be able to trust the man much anyway due to his ties to Nono. There were a couple of former Varia who'd gone into the Church, both of them Suns, so he should probably be able to corner one of them somehow before going back; he should ask the Shark to put the details in with the paperwork. Hell, how many more of the Varia he remembered working with were retired now?

_Probably more than half of them; six years is a long, long time in the Varia._

The block of marble dropping out of nowhere broke off that depressing line of thought very tidily, as Xanxus had to dodge in order to not get squashed. Interestingly the chunk of rock did _not_ crumple when he blasted it with Wrath Flames, which said it was an actual _real_ several ton block of marble and not a Mist-construct. In fact the rough monolith wasn't even _scorched_, which was curious. Something Xanxus had learned before he was six was that _everything_ burned, even stone. He'd got in trouble enough times for scorching the marble floors of the Vongola Mansion; actually eroding away stone took a bit more effort, but it was perfectly possible if you could actually be bothered.

To not burn at _all_ the marble block had to be Altered or Enchanted somehow by someone who actually understood how Wrath Flames worked, which made it all the more interesting.

Within his first year of being brought into the Vongola, Xanxus had discovered that nobody had a clue what made Wrath Flames different. Oh, there was no shortage of speculation and pretty much every Don since Quarto had written pages of stuffy hypotheses on the subject to clog up the shelves of the Vongola Archives, but nobody knew shit because Ricardo Vongola's very extensive journals and record books never even _hinted_ at what made his Flames so different to Primo's. Not even vague allusions at training sessions, experiments or control exercises, which had always made Xanxus wonder how on earth he'd managed to do anything with his Flames at _all_, much less terrorise the Underworld to the point that Ricardo Vongola's reputation was still synonymous with power and terrified awe. It took practice to master any skill, but while Secondo had made extensive notes concerning his Guardians' and sons' training, he'd never so much as hinted at his own. The discrepancy had been infuriating and aged nine Xanxus had gone through the _entire_ library looking for some overlooked journal that might contain the missing information but had found absolutely jack shit.

Now he knew that Secondo had been a Zabini all those annoying loose ends could be neatly tied up: the man had obviously been trained extensively as a kid –unlike Giotto and his Guardians who were all self-taught in Flames– and with it being a Family thing he'd never have considered writing any of it down, because it was a Zabini thing rather than a Vongola thing and therefore nobody's business but his own. Maybe if one or other of his kids had inherited it he might have taught them, but that hadn't happened so there was nothing on Wrath Flames anywhere in the Vongola that was worth the paper it was written on.

_Did his mother know about Wrath Flames and how to reach and train them before his bastard-father destroyed her mind? Had she taught him as a toddler? Is that how he'd never hurt himself with them and never had any difficulty in keeping them from damaging his clothes? Regardless of the destruction he'd wrought to just about everything else at one point or another… _

Xanxus ground his teeth in rage at that whisper of speculation; it was another of the things he was massively furious about. Unfortunately his bastard-father wasn't somewhere Xanxus could get at right now, leaving the Varia Boss to stew and fume and rage without a clear outlet.

He glared at the marble block. Whatever this shit was, it definitely _wasn't_ Mist-work: Mist Flames couldn't stand up to Wrath Flames for more than a fraction of a second before collapsing; Wrath Flames could vaporise far denser substances with very little added effort. Magic then; Xanxus carefully Altered his vision until he could actually _see_ what he knew had to be there. Seeing it did not make it much easier to decipher though.

It had been a while –even without counting the six years on ice– since Xanxus had last unravelled a written trap purely by instinct. He knew enough languages and coding styles now that he could generally unpick anything that relied on words to hold it together, but this one was new to him. It looked fucking weird too: the actual script was a variant on the Greek alphabet but none of the words were even slightly Greek, or Latin, or anything else that could feasibly be written in Greek without losing intelligibility.

The pattern _between_ the words though… Xanxus eyed the elegant geometry of curves and flowing spirals for several long moments before lobbing another ball of Wrath Flames at the block.

Hmm… oh, that was _interesting_. Whoever had designed this thing definitely knew more about Wrath Flames than Xanxus did, which meant he should go ask his brother-in-law –as Blaise had chosen to designate himself– about it later. New and interesting ways to manipulate his Flames were always fun to work out and he'd not seen anything this useful before anywhere. He might actually be able to properly Flame-proof his workshop and personal suite with this and if he twisted a few of those dissipation spirals into feedback loops he could seriously increase the effectiveness of the amplification matrices on his next set of X-guns. Hopefully not to breaking point, but the weapons would definitely have a kick.

* * *

"Feeling better?"

Xanxus did not look up from the curious Flame-dissipating ward –he was pretty sure 'ward' was the right word– he was still feeding little bits of different Flames into. It didn't really 'dissipate' the Flames, not really: it pulled them away and around and apart, then ran all those thinned-out traces into the reserves of Flames already contained within its framework, creating a pseudo-harmony that reinforced the superstructure of the ward itself. The Ward _did_ however completely consume the extra element –which he now knew was magic– that made Wrath Flames impossible to imitate or manufacture for people other than him. Maybe a Mist could if they knew enough about magic to imitate it, but how many would actually think to try that, even if they _did_ know about magic?

Most people in the mafia thought Wrath Flames were a mix of Sky and Storm Flames and they were all so wrong it was hilarious; they were just making assumptions based on what they knew that had the closest effects and that was still a far cry from what Wrath Flames were really capable of. The 'Wrath' bit could actually be applied to any Flame; Xanxus had created Mist-Wrath Flames before, just to prove he could. His own preferred Wrath Flame mix contained Sky and Storm with a hint of Cloud, which exacerbated and amplified the inherent destructiveness and sheer heat of the Wrath component while further perpetuating the assumptions made by trash. Plus it neatly hid the truth, which was that what made Wrath Flames different wasn't actually Flames at all.

It had taken Xanxus _years_ to work that last bit out, despite the fact that using the Wrath tainting his soul relied on his Will just as much as the rest of his Flames did. He'd deduced it almost by accident, as an 'if all the other possible options are ruled out, what remains, however implausible, is probably correct' Sherlock Holmes bullshit hypothesis he'd promptly tried and failed to disprove. He'd been fucking pissed off about it at the time too; even abandoned the whole Flame research project entirely for six months and built his first set of guns. He probably wouldn't have managed to make the guns work at all if he hadn't known that the Wrath component wasn't truly Flames, but he _had_ known and the guns _worked_, with or without him using the Wrath part, which had been what he'd wanted to achieve anyway. Those weren't the ones his wife had, as he'd outgrown that first set a few years before he even met Squalo.

"I'll take that as a yes," the voice went on. Xanxus was mostly sure it belonged to the Mist married to Luna the Lunatic. Also known as Frank or Thing Two; probably the younger twin. He was just a little bit Stormier than his identical sibling –Xanxus had a feeling Ginny the Hitwoman was a younger sibling to those two and it wasn't just the freckles they had in common conveying that impression– and not bound to Dorea by anything more substantial than respect. That he stuck around anyway was likely tied up in humouring his twin –who _was_ fully bonded to Xanxus' wife– and his own wife, which said the man was secure enough in himself to compromise without lingering resentment or bitterness. That was a good quality for a Mist to have, especially a Stormy Mist; they tended to be bull-headed just for the hell of it.

Also intensely irritating entirely on purpose. Couldn't ever forget that. He wasn't even looking at the other man yet Xanxus could _still_ tell that the Stormy Mist's body language was somehow provocative.

"Tracy would like you to remember that you haven't been released from the clutches of the healers yet, so do please sit down before you keel over."

Xanxus sat down cross-legged on the scrubby grass in front of the block of marble, which put a new bit of the ward conveniently at eye height.

"O-kay, I'll just… leave you to it then," Frank said flatly, not entirely quiet footsteps fading off as he walked away. "Have fun!"

Xanxus snorted. _Mists_. At least this one recognised when not to push his luck.

* * *

Daphne sat calmly in her chosen armchair, a teacup on the small side-table within arm's reach and a copy of _Shakespeare's Sonnets_ open on her lap. Reading had always been something she enjoyed greatly, but in the past few years she had been drawn to poetry over regular fiction. It had been the works of Horace in the original Latin that had first caught her imagination, with their thoughtful social commentary and amusing imagery, but most recently she had wandered into Shakespeare –the poetry that is; the plays she was already somewhat familiar with– and was happily captivated by the language and emotional depth they contained. She was well on her way to memorising them all; poetry was infinitely quotable and always enjoyable. She was also inclined to go back over Shakespeare's plays and read them with a focus on the rhythm and sentiment rather than the underlying story, but that was something for later.

Currently Daphne's primary concern was keeping Dorea on an even keel until her husband came back from blowing off steam down in the training field. Not the easiest of tasks when Alexandro Zabini was quite exceptionally angry about matters beyond his control, but Daphne was not about to abandon her friend just because she was tetchy and unsettled. She had pledged service because she loved her friend, and while that love had over time shifted from infatuation into strong platonic attachment that didn't make her any less committed to Rhea's emotional wellbeing. Quite the opposite in fact: not being blinded by her own emotions made it rather easier for Daphne to follow her friend and liege-lady's moods.

Dorea had started by trying to play the piano after handing off Hector to Blaise, but had abandoned that after barely a quarter of an hour in favour of a quick shower and changing out of the sparring outfit she'd eaten lunch in. She had emerged in a tea gown of dull rose and dark gold silk, the circular neckline showing off her collarbones and the top of her back as the subtle bodice shaping flattered her figure without clinging too closely. It was a very elegant dress; it worked very well with Rhea's colouring and was easy to move in. Daphne had seen her friend dance, wander around the formal gardens and participate in an impromptu spar in that dress, all without any visible reduction in mobility.

Right at the moment however Dorea was half-reclining against the cushions on the small settee opposite Daphne's armchair, hands swiftly shifting the bobbins and pins of her current lace project with the determined single-mindedness of a person resolutely ignoring an intrusive distraction. Rhea's lace was always beautiful, being made of very fine silk thread and featuring impeccably symmetrical designs, but she was experienced enough now that she did not actually need to give her work her full and undivided attention. Dorea had started lacemaking while expecting for the first time and had got in a lot of practice both then and during her second pregnancy. It was something that did not require her to get up, so she tended to do quite a lot in the later months… when not throwing breakables at her legion of in-laws, that is.

The pinned roll of lace at the top of the cushion being used to support the pattern testified to how swiftly Dorea was capable of working; it was twice as large as it had been two hours ago when Daphne's twitchy liege-lady had picked up her work and settled on the settee.

Reaching out to pick up her teacup and saucer so as to sip her cooling tea, Daphne scrutinised her friend's face and posture intently. She looked more relaxed than she had earlier, the tautness in her jaw and shoulders having faded almost to nothing and the stiffness of her neck softening into something more comfortable. Her magic was no longer swirling agitatedly around her either, suggesting that her husband had calmed down enough that Rhea no longer had to actively ignore his emotions in order to focus on her work. Testing the waters, Daphne levitated her friend's teacup back to the tea tray, refilled it from the pot then levitated cup and saucer back to their original position on a small table about a foot from Rhea's elbow.

Dorea reached out and caught the teacup by the handle, lifting it to her lips for a sip then replacing it neatly on the saucer. Yes, the worst was past; Daphne could probably get away with reading aloud in a little while. Glancing down at her newly turned page, the Steward of House Black smiled; sonnet one hundred and sixteen; how appropriate.

"_Let me not to the marriage of true minds  
_"_Admit impediments, love is not love  
_"_Which alters when it alteration finds,  
_"_Or bends with the remover to remove.  
_"_Oh no, it is an ever fixèd mark  
_"_That looks on tempests and is never shaken.  
_"_It is the star to every wandering barque,  
_"_Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.  
_"_Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
_"_Within his bending sickle's compass come,  
_"_Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,  
_"_But bears it out even to the edge of doom:  
_"_If this be error and upon me proved,  
_"_I never writ, nor no man ever loved_."

Rhea glanced up from her lace, hands stilling over the pins. "Reassurance, Dee?"

Daphne gazed demurely across at her friend over the edge of her book. "Poetry should always be read aloud for best effect," she said sweetly. "Shall I read it again?"

"Please," came the deep, slightly hoarse request from off to her right; Daphne glanced sideways to see her friend's husband standing in the open doorway, the subtle widening of his eyes and splay of his fingers against the doorframe suggesting that he had just been completely poleaxed. Zabini cues were increasingly subtle the more Siren they were, but Daphne had practice. Most recently with Bastiano, who as a red-eyed Zabini was simultaneously the most subtle in the outward physical expression of his mood and the most fiercely emotive individual she had ever met. Alexandro Zabini might yet take that title from Bastiano, but Daphne would only be able to judge that in time.

Daphne obligingly raised the book, lowered her eyes and read the sonnet again, this time more slowly and musically than her initial teasing recitation. By the time she lifted her eyes from the page at the end of the poem Alexandro Zabini was sitting down facing Dorea, his knees not quite touching hers and his right arm stretching across the back of the settee so that his hand was inches from her face. He was utterly intent but not actually staring, eyes flicking from Rhea's face to her hands on the lace bobbins to her dress and then up to her hair, taking in all of her.

The way his left hand curled into a loose fist on his thigh was really _very_ telling when you knew what you were looking at: nerves, care, gentle consideration and a reminder to stay grounded against a feeling that could best be described as _wanting_. The slow, careful reaching out of his right hand to smooth a wayward curl behind Rhea's ear made Daphne feel uncomfortably like a voyeur; Alexandro Zabini was so desperately in love it was painful to watch. Now she understood why Rhea had gone through that guilty moping phase; being the focus of _that_ for several hours had meant Rhea found herself wanting in the matter of emotional investment in her marriage and had felt genuinely guilty about it.

Rhea's response was to lean into her husband's hand, so that he was cupping her cheek as she watched him from under her lashes. As the man had left his dragonhide jacket somewhere Daphne could read the muscles in his neck and back rather well through his shirt: delight, lust, comfort and poised determination, all in rapid succession.

"I overreacted," Alexandro said quietly, his thumb stroking across Dorea's cheek.

"You have a lot to adjust to," Dorea replied equally quietly. Not excusing his behaviour, but not condemning it either; a gentle, gracious statement of fact.

"No excuse." He said nothing for several long seconds, time in which Dorea waited patiently for him to continue. "Sorry."

"Forgiven," Dorea said gently. "I think cultural misunderstandings are going to be something of a theme."

Alexandro huffed a sharp breath of amusement. "Likely," he conceded with a faint smirk.

"Better now?" Rhea asked.

Her husband tilted his head lower in agreement, then leaned closer as the hand caressing the side of Dorea's face and neck gripped ever so gently and tugged her forwards. Daphne politely lowered her eyes to her book, turning the page and tuning out the soft, muffled noises her friend was making. She didn't need to see her friend being thoroughly kissed by her husband; hearing it happen was enough to make staying in the same room an uncomfortable prospect.

After maybe a minute however Alexandro made a deep, smug, growling sound and Daphne decided that it was in her best interests to leave the couple to their own devices for a little while. Getting to her feet, she tucked the book of sonnets under one arm and walked out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her. She would have to find somewhere else to sit; reading was unlikely to continue now that her mood was thoroughly unsettled.

She had gotten over her crush years ago, so why did Alexandro kissing Dorea –with the desire to do more explicit in his body-language– bother her so much?


	127. Chapter 127

Beta'd by the collected InsaneScriptist.

Last chapter of this set of updates; no cliffhanger this time, I promise!

* * *

**Of communication and courtship**

Xanxus sprawled comfortably on the small sofa in the modestly-sized sitting room he'd found Dorea in, wife in his lap as he took his time kissing her. The lace pillow with its many pins and bobbins was laid on the floor under the sofa, well out of the way of accidents, and he was in no hurry at all; he had all the time in the world to do everything his wife was willing to go along with and right now he wanted to kiss her. Light, fleeting kisses on her eyelids, teasing nips on her ears and neck, thorough and relentless exploration of her mouth with his tongue... he could feel her desire through their marriage bond and it was so damn _satisfying_. He wanted to savour it, draw it out and prolong the whole experience for hours on end. Sex was all very well –completely fantastic even, as he remembered _very_ well– but he wanted this too, this heady, giddy warmth that wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere.

Her hair was so soft, too. Really curly, but it slid through his fingers smoothly and smelled fantastic, sweetly floral from some shampoo which miraculously didn't have lingering chemical undertones. Tugging gently on those springy curls still made her breath hitch too, just like it had on their wedding night; Xanxus very deliberately didn't pull too hard, as that would probably escalate a situation he was very happy to drag out indefinitely.

The differences in his wife were minor but numerous: the skin on her face wasn't quite as smooth; she had new scars on her hands –sword scars like Squalo had so many of– and a few fine, old Flame scars across her shoulders that had faded almost to nothing; her hair was longer and redder –that might have been the light though– and the bones in her face were all just that little bit stronger. She looked finished now, where before she hadn't quite grown into herself.

Flame-induced maturation meant that despite not being seventeen yet, Xanxus was himself mostly grown –at least physically– but mostly wasn't completely. Luss had given him another four years on his last Medical check, but twenty wasn't that far off considering civilian men sometimes didn't finish filling out until they were almost thirty. He'd never given a shit about his looks before but knowing he was closer to adult than most sixteen-year-olds was really reassuring, what with his wife being four years older than him all of a sudden. He'd never liked those couples where it was very obvious that the older half had just wanted a naïve play-toy to spice up their sex life and looking like that would have been irritating.

Well, since it was _him_ maybe people would think he'd seduced an older woman; that was amusing to imagine. His wife looked like she could be any age between nineteen and thirty so it might come up. Xanxus smirked against Dorea's neck; magic and secrecy shit meant he was never going to have to tell _anybody_ in the mafia exactly how he'd met and married the magnificent woman in his arms, so he should probably make the most of the opportunity and come up with at least a dozen conflicting stories in varying shades of plausible. That was something for later though.

Blunt nails scraped through his hair, across the back of his scalp down to the nape of his neck and Xanxus shuddered, his breath quickening; oh, that felt _good_. He scraped his teeth down the side of his wife's throat, sucking on her skin over the tendons where neck met shoulder. Having the freedom to leave a hickey somewhere visible without having to worry about anybody hassling him about it or gossiping later was so damn _liberating_ he was tempted to do several.

No, he had time. He could do this one, maybe one other, then give Dorea new ones somewhere different once they had faded.

Time was a fucking _luxury_ and right now he had _weeks_ of it so he was going to damn well _savour_ it. Every single fucking second.

* * *

Dorea was completely deliriously happy to snuggle with her husband and make out like they were teenagers in the Slytherin common room, sprawled all over a settee and finding new and fun ways to make each-other squirm. Considering her husband was supposed to be taking it easy and had already spent the better part of two hours blowing things up today, anything more strenuous was probably not an option. Which was a relief actually, since married they might have been but Dorea wanted to get to know her husband properly, not just have sex and assume their relationship would miraculously work itself out. Because it wouldn't and glossing over the past six years without acknowledging any of the issues would just ensure they crashed and burned.

Those issues would keep for a little longer though.

Dorea ended up lying sideways on her husband as he lay on his back along the settee, his head on one armrest and his legs hanging over the opposite one with his feet almost touching the floor because he was so tall. She was slumped across his lap, her head against his shoulder and her feet curled up under his thighs, slippers lying on the floor, her skirts all squashed and rumpled. It was wonderful and Xanxus still hadn't stopped playing with her hair; her hairstyle had been thoroughly demolished but her ridiculous, adorable husband had dropped all the pins he'd stolen into the saucer of her teacup so there probably weren't more than one or two lost down the side of the settee cushions.

Why he was so captivated by her waist-length curls Dorea had no idea, but he kept on tugging them and running sections of hair through his fingers, pulling it straight then watching the ringlets bounce back. It didn't hurt and she honestly liked the attention, so he could go on doing it all he wanted, but it was still a little odd and very sweet. It made her heart ache a bit too, because this was something she hadn't known about her husband until now.

Another interesting discovery –for her at least– was that her husband's tissue grafts were very sensitive, to the point of being slightly ticklish. He'd nearly rolled them both off the settee entirely when she'd lightly brushed her fingers over one of the jagged marks on his neck, but when she'd sucked on the ones along the right-hand side of his jaw he'd made a deliciously breathy moaning sound as all the air left his lungs at once and clutched at her upper arms hard enough that she could feel every individual finger. He'd looked so surprised too, eyes wide, pupils blown and jaw slack. Dorea had of course taken ruthless advantage of suddenly having the upper hand and firmly kissed every last bit of new white skin she could reach without unbuttoning his shirt, which had been quite a lot. That he'd let her do it, let her climb over him and suck on that delicate, thin skin on his face and neck without retaliating and reacted completely spontaneously to her curious exploration, had been quite possibly the sexiest part of the whole experience.

Having her husband coax her body to breathless desire was one thing, but getting to do it to him was an _experience_. She wanted to do it again; the sounds he made were a major turn-on.

Not just yet though; right now she was basking.

"Love you," her husband said, his voice a deep, contented rumble right by her ear.

"I love you too," Dorea said.

"But you're not _in_ love with me."

No. She wasn't. And she felt horribly guilty about that all of a sudden.

"No, stop, sorry," Xanxus said quickly, legs lifting up and swinging around so he was sitting with his feet planted on the floor and his back against the backrest, arms wrapping around her and holding her in place in his lap. "Not like that. _Never_ like that. Please?"

Dorea breathed. Okay, her husband knew she wasn't in love with him, and he seemed not to mind. Or at least he wasn't blaming her for not being in love with him. "How did you mean it then?" She asked, looking up at his face.

Red eyes softened and her husband relaxed his grip on her. "I want you to be in love with me," Xanxus said carefully, "but you don't trust me yet. That's fine. I hurt you by not being there for you. I want to make it up to you by courting you. Properly. With dinner dates and outings and flowers." There was a distinctly wary edge to his emotions; hope and love made brittle and tight by the bitter bite of fear.

Dorea tried to ignore that fear as she considered her husband's proposal; agreeing just to placate him would be a grave disservice to the both of them. She didn't have to think for more than a second or two though. "I'd like that," she admitted shyly. "We could explore Sabina together or visit my other Family properties; I haven't been able to see all of them, what with the war then having the children to look after."

"And me to find," Xanxus added humorously, kissing her hair.

"That too," Dorea admitted candidly. "Some of them will have to be family outings though; you need to get to know the children too."

"As well, _not_ instead of."

"Not to mention all that paperwork Squalo is going to be foisting off on you from now on," Dorea added teasingly, "and the Sabina paperwork as well."

Her husband learnt his forehead against her scalp and groaned theatrically.

"I can help you with the Sabina bits; I've been signing it all in your absence after all," Dorea said, relenting slightly. "Which reminds me: this is yours now." She removed the large signet ring with its carnelian intaglio from her right thumb. "Here: the signet ring of the Heir of Sabina." She dropped it into her husband's left hand. "Your cousin Graziano deals with all the day-to-day things and has been doing so for decades, so how involved you get and when is entirely up to you. I've not been doing much, as I have two other Families to run already plus the children."

Xanxus slipped the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand. "Not an eagle," he commented, eyeing the intaglio.

"It's a vulture," Dorea said. "Sirens had vulture wings."

Her husband made a small sound of acknowledgement and tugged on another of her bangs. "They change."

"Pardon?"

"Your curls," Xanxus specified, tugging gently on her hair again. "Magic?"

"I'm a partial Metamorph," Dorea explained, making her hair frizz up, then fall completely straight before changing the colour to dark red. "I can change my hair and eye colour, change my skin tone a little and do minor shifts in my bone structure, but no more than that. It's a Family Gift." She let her hair return to normal; it was long enough now that having it straight rather than curly while it was loose was tremendously inconvenient.

"Not just conscious control," her husband said eventually.

Dorea blushed pink. "The curls respond to my mood."

Xanxus paused, tugging on a bang again before smirking slightly. "Happy curls?"

Dorea flushed darker, then darker still at the wicked, toothy grin that spread across her husband's face. How could predatory glee be so attractive? The emotional component was just as devastating: delight, confidence, desire and love so sharp it was almost painful…

Then Xanxus was bending down to kiss her again, strong fingers gripping her chin and tilting her face up to meet his and words stopped mattering for a little while.

* * *

Of course, it couldn't last; there was a patter of feet in the hallway followed by a thud against the door, then a loud complaint.

"Mama! Maamaaa!"

Dorea quickly disentangled herself from her husband, pushed her hair out of her face and tried to straighten her dress. "Coming, Hector!"

Xanxus sighed, not unkindly, rose to his feet beside her and quickly pinned her bangs back from her face. Smiling a quick thanks, Dorea hurried over to the door and opened it, just in time to see Blaise try to remove her toddler son.

"Mama!" Hector said firmly, lifting up his hands in a demand to be carried. Dorea scooped him up, supporting his weight on her hip.

"Hello, poppet. Have you been good?"

"No, he hasn't," Zee said dryly. "He's been asking for you ever since he woke up from his nap and was very rude to Nanny Sofia."

"Did you apologise to Nanny Sofia, Hector?" Dorea asked her eighteen-month-old son, who pouted and buried his flushed face in her shoulder.

"Mama," the toddler said sulkily.

"What's got you so grumpy, little man?" She asked, running a hand though short, messy red hair. Hector had _definitely_ inherited the Potter Hair, which deserved capitalising and was completely untameable unless worn very short or rather long. So far she was keeping it short, but once Hector was seven or so she'd give him the option to try growing it out, provided he was willing to look after it. He was an Heir, so nobody would comment; long hair was Traditional for Heirs and Lords.

"_My_ Mama!" Hector whined, pulling her hair with one tiny hand and gripping the collar of her dress with the other.

"No. Mine." Xanxus said flatly, coming up beside her to stare down at his youngest son.

Hector's face reddened and he drew in several quick, sharp breaths, but before he could screech Xanxus deftly untangled the toddler from her dress and hair and held the little boy close.

"Maaamaaa!" Hector wailed, struggling and pounding fists and feet on his father's chest as tears streamed down his face and his nose ran.

"No. Mine." Xanxus repeated firmly, swaying back and forth and he cradled the struggling toddler against his chest and shoulder.

"Uaaaaaaa! Aaaaaaa!"

Xanxus nodded at Blaise, turned around and walked back into the small sitting room, humming a soothing tune and doing something oddly soporific with his Flames as he closed the door behind him. Her husband had experience with small children? Clearly he had enough to know what to do with stroppy toddlers… Dorea stared at the door for a moment before looking over at her oath-brother. Zee's eyes flicked from her hair to her throat then over her dress before he spoke.

"I suggest leaving Hector to his father; your bratling's not used to sharing and the sooner he gets used to not being the most important man in your life the better."

"Good point," Dorea conceded, looking down at her stocking-clad feet and flicking her hair back behind her shoulder.

"Could you go put a shawl or scarf on Rhea? Please?" Blaise asked. "I'm fine with you being married, honest, but seeing the hickeys on your neck is a bit much."

"This is my house, not yours, Blaise," Dorea said sharply, not sure why the request struck a nerve but not inclined to moderate herself regardless.

"I didn't mean it like that; I just don't want to have to explain hickeys to the little twins," Blaise said hastily, waving his hands. "You know Cassie is going to ask who hurt you if they see you with bruises and I'd rather put off _any_ version of the sex talk for at least another five years, please?"

Dorea settled. Yes, that was perfectly reasonable. Why had she overreacted? "Sorry Zee, I…" She couldn't think of how to explain it.

Zee smiled, nudging her gently with his Flames. "It's okay; things aren't settled yet so you're allowed to be irrational for a while," he teased gently. "Just have a little mercy on the rest of us, sister-mine."

"I'll try," Dorea promised, smiling back. "Are you going to walk with me or wait here?"

"I'll walk with you; do you have any plans for this evening?" Blaise asked as he turned to accompany her along the corridor, away from the muffled sounds of her youngest son's tantrum and towards her private suite.

"Nothing in particular; I mean, I am going to have to talk to Dawn, Fay and Rence about the political mess currently brewing over in Britain either today or tomorrow at the latest, but that's going to be a very annoying conversation so I've been trying not to dwell on it," Dorea admitted. "I knew going in that sweeping political reforms were going to antagonise a lot of people, but I expected to get more backlash from the Dark Traditionalists, not the Light Moderates!"

"Rhea, you and your father _gutted_ the Dark Traditionalists," Zee said dryly. "Those few that remain are far too wary of your various sworn allies to _dare_ rock the boat, not even just a little bit. Dumbledore's old allies however feel ill-used by the tribunal, are mostly still alive and very unhappy with their loss of influence and prestige following the Old Goat's death. The influx of young Lords and Ladies to the Wizengamot has upset them too, as they are discovering that they are less moderate than they thought they were –though they're wording it as 'young people with no respect for their elders' rather than admitting to that."

"Is there anything we can actually class as slander and libel yet?"

"Sadly not," Blaise muttered, "or I'd have set Hermione on them already."

Yes, that would solve everything very nicely without Dorea having to get involved; oh well, not everything in life could be fixed by lawyers or the threat of them. "Wibbly?"

There was a subdued cracking sound as the house-elf appeared, wearing a neat tea towel tunic. "Mistress Potter?"

"My husband is in the private sitting room down the hall with our son; could you wait outside, in case he requires anything?"

"Wibbly will wait on Master Potter," the house-elf said seriously, bowing and pattering back the way she and Zee had come.

"Have you mentioned house-elves to your husband yet?" Blaise asked. Dorea paused.

"No, I haven't; should I send a footman to replace Wibbly?"

"It might be a good idea," her oath-brother said dryly. "We wouldn't want any embarrassing and avoidable misunderstandings to take place."

"I'll ring for Pietro once we get to my suite," Dorea said firmly. Zee was right; surprising Xanxus with a house-elf would probably go rather badly. She'd have to introduce him to the house-elves soon, before one of them attempted to be helpful and startled him.


	128. Chapter 128

Yep, it's update week again! Enjoy!

Beta'd by the invested Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of health and compromise **

Xanxus held his youngest as he paced in the room, not pausing or slowing as the toddler slowly settled down from crying, flailing and screaming to discontented mumbles as the Varia Boss hummed. The technique he was using was technically a Rain-trick, one he'd learned off his sister Maria-Chiara, modified to work with Sky Flames since Rain was the Flame Xanxus was least adept with. Oh, he could use them, but using the Sky-trick was easier all around since he didn't have to take a few moments to focus beforehand.

By the time Hector had calmed down enough to sleep after throwing a tantrum over no longer being his mother's first and overriding priority, Xanxus was starting to feel a bit ragged around the edges as well. His baby son had yanked two of the feathers out of his hair while wailing in his ear, which had hurt for one and for another had brought his attention to the fact that they were looking pretty scraggly. He treated his feathers to be Flame-proof, waterproof and resistant to damage, but the process had its limits and he'd definitely barrelled right through them when the old fart had frozen him solid.

He'd known that already; he'd had a look at his feathers while he was in the shower this morning and judged them past their best, but it had been a minor concern compared to everything else. Now though it was seriously bugging him for no definable reason. Maybe because Sebastiano and a few other Zabini he'd seen –along with his wife, come to that– had been wearing feathers. In fact his wife's feathers were still laid out on the small table beside her abandoned teacup, along with most of her other hair accessories. Unfortunately however toddler mauling had been the last straw for his own poor feathers and they were now completely past it.

Shifting carefully so as not to disturb Hector, who was still hiccupping in his sleep and might therefore wake at any moment, Xanxus reached out and picked up one of the feathers that had been dangling from his wife's hairdo.

Some kind of falcon feather; Eleonora's falcon, that was it. It fit. Xanxus had never quite been able to explain why certain feathers would suit certain people, but the fact remained that feathers _meant_ things to him and seeing people wearing feathers they shouldn't irritated him. Lussuria wasn't the only person in the Varia to favour unconventional fashions and they weren't the only ones in the mafia either; peacock feathers in the hair of pampered mafia wives and daughters were the most frequent offenders.

He needed new feathers. Different feathers. But what to get?

Xanxus pondered the problem, head tilted back against the top of the sofa to stare at the ceiling as his son drooled on his borrowed shirt, adding saliva to the tears and snot already staining it. If he could get his hands on _any_ feathers at all, what did he want?

… He was leaning towards spotted woodpecker feathers for some reason. Weird, but hey, why not? They were pretty large and the white spots were very clear against a black background, so they'd look good. Something else as well would be nice, but he couldn't think of anything he liked as much as spotted woodpecker right now, rather than lesser kestrel like he'd been wearing up until now or osprey. Well, he could start with the woodpecker feathers and there was always the option to add more feathers later or change things around.

Hector had finally stopped hiccupping in his sleep and started snoring gently, so Xanxus scooped up his wife's hairpins with one hand, got to his feet and headed for the door, his youngest son cradled against his shoulder. He might have to wander around for a bit to find the nursery, but doing so would give him more of a feel for the house than the process of finding this specific sitting room had already provided him with.

Except there was somebody waiting for him in the hallway; the footman from earlier, the younger one who had brought the box of china to his sickroom.

"_The princess suggested I be on hand, should you require anything, prince,_" the footman said respectfully in the unfamiliar Italian dialect that was probably local to Sabina.

Xanxus considered that statement and its implications, which were many and layered. "Nursery first," he stated in regular Italian; most non-Sicilians had trouble with the Sicilian dialect and not just due to the linguistic corruption from other languages and the divergence in pronunciation. Once Hector was situated he could decide whether or not to go looking for his wife, whose warm contentment was being crushed under a veneer of fatigue.

The footman nodded, turned and led the way along the hallway; Xanxus followed, taking in his surroundings and trying to get a feel for the building. Rather like the Housekeeping Wing of the Vongola Mansion, the outside did not correspond directly to the inside, so you couldn't just assume where you were based on what you could see out of the nearest window. For instance the hallway he was walking down had doors on either side, yet also had windows along the left-hand wall above and between the doors. Whether those windows were fakes or somehow the same windows as those which opened into the rooms the doors led to was still in question, but it was very definitely something inherent to the construction of the building and not just a last-minute add-on. Magical architecture promised to be a very interesting subject, potentially in an Escher-esque manner.

He really did have a great deal to learn about his wife and her culture. He should probably also ask how much she knew about the mafia generally and the Vongola specifically, so as to make it more of an exchange. It would be entirely for his own benefit –being the one asking all the questions made him feel stupid and therefore shortened his temper– but he was happy to talk at length his wife about obscure Vongola traditions as they would probably make her laugh. Dorea had a really _wonderful_ laugh and her smiles killed him every time; from the tiny lip-twitches to the massive, open-mouthed grins they were all utterly delightful and he wanted to see more of them. Even the giggles were charming and fuck, he'd never thought that about giggles before _ever_.

Dear God, he was crazy about her, wasn't he? Completely gone and he did not give a fuck. She was amazing, she was his _wife_ and she wasn't asking for a divorce despite his not doing shit for her beyond knock her up.

And she wasn't even in love with him. How could anybody be that gracious?

Well, she wasn't in love with him _yet_. Xanxus liked challenges and this one actually _mattered_ so he was damn well going to make sure his marvellous wife really understood how much he loved her, how far he was willing to go for her and that he wasn't going to abandon her again.

It wasn't going to be easy convincing her that she could trust him not to hurt her –including entirely by accident through casual negligence– but it would be worth it. Despite the inevitability of it being very hard on his pride.

Walking up a staircase made it much more obvious to Xanxus that he was sore all over; he'd probably pushed himself a bit too hard, considering this was his first day off bed-rest and it was less than a week since he'd been defrosted. It was going to take a while to get himself back up to Varia Quality fitness and trying to rush the recovery would be Stupid. Neglecting his family would be even more Stupid, so he wasn't going to do that either. Pacing himself was going to be the real challenge, what with how _much_ he had to catch up on or learn in the first place. He needed a plan.

Xanxus also needed to talk to his wife about enacting said plan, to making co-ordinating easier. He could do that once he'd dropped off his youngest and got a good look at the Nursery staff responsible for caring for his children.

* * *

The 'Nanny Sofia' Blaise had mentioned turned out to be a middle-aged woman with crow's-feet, laugh-lines and a few threads of silver showing here and there in her hair. Unlike the other Zabini he'd seen so far she didn't look much like him at all: she was stout and round-faced with a snub nose and dark brown eyes. She also looked short, but wasn't really; Xanxus knew he was tall, so Nanny Sofia was probably about average height for a woman. She was however on the short side for a Zabini, going by the other female relatives he'd seen so far.

More interestingly, she had presence. A warm, kind, welcoming presence that he was having trouble accepting, because she was a Storm and 'Stormy' and 'agreeable' didn't really go together. Well, not that _Xanxus_ had ever seen anyway; he'd heard rumours about the Storm Arcobaleno but there was a difference between having a good poker face and being genuinely calm that most people missed.

Wait, assuming that all Storm-natured people were volatile was lazy thinking: amongst the Vongola and the allied Famiglia Storms were _expected_ to be touchy and impatient, so those traits never got completely squashed or trained away, not even in heiresses. Dorea's Storm Guardian who had been sitting with her and reading poetry –Daphne, called Steward– was an _unbelievably_ calm Storm by mafia standards, so ridiculously chill she felt Latent. However out in the real world where nobody knew about Flame-type, a civilian woman with a quick temper would get stomped on damn hard –and damn young– for being 'shrewish'. Equally, a mother would be expected to be patient and generous with their kids –would expect _themselves_ to be patient and generous– so they'd learn to keep themselves in check damn quick.

This was a cultural difference Xanxus had never anticipated and now he felt Dumb. Just what he'd needed today, more proof that he was pig-ignorant. Well, at least in _this_ case it wasn't just him: this was definitely something endemic to the Vongola, something he'd definitely have to do something about once he went back to the Varia. Letting people get away with uncontrolled behaviour just because their Flame-type made them more prone to specific emotional reactions was _not_ a sign of Quality. It would be a challenge to rectify, but it wasn't like the Varia didn't thrive on those anyway.

Handing over his son to the Nanny, Xanxus quickly excused himself before he could be fussed over –the look on the older lady's face was disturbingly reminiscent of Maria-Chiara being _concerned_ about him as while Ottava had looked like that too sometimes, the former Donna had always sounded so _amused_ while doing so– and headed back out to the hallway, where the footman was waiting for him. The man had not attempted to enter the nursery –hadn't even touched the door, interestingly– which made Xanxus wonder about the security and how it was layered. Clearly he could go pretty much everywhere but the footmen could not. That seemed a bit impractical, but as it was for his children's safety he could live with it.

"Where is my wife?" He asked the footman, "and what is your name?" Yes, he could feel which direction Dorea was in, but that did not mean that he knew the quickest route to that point. The house definitely had an atypical internal layout as a security measure, as he'd discovered just walking from the small sitting room to the nursery.

"_This way, Prince_," the footman said, turning and gesturing back the way they'd come, "_and I am called Pietro_."

Xanxus grunted an acknowledgement. What he wanted to do right now was take a nap, but seeing what was making his wife feel so helpless took priority.

* * *

Fay was profoundly relieved that the recovery, defrosting and reconciliation with Alexandro Zabini had gone well for Dorea, partly for her liege-lady's sake but mostly because Fay's own wedding was in only slightly over a week and she'd been worried that if things went wrong her marriage might well start out under a cloud. Or she'd feel horribly guilty for going on her honeymoon while Rhea was still trying to rescue her own husband. But thankfully that had not happened: the rescue and Healing had gone almost without a hitch and the two of them seemed to be adapting as well as could be expected, considering. Maybe even better than that really; some of the stories floating around the Vongola concerning Xanxus were a bit… extreme… but it seemed that he was even more mature and self-aware than she'd been able to read between the lines. He and Rhea really were an _excellent_ match.

Of course, Fay hadn't actually been getting out and about in Vongola society just yet –that was waiting until Theo had extracted himself and Xanxus' 'disappearance' became known– but the Zabini had an extensive and well-placed information network in the Vongola-affiliated bits of the Mafia and Costanzo had been sharing with her the information they provided and what was unearthed by the Seers assigned to the still-ongoing investigation, since she was the Potter Guardian responsible for the social side of things. There was a _lot_ to take in, a lot of it ill-informed or just plain ridiculous, but that was not so different from British Magical society really and Fay was managing to work with that perfectly well already.

Well, perhaps not _perfectly_ well, but Rhea's reforms had made things _much_ more tolerable for all that the older generation –technically the generation before the one that her school-mates' parents belonged to– were distinctly unhappy about the changes and making things difficult for all and sundry. Admittedly they were heaping all the blame on Dorea, but that did not change the fact that the Hufflepuffs who had been involved were displeased at having their efforts dismissed and the Ravenclaws were irritable at having their newfound knowledge ignored. Really, all Dorea had done was ratify most of the Ministerial reforms; the actual changes and their enforcement had come from the people still _in_ the Ministry and associated Departments, most of whom were under thirty years of age and not happy at how dismissive of their efforts their elders were being.

Dealing with said elders was proving incredibly tiresome, because Magical Britain no longer being a dictatorship meant that all those stuffy people who had managed to stay on the Wizengamot by dint of being apathetic enough about the status quo to _not_ take a side in the war had the freedom to say anything they liked so long as they refrained from outright slander, and some of the things being said were cruel, bigoted and outright inaccurate. But because they were _opinions_ they had the freedom to voice them as they wished. No matter how unwise or ill-informed such opinions might be.

Fay wasn't happy –nobody affiliated with Dorea was happy– but really all that could be done was have the Lady Potter show up unexpectedly in her Wizengamot seat and force them to either badmouth her to her face or shut up. Badmouthing her to her face was the perfect excuse for a duel –something her employees and representatives couldn't demand without a serious charge being made– and if they shut up once she was there, they'd look weak and cowardly, so it was win-win. However that would only work for a while before the talk started all over again. It was so frustrating!

"So are you going to assume your seat for a while?" Fay asked eventually.

"It looks like I'm going to have to, doesn't it?" Dorea said tiredly, fiddling with a quill. "We can't just let the talk continue; it's poisoning people's minds and will only get worse if allowed to flourish. The twins are going to be attending Hogwarts in six years' time and I want better for them than to have to deal with years of accumulated venom."

"It is not the best solution," Dawn admitted, "but I do not see a better one for us to implement."

Fay was about to protest that there _had_ to be a better solution _somewhere_ when there was a knock at the door.

"Enter," Dorea said crisply, her fingers starting to meticulously shred the quill in her hands.

The door opened, revealing the younger footman –Pietro– and Rhea's husband, whose shirt had smears and damp patches on the upper chest. He was also missing a few feathers, giving him a distinctly lopsided appearance. It was a very domestic look on a man with such an imposing presence and made him look far more approachable, despite the slightly narrowed eyes and impassive facial expression.

"Problem?" the Lord Potter asked, and oh, he had a truly _delicious_ voice, Fay realised; she'd not heard him speak at lunchtime and according to Blaise he'd _literally_ said two words but Merlin, that voice was an _experience_. Deep, rich and sent shivers up the spine; Fay was happily and firmly in love with her Justin but if she'd thought she had a chance with this man she might have been tempted regardless, because he sounded _delicious. _However she knew she had less than zero chance, so she would have to settle for enjoying hearing him speak and admiring from a distance, because Xanxus Zabini was _fit_ in a way that Justin simply was not and filled out his clothing _very_ nicely.

So she was getting married next week; so what? Being in love didn't make her blind and really, all the Zabini were extremely alluring. Dorea's husband just happened to have smouldering sexiness dialled up to nineteen rather than just eleven like his other relatives.

"Not seriously," Dorea said, still shredding the quill one feather barb at a time, "but people who feel wronged say damaging things, so need to be reminded that words have consequences before those words drive others to unwise actions." That was a very diplomatic way of putting it, all things considered.

"Could _I_?"

Dawn abruptly set down her teacup and lifted a hand to cover her mouth, not quite managing to conceal the wide and very toothy grin that had spread across her face. Oh, but that was a scary, scary smile to see on a Black, one Fay hadn't seen since the Declaration of Enmity and Feud against Voldemort. Dorea stilled, half-torn feather gripped between her fingertips.

"As Lord Potter and my husband, you have the right to confront those disrespecting me, or even those you perceive as being disrespectful to me," Dorea said carefully. "In fact, you have far more latitude in that area than I myself do."

Xanxus walked closer and crouched down in front of Dorea's chair, so as to look her straight in the eye. "May I?"

Oh yes, Xanxus Zabini was _definitely_ a keeper; Fay didn't think _any_ other Pureblood male would be considerate enough to ask his wife that question, even if it _was_ her inheritance and Family name being slandered rather than his.

Dorea's answering smile was sweet and sharp and terrifying. "You may. Fay, would you fill my husband in on the political background he'll need for a few days in Britain? I really need to go lie down for an hour or so."

Of course, Dorea was still recovering from having her magical equilibrium changed and one full day's sleep wasn't quite enough for that. "I'd be happy to," Fay said cheerfully, quickly stacking up the papers on the table and clearing a space next to one of the empty chairs so the Lord Potter could sit down. "Go take your nap, Rhea."

"I'll be on the daybed next door," Dorea added as her husband lifted her to her feet, tipped a pile of hairpins and feathers into her other hand and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Come join me once you're done here?"

Xanxus dipped his chin fractionally in agreement, releasing his wife and watching her walk out of the room before turning to study Fay thoughtfully as he stepped closer to the table.

"Socialite," he said eventually, his deliciously deep voice caressing the syllables.

Fay nodded mutely then remembered her manners. "You can call me Fay if you prefer; what would you prefer to be called, Lord Potter?"

The teenager grimaced for a split-second at the title before his expression lightened again and he dropped into the chair, sprawling backwards in a very comfortable-looking slump with his arms flopped languidly along the armrests. "Xanxus."

So Dorea's husband was a man of few words; that was fine. He seemed to have a knack for making himself clearly understood, so reticence wouldn't be an obstacle to his desire to silence those upsetting Rhea.

"You know what, I think I'll leave you two to it," Dawn said abruptly, that wild grin still plastered across her face. "Have fun." Her retreat was almost too fast to be dignified and muffled cackles were audible through the closed door after her hasty exit.

Xanxus Zabini cocked an eyebrow at Fay.

"That's Dawn; she's Dorea's second cousin through the Blacks and a seer," Fay explained, deciding that Dawn's earlier 'us' referred either to those in the room at the time or those with Dorea's permission to act on her behalf in Family matters; it really could be either. "I'm guessing that Dorea agreeing to let you do this results in something intensely unpleasant for the victims and extremely enjoyable to watch for anybody with a taste for Schadenfreude."

Xanxus' face was fairly impassive, but Fay had been working with a good number of other Zabinis in recent years and she knew _that_ expression: that was bloodthirsty anticipation under a thin veneer of predatory amusement.

"So, you need a basic overview of who's who in the Wizengamot, the factions, when and how various individuals came to power and Dorea's involvement," Fay decided, tapping her fingers on the table. "I don't have all that here, so I'll need my other notes from my study." She paused. "Has Dorea introduced you to the house-elves yet?"

A slight dip of both eyebrows was her only answer; that was probably a 'no' then.

"They're domestic homunculi," Fay explained, trying to stick to clearly comprehensible magical terminology also used by regular people, "created to serve various Families. Dorea has quite a lot of them working for her and they always come when a member of their Family calls, no matter where you happen to be. As Lord Potter you can call on the Potter elves at any time, but as Consort Black you can only call on those Black elves who are specifically assigned to you or like you enough to listen. As a Potter Guardian I have a Potter elf assigned to me."

The slight nod indicated that her explanation had been accepted, although he probably still didn't have a clue what she was talking about. House-elves really were something that had to be seen to be believed and Fay had been as amazed as the rest of the Guardians when Rence found the book in the Potter Library detailing what house-elves actually _were_. Dorea of course had known already and been baffled to discover that they hadn't. Explaining to Dorea that actually, most people thought house-elves were born the normal way had been a funny discussion, especially when 'most people' turned out to include most Purebloods.

"Coppy," Fay said firmly. There was a soft cracking sound as the house-elf appeared, hands clasped under her chin in front of her neatly fitted tea-towel and large yellowed eyes wide.

"Missy Fay? Coppy is needed?"

"I need my full Wizengamot notes Coppy," Fay said gently. "Would you fetch them for me?" Coppy was one of the newer house-elves, having turned up about two years after they had all moved into the Sicily Estate to be with Dorea. Fay shared Coppy with Padma, as neither of them was really in the house full-time and both needed occasional help with finding appropriate paperwork more than a maid or cleaner.

"Coppy will. Does Missy Fay need the legal notes Missy Padma was talking about over lunch as well?"

"That would be excellent Coppy, thank-you," Fay said warmly. Those were the notes on what exactly constituted slander and what the appropriate responses were to other people exercising their right to free speech when said speech was found offensive.

"Coppy goes." The elf vanished with another muffled crack. Fay glanced over at Xanxus and had to smother a smile; that wide-eyed stillness was what Zabinis did when normal people would be jumping up on chairs and shrieking in shock. It didn't last for very long though.

"House-elf," Xanxus repeated, voice utterly deadpan as he glared at her. He'd definitely noticed her amusement then.

"They are made creatures, born from Wards and domestic magic," Fay explained, "and they age very slowly. Don't ever give them clothes though: that counts as dismissing them from service, which cuts them off from the Family Magic and usually kills them." She paused; was there anything else of note? "They're also utterly, thoughtlessly loyal, totally obedient regardless of personal peril and have powerful magic of their own that is entirely unlike the normal wizard sort. Don't deliberately upset them; they either become hysterical or get mean and both extremes are terrible to deal with."

There was another soft crack and the folders Fay had asked for appeared on the table, her own ones piled up separately to Padma's.

"Right, let's get started then."


	129. Chapter 129

Beta'd by the outstanding Insane Scriptist.

Oh, I've updated Parenting is not a Varia Quality with an omake (and will be putting up another chapter tomorrow) so check that out too!

* * *

**Of rest and preparation **

Xanxus could feel exhaustion and irritation encroaching on his determination to attain appropriate retribution for his wife's suffering, so he lifted a hand to request a pause from Socialite and pushed himself away from the table, head leaning back to rest on the top of the back of his chair so he could stare at the plastered ceiling. This ridiculous Wizengamot –and that name was a pun for sure– had forty-nine seats, thirty-five of which were hereditary and belonged to various Wizarding family lines and the other fourteen of which were held by specific positions within the rest of the government. Which was ideally to ensure the old families didn't hog all the power, but since most of the people in the Ministry of Magic had up until very recently all been senior members of those old families, practically it meant that some old farts had two votes. Or even three votes if they happened to be lucky enough to have inherited Wizengamot seats from both sides of the family.

Of course a member could only sit in one seat at a time, but that just meant appointing proxies to sit in the other ones. Like Dorea had been doing, because she didn't care to attend the Wizengamot at all so had proxies voting on her behalf in both her hereditary seats: Socialite had been in the Potter seat until just a few months ago, when she'd turned it back over to Rence the Knight. Why it was 'back' over had not been clarified, but that was something to remember for later. Dawn the Seer –probably not a codename like 'Socialite' was– was his wife's proxy in the Black Seat, which was odd because where was her father? Shouldn't he be in the picture somewhere? Dorea had said she had two Family inheritances, which implied one through each parent, so her father should have been dealing with the political duties on that side of the family, not leaving them to his daughter's people.

Wait… Tracy the Matron had said that his wife was _Head_ of two Families. She'd also said he was Lord Potter –corresponding to Dorea being Lady Potter– and Regent-Consort Black. She'd added –superfluously but never mind– that Dorea was Regent Black, since in the Black Family women couldn't inherit, then later Blaise had introduced Marius as Lord Black. Which meant that her father very definitely was _not_ in the picture anymore; if her father was Lord Potter than Xanxus couldn't be and if he was Lord Black then Dorea wouldn't be Regent.

His wife's father had died while Xanxus was on ice; Dorea would never be able to introduce him to the man despite having specifically requested it the morning after their wedding. Fuck.

How young had she been when that happened? Was this part of why she'd bothered with body-doubles, so that the manipulative old farts she had expressly married him to protect herself from wouldn't realise she was effectively widowed and take advantage? Had this been before or after that war of hers had been all wrapped up?

He sat up again and pinned Socialite with a stare that had her looking up from her tea in seconds. "Yes?" The twenty-something-year-old asked, meeting his eyes with gratifying professionalism.

"Her father is dead." Xanxus made it a statement, because he had no doubts whatsoever that this was the case. What he wanted were some details, a basic outline so he wouldn't put his foot in his mouth later when he asked his wife about her father. This woman's title might be 'Socialite', but she was a social and political analyst and this very clearly wasn't her first time briefing somebody on something this complicated and detailed.

"Ah. Yes, you do need to know about that," Socialite conceded, setting her teacup aside. "Sirius Orion Black, Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black from January nineteen-ninety-one to June nineteen-ninety-six; was wrongly imprisoned for three and a bit years starting when Dorea was a little over a year old and played a major part in the first year of the Black War up until his death."

So his wife's father had died before she turned seventeen; the body doubles had definitely been a necessity rather than just for the look of the thing then. Then again, if the nobility was anything like the mafia –which it probably was– then the look of the thing was often the most necessary and important part. One more thing to feel guilty about.

Or not. It wasn't his fault Dorea's father was dead; he'd been on ice and hadn't had anything to do with it. That was not his burden to shoulder.

Damn. He definitely needed to talk to Father Gregori about this, or possibly to Leder since Leder would be fully qualified by now. Xanxus would still prefer Father Gregori, since he had talked to the man about ethics, morality and faith before, but Leder was married –one of the reasons the younger Sun had chosen to become an Orthodox Priest rather than a Catholic one– and marriage was one of the things Xanxus knew he desperately needed to talk to somebody he could trust about. That and parenthood, which very definitely needed dealing with _before_ he inflicted any of the old fart's idiocy on his own kids by accident.

Even with the siren thing, Xanxus was definitely going to be sticking to his instincts in parenting matters for the time being rather than falling back on his own experiences; the Ninth had been a comprehensibly dreadful father and all the Stupidity Enrico, Massimo and Federico indulged in on a regular basis was proof.

Come to think of it, six years was a long time, even in the Vongola, and the old fart had been old even than; he'd be even _older_ now. Had he retired? Who was running the Vongola now? Definitely not Massimo; possibly Enrico but preferably Federico, since Federico actually cared about the Family for all that he was utterly useless around women as he at least _recognised_ he was crap at saying 'no' to pretty faces. Of course Nono had been hanging on to the Boss position for a good fifteen years too long even back when Xanxus had staged his faux-coup, so it was possible that the senile old fool was _still_ running the Vongola into the ground nearly six years on.

_Why had he thought confronting the old fart would solve anything? He should have talked to Grandmother and Federico's Hamlet then thrown himself behind Federico, pride be damned. Things would at least have __**changed**__ if he'd done that._

More fucking questions; he wasn't going to ask his wife's people these ones though. Better to wait for Squalo's next visit; the shark would be back and soon. One thing at a time.

* * *

Dorea was really only half-asleep when she heard the door open and close, followed by her husband's fingertips caressing along the line of her jaw. Prying her eyes open took effort, but she managed to squint sleepily up at him as he crouched next to the daybed she was sprawled on.

"Hey."

The small, soft smile her slurred greeting was rewarded with filled her chest with heat and made her stomach tingle. Oh, but her husband was so gorgeous it wasn't fair; how could she ever hope to resist that smile?

"Join me?" She asked, patting the couch under her.

Xanxus' smile turned rueful. "Not big enough," he said regretfully, his wistful longing carrying clearly through their marriage bond. He definitely wanted to snuggle up on the daybed with her and nap for a few hours. She could feel why too: he was tired and sore all over. Not so surprising when it was his first day off bed rest; a nap would be good for them both.

Dorea smiled up at her husband. "Magic," she said smugly, twitching her fingers with purpose; the daybed obligingly lengthened and widened to accommodate her husband's frame. He was taller than her after all, as she remembered wanting so earnestly as a young teen when she'd been the tallest of all her female friends and taller than most of the boys as well. Well, she had _certainly_ got her wish there…

Her husband snorted softly, shook his head and sat down by her hip, shucking his boots then sprawling possessively on top of her. Dorea elbowed him half-heartedly as he shifted, settling so he was lying behind her with his arms wrapped around her upper body, his legs pinning her skirts between them.

"_My wife_," he muttered in strongly Sicilian-accented Italian, lips brushing her ear and the feel of his breath on her skin making her shiver.

Dorea leant into him, the back of her head brushing his shoulder as her nose slid up against the underneath of his jaw. "_My husband,_" she whispered back, closing her eyes and basking in his presence. She felt rather than heard the growl in his chest at her response and smiled as his arms tightened around her, drawing her closer to his body. He was wonderfully warm and smelled just right; this was home.

* * *

"Dinner's in an hour."

Xanxus allowed his eyes to slide open a crack so he could glare at the interloper properly. That Blaise Zabini was utterly unmoved by his scowl and projected fury spoke well for his brother-in-law while still being irritating; the Varia Boss had put a hell of a lot of effort into making himself intimidating so having his efforts dismissed –even when they were somewhat half-hearted– was annoying.

"Oh, you're scary," Blaise said cheerfully, reading him far too easily for a relative stranger, "but I'm as much a Zabini as you are and well, how would _you_ react to an in-law trying to intimidate you?"

Good point; he wouldn't take it seriously because an in-law was Family and you didn't harm Family. Empty threats were significantly less intimidating and that was going to be _so_ annoying to deal with. It had been implied that there were _thousands_ of Zabinis and they were all going to dismiss him as a threat even though they would probably respect him as a leader.

He wanted those spotted woodpecker feathers, dammit.

"Feathers," he stated flatly, meeting his fellow royal's eyes squarely for a moment before glancing down at his wife as she stirred briefly in his arms. She'd shifted in her sleep and was now on her side facing him, her chest pressed to his and her breath ghosting across the hollow of his throat where the shirt's neckline left it exposed.

"What kind?" Blaise asked in return, leaning casually against an armchair.

"Spotted woodpecker."

His brother-in-law's reaction was _fascinating_: the man stilled, carefully and deliberately straightened up and firmly schooled his face into something more respectful. "I'll have a selection for you to choose from prepared then. I'll leave waking Dorea to you; if she isn't at dinner then the twins will come looking for her." Blaise then turned and walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

Xanxus spent several minutes pondering what it was exactly about spotted woodpecker feathers that had elicited that reaction and eventually decided that there had to be some kind of established Zabini symbolism that was built off the instinctive connections between feathers and meanings he personally experienced, which could potentially be shared with other Zabini. So that spotted woodpecker feathers felt appropriate for him right now communicated something to Blaise –and therefore other Zabini– that had got him the distance and cautious respect that his show of anger had failed to elicit.

If feathers were enough then all the better; nobody here had turned into a swooning moron the moment he made eye-contact so he would probably be able to relax and focus on catching up –with his wife and on the past few years' goings-on– without having to stay angry the whole time just to get people to take him seriously. His having been angry all the time growing up had not just been because he was the youngest son by over twenty years and born out of wedlock besides, but because by the time puberty hit every time anybody got near him they seemed to start thinking with body parts other than their brains unless he was angry. Being angry meant the scum kept their distance and the trash could think past fear more reliably than they could through lust, which made him feel less like he was going to be ambushed by some smitten fool at any moment.

Since Zabinis were related to sirens and he was the Family Heir, that whole ridiculousness was probably an inherited problem so there might even be a documented way to mitigate it; that would be nice. It was damn annoying to have people stare at him slack-jawed and drooling whenever he wasn't outright radiating anger. There was a _reason_ he'd got so good with Wrath flames so young and it wasn't that he'd gone looking for trouble.

Yes, he had a temper but it wasn't _that_ bad, no matter how terrible rumour made it out to be. Part of why he really liked the Varia was that nobody, not even the worst of the Lightnings, stared at him gormlessly like that. Oh he got checked out and side-eyed sometimes but it was all from a distance and there was no Stupid gossip; the Varia was made up of _professionals_ and it showed in their behaviour.

Deliberately dismissing that line of thought before it ruined his mood, Xanxus carefully propped himself up on one elbow and pondered how to wake his wife. He'd been playing with her hair absent-mindedly all through his musing on feathers, so that clearly wasn't enough to rouse her. Blaise talking hadn't done it either and it wasn't like the man had been whispering.

Kisses would be fun; it might or might not work, but how would he know if he didn't try it?

Carefully cradling her head with his free hand, Xanxus leant closer and pressed a kiss to Dorea's forehead, then another to her temple and a third on her cheek. The kiss on her nose made her twitch, prompting a flash of confused lethargy to slide through the marriage bond.

Oh, so she was deliberately ignoring him, was she? She wanted to stay asleep.

Shifting them both so that Dorea was lying fully on her back, Xanxus bent down again and this time kissed his wife firmly on the mouth, sliding his tongue past her teeth and sucking on her lower lip. The response _this _time was near-instantaneous: she kissed back even as he felt her awaking all at once, a hand reaching up to curl around the back of his head as the other gripped his bicep.

"Dinner is soon," Xanxus said eventually in Italian, breaking the kiss for a few seconds.

"Hm? Oh, yes," his wife agreed after a brief instant of confusion. There was a momentary tangle of emotions as concern surfaced and was dismissed a few times, including something she seemed to be avoiding and an odd musing feeling that suggested a decision was being pondered. "I should go and change. This dress has had it."

It was rather crumpled, but Xanxus rather liked how it looked on her. Then again, he didn't really want anybody else seeing her like this –especially not with the love bites he'd given her showing so prominently now– so he could deal with her changing. So far his wife had demonstrated impeccable taste in clothing and he was looking forward to what she'd end up wearing next. All the dresses so far had been… inspiring, certainly. The one she had been sparring in most of all, but he was looking forward to having opportunities to peel her out of all of them.

"I can feel you thinking that, you know," Dorea said mildly, expression flat but eyes alight with amusement. Xanxus smirked at her then sat up properly, raising his arms above his head to stretch fully. He felt much more like himself after that nap; he still ached, but not as much.

Next to him Dorea sat up as well, her legs sliding off the opposite side of the daybed to touch the floor as she rolled her shoulders and reached out for the silk scarf folded over the near end, wrapping it loosely around her neck before slipping on the plain flats that had been lying under the coffee table and getting to her feet. "Will I be seeing you at dinner then?" She asked, turning to meet his eyes again.

Xanxus quickly pulled on his boots and got to his feet. "I'll join you," he stated.

"While I change?" Dorea raised an eyebrow.

Xanxus gave his wife a challenging stare; they were married, so there was nothing scandalous about him wanting to watch her get changed. If she was uncomfortable doing so in front of him that was fine, but she had to say so to establish that boundary. He didn't know her very well yet, after all, but that didn't mean he didn't want to.

"You can come upstairs and see my private rooms," Dorea said after a pause, "but I'll be changing in the dressing room with one of my ladies-in-waiting helping and I'd rather you weren't watching. This time." She paused again. "Blaise could lend you a new shirt, if you'd like. We can see about getting hold of your own clothing tomorrow; I'm sure Squalo will help."

Xanxus was cautiously hopeful about her having said 'not this time' rather than just 'no'; it boded well for his chances of seducing her into falling for him. "I'd like to change," he agreed, tugging on his shirt collar as it really registered how much snot his youngest had managed to smear on his clothing: it had dried while he was napping and felt even more disgusting. He could take out the remaining feathers too, so he looked less scruffy and bedraggled.

He hadn't really thought about clothing, but the idea of being able to wear his _own_ clothing from his wardrobe in the Varia Mansion rather than just borrowing shit from newfound relatives or buying new stuff was seriously appealing. It made him feel warm inside that she'd suggested it, a little bit like when he'd found out that she'd saved his boots. His wife wanted him to be _comfortable_ and that meant so much because before now, nobody ever really had. Not enough to go out of their way to ensure it, anyway.

Walking around the enlarged daybed, Xanxus took his wife's hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. "Lead on," he rumbled.

Her fluttering eyelashes and faint blush were extremely satisfying.

* * *

Translations 

Leder = leather (German)


	130. Chapter 130

Beta'd by the scintillating Insane Scriptist.

I've updating Parenting is not a Varia Quality again today, so remember to check that out! Also, since so many people have been asking about feathers... my lovely beta has a partial list of feather lore up on her tumblr, where she is insanescriptist. It's not final or complete though, so be aware of that.

* * *

**Of the importance of settling in **

Breakfast, Xanxus discovered, was a strictly family thing in his wife's house. He'd woken up early, showered, smeared more of the stargrass salve over the tissue grafts –which were already darkening and fading into the rest of his skin– and been discharged barely twenty minutes later by Tracy the Matron, who had pronounced him 'well enough to not require constant supervision' and reminded him that he needed to go on using the salve until the aches and pains from the grafted tissue were completely gone. She'd then offered to escort him to breakfast, which he had agreed to on the basis that the breakfast room could easily be somewhere completely different to the dining room he'd eaten lunch and dinner in the previous day.

He'd been right about that: breakfast was eaten upstairs, not far from his wife's private suite and the heavily fortified nursery suite his children slept in. In fact the breakfast room was technically the nursery's dining room, between the main playroom and the schoolroom and with connecting doors to both. Xanxus found it fascinating that the main playroom could not be accessed from the hallway; the door in the hall that looked like it should lead there instead opened into a linen cupboard. That all this twisted architecture was possible without Mist-maintenance made Xanxus _very_ curious, as part of what limited Vongola Housekeeping was how many Mists were required to be in residence to keep the security up to properly paranoid standards. That you could get the same kind of effect without permanently grounding some of your best subordinates was definitely something to look into. Admittedly the Varia Mansion was mostly secured by Mammon, but the Mist Officer did not actually have to remain in residence to keep that Territory working because the Mist Arcobaleno was ridiculously powerful; Vongola Housekeeping did not have the Mist Arcobaleno working for them, partly because Vongola Housekeeping lacked the resources to cut a cheaper deal like the Varia or rather the Varia's Housekeeping had, as security was properly the responsibility of Housekeeping.

Of course some of the Mists in Information still got deputised whenever Mammon ran missions, because being in Information meant spending most of your time in HQ so that the spies, informants and connections had somebody to report to. Information fell in the fuzzy space between Varia and Housekeeping, since they barely did any fieldwork at all, yet still had to be field-capable Varia Quality and answered to the Boss rather than to the Head of Housekeeping. There were also some very sneaky security protocols in place that meant that most of the Varia never actually remembered who was in charge on Information –or even that there _were_ people in charge of Information– unless they were in the midst of reporting to them. Xanxus knew, because he was Boss, but other than him only Mammon knew because Mammon was both Mist Officer and Treasurer. Squalo could probably remember about half the time, since the shark was technically a former Varia Boss despite having only actually having been in charge for three weeks, and Tyrant definitely knew because he'd founded Information in the first place.

Information was technically an Immortal Squad, but since nobody ever remembered that they didn't officially count despite their Squad name and individual Names all being heritable and having a large number of entrenched traditions.

* * *

It was an experience eating breakfast with his children, wife and three of his wife's Guardians, partly because both the older kids were very keen for him to pay attention to _them _and were competing fiercely for his attention. Dorea only intervened when table manners were forgotten, so as long as nobody was talking with their mouth full or waving cutlery around she let them be as loud as they wanted. Xanxus suspected his wife wasn't much of a morning person; her attention was mainly on her food and she didn't seem to be paying much attention to the mayhem her older children were indulging in.

The three Guardians on the other hand were all much more alert, although Xanxus had yet to meet a Sun who _wasn't_ alert, even at seven thirty in the morning. Leo the Fool, true to his Flame-type, was wrangling Cassie and Marius with finesse and charm, asking questions and making suggestions to one or the other in turn so that neither felt neglected just because their father was looking at the other one at any specific moment.

The other two Guardians at the breakfast table were Rence the Knight and Daphne the Steward: Knight was feeding Hector, or at least attempting to persuade Hector to feed himself, and Steward's attention was divided between watching Dorea and assisting Leo in distracting the twins. Hector was mostly feeding himself but demanding occasional acknowledgement and participation from his mother, who seemed to know exactly when her toddler son was about to make a fuss and diffused every single upset before it could get started.

His wife was definitely using her Flames to do that; it was a practical domestic application that Xanxus had never even considered before and he rather wanted to work out how it worked. Beyond the obvious familiarity and a degree of empathy, of course. It looked like a vital skill for dealing with small children.

Keeping his older two from coming to blows over the breakfast table thankfully did not require much verbalisation, or else Xanxus would have been fucked. He did not like talking much even on his best days and today definitely wasn't one of those; it was damn early, he was still processing all of yesterday's news and had not slept particularly well. Add on that he was wearing borrowed clothing again –although he had been provided with a very nice set of new spotted woodpecker feathers to put in his hair– and that he still knew jack shit about what had been going on in the Varia and Vongola during his imprisonment and well… not a good start to the day. Tomorrow probably wasn't going to be much better either. The Vongola… if the old fart had passed leadership on to Federico, then maybe it wouldn't be so terrible. Possibly. Otherwise it was probably a shambling wreck regardless of who was in charge.

Well, at least he was allowed coffee now; coffee made steering two five-year-olds that he barely knew yet were determined to secure his attention possible rather than just a guaranteed failure. Both twins seemed to know enough to not expect more than a word or two before coffee, which was a gift and something he was definitely going to cultivate. Boundaries were important after all and his kids expecting him to use actual sentences before mid-morning would just doom them to inevitable disappointment. Better to be realistic.

"–practice with Uncle Leo, Papa?" Wait, what had the first half of the question been?

"Papa has Family matters to attend to this morning, Cassie," his wife said firmly, rescuing him from having to admit to inattention, "just as I do. You know the rules, snakeling."

"'Family time is after four o'clock'," Cassie recited grumpily, "'except on Sundays'. But that's not _fair_, Mama!"

"It is _very_ fair, Cassie-dear," Dorea said dryly. "Your Papa has over five years of work to catch up on and I won't have you helping him skive off."

The atmosphere over the breakfast table changed abruptly, both twins staring at Xanxus in admiring horror.

"Over _five years_ of homework, Mama?" Marius asked, looking concerned on his father's behalf. Xanxus was a bit concerned too, although he could feel from her amusement and the odd sly edge to the emotion that his wife was mostly bluffing there; yes, there were things he needed to look at, but he got the impression that his schedule was mostly clear for the time being.

"Not quite _that_ much, owlet, since I have done quite a lot of it on his behalf," Dorea relented, "but he still has to read it and decide whether or not he agrees with what I've done. There is definitely three months-worth of six-day weeks, although your Papa will be starting slowly since he's still recovering from being in stasis."

"Okay, that _is_ fair," Cassie agreed reluctantly. "Can we show Papa the gardens after tea-time then?"

Dorea looked pointedly across the table at him, prompting both twins to quickly swivel their heads to face him and ask again:

"Can we go for a walk with you after tea-time, Papa? Please?"

Xanxus pondered the question. This was a situation that required brutally painful honesty, so he had to man up and provide it no matter how much parts of him screamed about showing weakness. "If I am well enough," he agreed, stressing the 'if'. Both twins seemed to accept this caveat, turned back to their food and swiftly cleared their plates.

"Right, let's be off then," Leo the Fool said briskly, rising smoothly to his feet. "Both of you give your parents a hug so we can get going."

Xanxus had _not_ been expecting that, but he did not have it in him to refuse his children's expectation of physical affection so he bent down enough to awkwardly hug first Cassie and then Marius without getting up. Both five-year-olds wrapped their arms as far around his waist as they could reach and squeezed hard, which Xanxus could only respond to by bending down a bit and wrapping his forearms around their shoulders with his elbows held close so he could squeeze back. He also ruffled Marius' hair, because Dorea had done that –his eldest son had approached his mother first– and attempting to mess up his daughter's pigtails would probably get him pushed away.

Maybe later, once their relationship was more secure.

"Work?" he asked once the twins had left the room and disappeared out of earshot down the hall.

Dorea glanced across the table to meet his eyes properly and smiled mischievously. "You had some reading you wanted to do, did you not?"

Xanxus huffed amusement and took another swallow of coffee; he did indeed. Reading the files Socialite had skimmed over yesterday, plus the books that were still piled up beside the bed in his sickroom. Those however came second to something else that was more important to his peace of mind and general comfort; he could learn about magic later.

"Show me the house?" It was still largely unknown territory to him and living somewhere he wasn't familiar with just wasn't something he could do. He'd explored the entirety of the orangery-like laboratory building where his sickroom was yesterday before bed, but now Matron had cleared him he would be sleeping in the house proper and he didn't know the layout yet.

"Of course," Dorea said easily. "Hector, Uncle Draco is taking you and Cousin Elladora to see Cousin Aquila until elevensies. Joel is going to be there too, so is there anything you'd like to take?"

The toddler visibly pondered the question, gnawing on his spoon. "Box," he said eventually.

"Of course you can take your blocks," Dorea said warmly. "How about you take Dee and show her which ones?"

"Dee!" Hector crowed, prompting Steward to rise to her feet and twitch fingers at the toddler's hands, cleaning them with a flicker of magic before lifting the boy out of his highchair and setting him on the floor. The toddler promptly caught the woman's hand and tugged her out of the room without a backward glance, babbling happily about 'box' and 'Joel' and 'fwends'.

"He's very distractible right now, but I expect that will change once he's a bit older," Dorea said with a slight smile as she poured herself another cup of tea. "At least now he's willing to go and do things without expecting me to be there the whole time."

Xanxus could see how that could be challenging and suspected it had something to do with his youngest being an Electric Sky. However bringing that up before he got to know his son properly was probably not a good idea, as his children were people, not stereotypes, and the Varia had taught him that Flame stereotyping was a load of bull; he'd picked _that_ up within the first week. People were people and they were all individual and unique, regardless of Flame-type. He still found himself thinking in Flame-stereotypes sometimes though, which was partly habit and partly because the stereotypes did have a basis in fact.

Finishing his coffee, Xanxus snagged another fresh apricot and waited patiently for his wife to be done with her breakfast. Hearing about the house was bound to bring up all kinds of other subjects, all of which would help him get to know her better. Which reminded him; he should probably ask about clothes now. Maybe asking would ensure Knight went off to deal with it for him rather than hanging around and ruining his mood by intruding on his wife-time.

"Dorea."

"Hm?" His wife glanced up at him over her toast.

"Clothes."

"Oh, yes; Rence, can you deal with that? Somebody will have to go over to the Varia Mansion to set that up, but I know you can arrange it somehow so that nobody notices Xanxus' things are missing. Maybe get Luna involved?" Dorea suggested, hand opening palm-up as she made the suggestion. The green Guardian inclined his head, rose from the table and left the room, presumably in search of the Investigator.

"Why her?" Xanxus just had to ask. His wife smiled.

"Luna is by far the kindest and most considerate of the Mists attached to me; she won't escalate the situation if anybody attempts murder and is smart enough to sidestep your security without anybody realising she's done it."

Xanxus mentally filed that 'kindest Mist' comment for later; it didn't bode well for the Vongola considering that she probably had another Mist in the Iron Fort somewhere who was less 'kind' than Investigator. However it was good to know that his wife knew exactly what kind of environment she was sending her Guardian into and that she had faith in the Investigator's ability to pull the wool over the Varia's collective eyes, no matter how much that last fact galled him. Although having seen Luna, Xanxus was sure she'd be employing something more unconventional and subtle than outright blatant theft, which considering how bizarre she was would probably work a treat.

* * *

Dorea walked him around the outside of the house first, so he could get a feel for the overall structure and the size of the actual physical space it occupied. It was actually rather interesting the way the trees and shrubs had been planted to obscure the view of the house, yet there was nothing taller than fifty centimetres within over forty metres of the actual building. Very tactical, but in a tasteful way; a lot of the plants closest to the house were roses and other thorny things, which further limited access to the paths and walkways. Xanxus suspected there was security magic lingering under the slabs of the terraces and the gravel of the paths, spells to identify passersby and more spells to trap, misdirect and bedevil intruders. His understanding of magic was still rudimentary, but he'd read enough to see that the limits on magic were not so different to the ones on Mists, which boiled down to 'if I can think it, I can do it'. How to do it might prove challenging, but that didn't make the thing itself impossible.

His wife had caught hold of his hand as she led him out of the side door, her grip light but steady. She hadn't let go yet, not while talking about how her people had built the house from scratch to plans she had helped draw up or while telling funny stories about things that had gone wrong during construction and gesturing with her free hand. Xanxus had mostly nodded and made encouraging noises, because the lump in his throat made actual words near-impossible to shape and he was terrified his voice might crack if he tried. How did he deserve this? He didn't deserve this. Clearly he was getting it regardless, so he was going to have to not screw it up.

Dear God, but he loved his wife so much it _hurt_.

His wife's house was T-shaped, with the three wings radiating to the east, south and west from a central point. The east wing was the Working Wing, as his wife put it, where the domestic staff and most of the Guardians lived and worked. It was also where the duelling hall was, along with laboratories for potion-brewing, offices for paperwork, work-rooms for various types of spell-casting and the kitchens. It was therefore both the busiest wing and the least secure one, which didn't quite make sense to Xanxus as why have your food somewhere that wasn't secure? Dorea had then explained that the kitchens were run by the house-elves, which made far more sense: infiltration would therefore be nigh-impossible and even if the wing wasn't really secure, the kitchens and pantries themselves were.

The west wing was the Guest Wing, where anybody who wasn't a Guardian or in some way employed by his wife stayed, although that clearly wasn't a hard and fast rule since his wife had gone on to say that she did host some people she _technically_ employed over there, because they were her uncle and aunt and respecting older relatives was important. Zabini who were actually visiting to be social rather than to make her do paperwork also slept over there, although again the older the relative, the more likely they were to get a room in the Guest Wing regardless. Xanxus could understand why though and it wasn't like his wife lacked space; the Guest Wing was probably more than half-empty most of the time, although that it had been built as large as it was said a _lot_ for how many guests his wife was prepared to host at once and he was rather dreading finding out when such an occasion might take place. The Working Wing was probably about a third residential and housed just about _everybody_ except his wife, her kids and the kids' nursery staff; definitely at _least_ thirty people including the Guardians. The Guest Wing was the same size and entirely residential, so it probably had room for at _least_ twice that many, even if it had lavish suites rather than just bedrooms.

The South Wing was the Family Wing, except calling it that was technically a misnomer since his wife was related to about half her Guardians in one way or another. Anyway, it was the wing where she lived with her kids and did both her entertaining and her private stuff. Probably in different parts of the building, considering it was about a third as long again as either of the other wings and had maybe ten people living in it, if that. Going by his wife's words some of the Guardians actually had office space in the Family Wing, potentially because their work actually counted as 'domestic' rather than relating to the rest of his wife's inheritances and holdings. Or maybe they had 'hosting space'; his wife definitely had multiple sitting rooms so meetings and discussions could be held in one or other of them rather than in a working environment. Yes, that made more sense.

Since they'd walked all the way around the house, Dorea led him back in the door they'd left by and along the hallway to the main entrance hall, which was at the junction of the three wings.

"Technically this is part of the main house rather than either of the wings, even though the upper floors of this bit do actually belong to the wings," his wife explained as Xanxus looked around at the ridiculously high ceiling, fancy staircases leading up and around to both the left and the right and the frescoes on the walls. It was an attractively intimidating bit of space, which since it was the front hall made perfect sense. The front entrance to the Vongola Mansion was designed to be impressive as well; the only reason the entrance to the Varia Mansion wasn't was due to the Varia Mansion having started life as an actual fortified castle rather than a fancy house. The Varia Front Hall was designed to provide the people on the first floor balcony with a good shot at the doors.

Getting walked around the entire ground floor of the Family Wing –or as his wife called it, the Main House– enabled Xanxus to start to get a feel to how the layout worked. It was deceptively straightforward really: there was a main corridor –not the one his wife had taken him down to get from the side door to the entrance hall– which granted access to what he mentally dubbed 'the public rooms': three sitting rooms in varying sizes, a music room, a library, a games room, a massive ballroom and three different bathrooms with just toilets, sinks, mirrors and chairs in. These rooms all faced the west, providing a view of the Guest Wing, a chunk of lawn and some very pretty gardens obviously designed for looking at out of windows rather than walking in.

To get to the less public part of the ground floor of the Main House you had to walk through an alcove in the ballroom some way to the right of the room's entrance, which opened onto a slightly more modestly decorated hallway with windows down the west side showing the _same view_ as was visible from the public rooms and doors spaced along the east wall. There was also a staircase going up to the next floor, which his wife ignored in favour of leading him down the hallway.

These rooms were studies, small sitting rooms and another music room plus bathrooms, which confirmed Xanxus' guess that his wife's Guardians entertained people in this part of the house in a semi-professional manner. This hall ended in a dead end though, so Dorea turned the both of them around and walked back down the hall to a stretch of wall about halfway down, situated between the music room and a bathroom and occupied by a massive painting of a flock –herd? – of eagle-horse hybrids taking to the air. His wife then reached out, gripped the edge of the over-decorative gilded frame and pulled the painting out like a door.

… It was a door. The painting was mounted on the door, overlapping it at the top and sides and hiding it completely. How cliché. Still, it had worked; Xanxus hadn't even noticed it.

The painting door led back into the hallway connecting the entrance hall to the side door Dorea had brought him into the building through, which had a staircase at one end, larger rooms along the east side facing the kitchen gardens and the Working Wing –a small music room, two libraries, the dining room from yesterday, the big sitting room with the piano also from yesterday and a games room– and doors along the west side which led either to cloakrooms, bathrooms or staircases. One of the staircases went up, but the other two went down.

Xanxus was reminded of the labyrinth conversation his wife had had with their youngest before lunch the previous day.

The house was _ridiculous_, seriously; he was pretty sure even just the first iteration of the ground floor was bigger on the inside than on the outside and that was _before_ you snuck through the ballroom alcove into the middle corridor! The ground floor covered its actual physical footprint at least four times and the damn building had another two floors on top of that! It was easily half as large again as the Vongola Mansion despite occupying barely a third of the space! He could probably fit the _entire_ Varia in here and still have room to spare despite the building having less than half the footprint and being three stories shorter!

"Hm?" Dorea looked up at him, curiosity seeping through the bond.

"This house is ridiculous." It needed saying.

His wife smiled at him, a broad unladylike grin that crinkled her eyes as amusement and glee bubbled across the bond. "Yes, but Luna did help me design it."

That explained far too much, dammit. "Is it all like this?"

"No. The Guest Wing has the second and third overlays behind locked doors which only get opened up when we actually have that many guests staying. The Working Wing is fully accessible on all floors, with archways over the entrances to the layered corridors."

So it was only the part of the house his wife and children actually lived in that was genuinely convoluted and contradictory. Well, that made sense and did mean that anybody who had stayed in the Guest Wing and thought they knew how the house worked would get unpleasantly surprised if they went poking around.

"So, would you like to see upstairs or downstairs next?"

Xanxus found his eyes wandering back to the two staircases leading down. "Explain 'downstairs'," he requested after a pause.


	131. Chapter 131

Beta'd by the pioneering Insane Scriptist.

A few people have commented on the pacing, so I thought I'd expound: Xanxus is a _protagonist._ He is one of the people this story is _about._ However you, the readers, don't know anything about him because his entry into the story was _significantly_ delayed by Nono Vongola being an ass. So now I am introducing him as a person, the same way I did with Dorea at the beginning of the story, where there is -for instance- an entire chapter about her picking books to take to school with her, and another entire chapter about her doing Christmas shopping. Because those are things that matter to her and provide insight to her personality. Xanxus is a person who can't sleep somewhere if he doesn't know the layout, so he _needs_ to see the house. Or else he won't stay in it. He has other quirks, just like Dorea does. However I've had over a hundred chapters to gradually introduce Dorea in and I need to get Xanxus up to an equal standing, so things are a bit tense on the emotional side right now rather than the physical action side. That will change once Xanxus has settled a bit.

Hopefully that clears things up.

* * *

**Of paperwork and invasions **

Squalo stood just inside his Boss's office, the fingers of his right hand tapping a staccato beat on the back of his prosthetic left hand as he frowned pensively at the shelves. After getting back yesterday afternoon and successfully deflecting Mammon he had double-checked the dossiers he had previously put together summarising Vongola goings-on and Varia changes by year and set about assembling the latest one six weeks early; this was generally something he did in Quiet Week, but since Boss was free _now_ he'd need the summary before then. Especially since the major feature of this past year was Federico's death and its aftermath, which had set off a series of events that had thrust the Varia much further into the spotlight than the Assassination Division generally preferred.

It had been somewhat inevitable really: Federico was the last Heir Nono was believed to have, since the wider mafia was by now convinced that Xanxus was dead –which he wasn't but he couldn't inherit either so in terms of heirs he didn't count and it came to much the same thing really– so the Vongola's current situation was now officially and publically precarious. Don Vongola was seventy years old, had no Sky heir to take up the title of Decimo and Federico's murder had been so surprising and unusual that it had been a serious blow to the Family's image. As was the fact that they still hadn't caught the Storm who had done it, which had reminded everybody that Massimo's killers were still in the wind as well.

For the first time in several centuries there were no Vongola Skies other than the current Boss and everybody and their mother was trying to take advantage: there had been contracts delayed or broken off, sabotages, assassination attempts, insubordination and just about every other possible action to reduce the Vongola Famiglia's reach and influence. Which was working, somewhat.

The CEDEF just wasn't equipped for a mess of this magnitude after almost twenty years of Sawada Iemitsu, which was why Changeling had got in touch with Visconti, who had made a recommendation to Nono, who had agreed with him, all of which resulted in a temporary bounty system being set up for the Varia to take advantage of. It wasn't quite 'war footing', but it was a definite step in that direction as Varia members had the latitude to set up their own missions so long as they had evidence that their victims were actively conspiring against the Vongola. Handing over both the evidence and proof of death would then net the Varia in question appropriate mission pay.

This system had been in place from the first week of March, well before the general state of emergency was rescinded, but the first bounty had only been claimed a good thirteen days later. Further claims had snowballed since then and were still coming in thick and fast despite it being well over a month later. Admittedly a month wasn't all that long by normal mafia standards, but most of the Varia were of the opinion that anybody who had seen or heard about their work should have known better than to start shit by this point.

Squalo did not disagree with his colleagues, but Stupid was unfortunately a near-universal human condition. So he'd suggested they indulge themselves a bit, relax the secrecy and security standards and show off; it was for the good of the Family after all.

That the first person to take him up on this had been Kuchisake was not exactly surprising and she'd been swiftly followed by two of the Varia's messier killers, but maybe now the scum would take the hint and back off a bit? The political climate was making it difficult for the Varia to get their hands on decent missions and that was never a good thing. People would get bored.

* * *

Bel shifted on his perch on the balustrade at the bottom of the stairs in the Front Hall, propping an elbow on the banister as his feet dangled a good six inches off the ground. He might not have the genetics to wield a wand, but he was no less capable of magic for that unfortunate deficiency and the Zabini tutoring him by correspondence course had praised his skills in Runes and Divination. Divination had become a favourite, since the Zabini taught the classical methods along with the modern wishy-washy card reading and palmistry; reading the future in the entrails of the dead was no less effective now than it had been before the rise of Christianity and the Prince had a knack for it. Of course you couldn't _always_ sacrifice a cow, but there were other methods involving blood or smaller animals that worked well enough on day-to-day things. For big things, well, that was what stray freelancers were for…

For instance, today's blood-reading had suggested the arrival of a stranger and an upheaval heralding great things to come, which was why Prince the Ripper was hanging around the Front Hall in the first place. He was bored, the paperwork was all up to date, he couldn't pick up a mission because one of the peasants on his Squad had a medical check-up due tomorrow morning and he didn't feel like training. He'd felt like this yesterday too, irritable and at loose ends, but he'd put the energy into training and perfecting a new wire-trick rather than loiter like a servant. This morning had however come with the promise of entertainment, so Bel was waiting not-so-patiently for it to arrive.

He had no idea what it might be. It wasn't Boss, because Boss wasn't a stranger. An amusing new apprentice, perhaps? The last time he'd been promised 'a stranger' and 'upheaval' some civilian amateur had followed a careless peasant back to HQ and got caught breaking in by Fuseau. Fuseau being Fuseau, the Mist had given the amateur the necessary information to find the rooms belonging to the careless fool they'd followed, then sat back and enjoyed the resulting mayhem. It had been rather entertaining in a peasant-farce kind of way.

The amateur had not survived his murder attempt, but the idiot he'd followed had been put on punishment duty for a month for being careless and there'd been blood _all_ over the hallway. Bel wasn't sure what today would bring, but another murder attempt would certainly be amusing.

It was ten o'clock, so everyone in the building was doing paperwork or training or socialising and the halls were quiet; Bel could hear the emptiness of the stairwell above him and the leaves rustling in the trees outside the open windows way off to his left. There was nobody in sight, or even in hearing range. Boring.

Wait… what was that?

Bel straightened up as the sound of somebody decently musical whistling a tune gradually encroached on his solitude. The simple, catchy swirl of notes sounded like something you could hum in a bar and have the patrons know five different versions of the words, all in varying degrees of obscene and with at least a dozen verses each. There was an odd nuance to the whistling too, one that suggested that the whistler was singing the most obscene version in their head and enjoying every second of it as they strolled up the front drive.

Dropping off the banister rail and hurrying across the Front Hall, Bel opened the door to see who their esteemed visitor might be.

It was Tenniel's Alice, bar a few garishly outlandish differences. The flounced yellow dress with the wide dark blue sash and matching stockings was exactly like the original illustrations, as was the frill-edged pinafore with blue piping and the blue hair ribbon holding wavy blonde hair back from a fair-skinned face; all much more elegantly tasteful than the plain blue dress and apron of the Disney version and suggesting his guest was British, as only a British eccentric would choose Tenniel over Disney. The rollerblades were _not_ an original feature, although the wearer had at least gone to the effort of painting them blue and black to imitate the leather shoes worn in Tenniel's pictures. The wide turquoise bracelets were also not part of the traditional look, but they went well with the overall image presented so Bel could overlook them. The Pokémon however were _completely_ incongruous, despite the Cheshire grin on the face of the Abra clinging to her shoulders.

An actual, physically realistic Abra with skin reminiscent of rhinoceros hide in appropriate shades of tan and brown, with dark, vaguely reptilian eyes and small, sharp teeth. Along with a two-tailed pink cat-thing with desert fox ears and glowing purple eyes prowling around the Alice look-alike's ankles, a near-spherical green bird with a red crest and huge, oddly human eyes perched on the top of her head and a grey ghost-thing with a pink necklace, purple-tipped hair and red eyes with yellow sclera hovering over her right shoulder with a small, secretive smile that promised havoc and mischief.

"Hello, peasant," Bel said cheerfully in Low German, stepping back to wave their peculiar guest inside. "What brings you to the Prince's abode?"

"Greetings, Your Royal Highness," the peasant replied in the same language –an _educated_ lady! – bobbing an appropriate curtsey before rolling inside. "This is a social call: your shark helped me work out the difficulty levels in a Territory yesterday, so it is only polite that I introduce myself properly before asking if any of your other colleagues would be inclined to do likewise."

In other words, the Captain had been caught out by this Mist yesterday and after somehow surviving doing so, she'd followed him home. Bel's grin widened. "I am Belphegor, Prince the Ripper," he informed the crazy Englishwoman; lunatic or not, she had appropriate manners and royalty should never be rude to those peasants who truly understood their place.

"I am the Investigator, Sir," the almost-Alice replied, bobbing another curtsey, "and with me are Eifie-san, Casey-kun, Naty-kun and Muma-chan." Each Pokémon nodded a bow upon the mention of their name, with the ghost-thing bobbing in the air to achieve the same effect.

A title but no name, hm? "Investigator, like Executioner or Knight?"

"Yes, Sir." This Mist was technically a Varia ally then, which explained nicely why she had gotten away with ambushing the Shark somehow and why she thought she could survive a house call. This was very definitely the 'upheaval heralding great things to come' he'd been promised this morning and it was everything he could possibly have hoped for and more. This was going to be hilarious!

"Please, make yourself at home," Bel sing-songed brightly, kicking the front door closed behind her and waving extravagantly to take in the entire Front Hall. "The staff are only a request away, the Shark is in his office and don't hesitate to put any rude upstarts in their place! It will be educational for them and such things are good for the soul."

Investigator smiled brightly at him. "You are too kind, Sir! I shall enjoy exploring." With that she rolled off, cat-thing at her heels and ghost-thing soaring silently behind her. Bel turned and bounced towards the game rooms; he should find out what those other Pokémon were called, since clearly there'd been a new release since he'd last bothered playing. It wouldn't do to be misinformed concerning the capabilities of their guests, after all.

* * *

Squalo wound up spending an hour longer in Boss's office than he'd originally intended, since while he was there he realised that Boss would want the file Information had put together on Maínomai's Curse, its effects and the effects of lifting it, as well as the associated overview of the various other things the Varia had encountered which involved magic including why and how there were ex-werewolves in Housekeeping. Digging out the right files and writing up a timeline, general overview and a list of all the associated documentation had taken longer than the Rain Officer had intended it to, but since Squalo didn't have anything else in particular to do today –unless Boss got in touch somehow– it wasn't like it mattered.

Or perhaps it did, because upon leaving the office the swordsman stiffened in response to the atmosphere that had descended upon the building while he was distracted. Earlier this morning there had been a lethargic but casual feeling in the air, an upbeat 'just another day' feeling since it was spring and the weather was mild enough for outdoor training to be comfortable for just about everyone. Now however there was a nervous zing in the air, coloured by morbid fascination, suppressed frustration and the wary amusement of bystanders who were hoping to be allowed to continue watching rather than being drawn into participation. All in all it was _definitely_ something Squalo should be looking into, so the Rain Officer strode along the hall and down the stairs back to his own office. Somebody would have at least left a note; if the situation was _truly_ upsetting to anybody then there would probably be a few Varia actually hiding out _in_ his office, waiting for him to come back and fix things.

How old were they anyway, three? He wasn't their mother or their nursery teacher! Why couldn't half these idiots just use their words and sort things out for themselves?

He never even got as far as his office: there was a small crowd hovering in the corridor outside said office, blocking the way. The stressed and panicky conversation taking place in the space he couldn't see did however suggest that whatever the issue was, it really did need solving _quickly_ before the matter escalated:

"–put it down?" That was Sruth, one of Squalo's Rains and the sort-of co-leader of Team Houdini.

"It's got its _claws_ in my _jacket_, Sruth," came the flat, strained tones of Manivela, Sruth's technical Squad Leader, "and at least like this it isn't _facing_ my _neck_. If I try to put it down it might shift and sneeze on me or something and I don't _want_ third-degree burns! Even with my uniform Altered to not burn I can still _feel_ the heat pouring off this thing and the info Treat found said that its core body temperature is six _hundred_ degrees Centigrade! It lives _in volcanoes_! What if it wakes up and throws a tantrum? I don't think the walls were designed to hold up to lava; I know my uniform wasn't!"

Throughout this faintly hysterical monologue Squalo elbowed his way to the middle of the crowd, where there was a wide open space around Manivela, who was standing directly outside the swordsman's office and facing away from the Rain Officer. There were a good four feet between Manivela and Sruth, who was standing closer to his colleague than anybody else and looking baffled by a problem that was resisting resolution. In Manivela's arms, its head flopped over the Storm's right shoulder, was a Pokémon. A Magby, to be precise; Delfina might have been properly Superbi-sensible for her age, but she was just as fascinated by the imaginary bestiary Nintendo had come up with as her peers so Squalo had suffered through learning all the names and watching some of the TV series. The things he did for his little sister…

This Magby was considerably more realistic that its cartoon counterpart, looking like a two-foot-tall lizard-chicken with closed eyes, a fluffy feather crest and thick, insulating down all over its body from which the decently long claws on its paws protruded. It didn't have a beak, but did have a beak-like muzzle with lips through which hot air was huffed out with every breath; there was a very obvious heat haze.

Magby was the immature version of the Magmar, which had sparked a massive argument between Squalo and Delfina when it had first showed up in the anime: the whole idea of a gym in an _active volcano_ was preposterous and Stupid due to poisonous fumes, insane heat levels and oh, yes, _all the magma_. Never mind there being an animal with a body temperature of 1,200°C! Anything actually that hot would win every single fight by boiling its opponent's brain at the least or just outright incinerating it through skin contact since it was _on fire_!

Needless to say Delfina hadn't appreciated the science lesson, but Squalo did at least remember a few facts about Magmar and the newer Magby. Such as that Magby's body temperature was supposedly 600°C and that like its mature counterpart, it could spit fire.

"Ah, Captain!" Sruth said brightly, noticing his Officer. Squalo folded his arms and raised an eyebrow as Manivela scooted around, revealing his pale, sweaty face and that he was holding the Pokémon as though it was a toddler that had fallen asleep on him, one hand under its behind and the other hovering twitchily behind its head.

"Where did you get that from, voi?" Squalo asked. It seemed the most pertinent question, since Pokémon being imaginary meant this was definitely some kind of Mist mischief.

"Bel let her in," Sruth said easily, throwing the Storm Officer under the bus without a qualm, "and she called herself the Investigator. She's pretty much as you described her on the notice board, Captain."

Squalo tipped his head back to silently demand what he'd done exactly to deserve Luna the Lunatic doing house calls. The ceiling however had no answer for him.

"And she just handed you the Magby?"

"Yes?" Manivela mumbled, looking rather clammy for somebody snuggled up to a miniature blast furnace. "It was awake then though. It answers to Buby-kun," the Storm added plaintively, "it's actually mostly obedient and I _swear_ I didn't know it could melt the balusters!"

The Rain Officer did not want to know; Squalo took a deep, calming breath. "Is this the _only_ Pokémon at large in the building?"

Sruth opened his mouth, paused and started counting on his fingers. Squalo ground his teeth.

"At least six more, Captain," the Rain eventually replied: "an Abra, a Natu, an Espeon and a Misdreavus with our visitor, who is dressed as Alice right out of Wonderland, plus the Pichu she handed Borz and the Phanpy that bowled Grenade over then decided it liked him."

"I think there's more than that out and about now," Treat added trenchantly from where he was lurking behind Sruth. Squalo growled.

"Vooi, go take it outside where it won't melt anything important if it wakes up," he ordered sharply, "and the rest of you go find the rest of them and make sure they get taken outside as well!"

"Sir!" The crowd dispersed, Sruth and Treat hovering in Manivela's general vicinity as the trembling Storm trudged towards the stairs. Squalo ignored the lot of them; he needed to hunt down the source of the insanity and find out what on earth she was here for.

* * *

Translations 

Sruth = stream, current, flow (Irish)

Manivela = leverage; crank (Turkish, also Portuguese)

Borz = Wolf (Chechen or Ingush)

The Pokémon names are the original Japanese versions of their types, plus suffix because Luna.


	132. Chapter 132

Beta'd by the wordy Insane Scriptist.

Now officially over half a million words... well at least I know where the plot's going!

* * *

**Of remodelling and practical insanity **

Bel hung back while Investigator chatted to Pins in French, passing fresh currants up to the Natu nesting inside his crown as the visiting Mist waved her hands and Conjured up a rainbow arching between her palms. Pins laughed, whipping off his top hat and bowing with a flourish, before straightening up and continuing the conversation, using animated soft toys as examples and to provide emphasis. Of course Pins' French was completely abominable because he spoke New Orleans Creole rather than _proper_ French, but Investigator didn't seem to be having any trouble understanding him.

Of course, not all of Investigator's visit thus far had gone so smoothly; however three ignored murder attempts later people were paying a bit more attention and not rushing in like fools. They hadn't even been _good_ murder attempts! Investigator's responses to people trying to kill her had however been _hilarious_: Grenade had been run down by a fifty centimetre tall blue baby elephant Pokémon that had then used his stomach as a trampoline, which probably would have killed him had he not been a Lightning. Investigator had meanwhile lectured Grenade on proper manners and insisted he apologise, which the cowed and winded man had done promptly and humbly. The Phampy had then stopped jumping on him and started snuggling and making happy noises instead, so Investigator had smiled at the stunned Lightning and asked him to 'take good care of Gomazou-kun' before walking off, leaving Grenade looking like he'd been hit over the head with a sledgehammer as he hugged the cheerfully squeaking blue miniature pachyderm to his chest.

Attempt two –carried out by Osa, one of the Suns– had been foiled by sidestepping and opening a door in thin air to bury the aggressor under an avalanche of miniature Puffskeins, which had set Este squealing about tribbles and clued Bel in to Investigator being a witch. A British witch, since she was connected to Knight and probably Harmonised to the green ringsmith's Lady. This in turn suggested that said Lady was a witch and that Knight was a wizard, since European magical culture was invariably wizard-supremacist. In fact all of this Lady's Guardians were probably Magical and she might actually be a _real_ Lady, since certain British Magical Families did actually have long lineages and distinguished roots.

Bel didn't actually know much about Britiain's Magical nobility beyond what he'd read in the papers –his childhood tutors had focused on the Continental bloodlines and since he'd killed them all aged eight his education had been cut short– but he did know that there were a few native Celtic lines of considerable antiquity and significantly more of Norman or Saxon origin that had originally been cadet offshoots of other families. Those lesser offshoots didn't really count to Bel's mind, but there were a few significant French lines that had moved lock, stock and barrel to Britain before King John lost England's continental holdings and the Blacks were one of them.

Prince the Ripper had been disappointed to read that Lady Black-Potter had stepped down and allowed Magical Britain to slip back into democracy, but he supposed that she could do far better if she wanted a proper kingdom of her own. She'd dragged her home country out of the pit they had dug themselves into and it was perfectly understandable that she didn't want to stick around when there were far better places to live, all with far more sensible languages. English was the language of insanity; just look at which English people thought was funny.

Murder attempt number three had been possibly the most amusingly foiled: the perpetrator had been a mook so new Bel didn't actually recognise him and as he'd lunged Investigator had set up an impromptu slow-motion Territory around him and moved just far enough out of reach that as the idiot Cloud stumbled and tried to regain his balance upon emerging she could _push_ a khaki green Pokémon into his chest. The sixty-centimetre tall dinosaur-thing –well only forty centimetres tall if you discounted the crest on its head– turned out to be far heavier than it looked and the Cloud had gone down _hard_, although he had managed to roll with it and get up again right afterwards, if a little awkwardly considering the miniature monster had sunk its teeth into his jacket and was dangling in mid-air.

Investigator's response to _that_ had been to inform the mook that, since he had 'Yogiras-chan' attached to his jacket he was now on Pokémon-sitting duty. Oh, and that Larvitars ate soil, so arranging lunch should not be at all challenging. The mook's look of boggled astonishment at this non-reaction had been quite possibly the funniest yet and Bel had cackled so hard he had to lean back against the wall. That the man had actually managed to pick up the Larvitar was impressive though, as the information Bel had found in a magazine on the new Pokémon indicated that they weighed over seventy kilograms. All that weight compacted into such a tiny frame should have been very hard to manhandle, but this mook didn't seem to be having any trouble. The Storm Officer made a note of the newcomer's face; he could drop a word to Manservant later about testing the mook to see if he could actually make Quality.

Of course, Investigator hadn't only been handing out Pokémon to her would-be murderers: Borz had been drawn into a conversation about shampoo after having his hair complemented and wound up being handed a Pichu for 'smelling nice and being so huggable', which had made the quiet Lightning blush fierily; Télos had been accosted and given a Smoochum because she thought 'he looked like he needed a baby to coo over'; Manivela had tried to make her go away and been given a Magby 'to help you relax'; Debo of the Three Bears had been presented with a Teddiursa because 'Himeguma-chan needs a role model!'; and Jombi had actually outright _asked_ for a Pokémon upon finding out what was going on and been presented with a Cleffa by a beaming Investigator who commended him on 'winning at life'.

Bel found it somewhat intriguing quite how much Investigator seemed to be aware of, since Jombi really _was_ 'winning at life': the Cloud had developed a debilitating parathyroid problem within weeks of joining the Varia, one that would have killed him had Lussuria not helped him work out a way to manage it with Flames so he could be physically functional and remain Quality. The condition was why Jombi was Named as he was and also why the Okama insisted on having the Cloud in his personal Squad: targeted Multiplication _did_ keep the problems at bay, but without constant supervision and regular Activation by a highly trained Sun, Jombi could literally keel over dead at less than a hour's notice.

Then there was the Natu, which had migrated from the top of Investigator's head to perch inside Bel's crown, but it was a well-behaved baby bird so the Prince was tolerating it. It was a small price to pay for the magnificent spectacle unfolding before his eyes.

* * *

Squalo eventually found Investigator in the regular training rooms used by those Varia who practiced actual formal martial arts, specifically the unarmed kind. This tended to be Sun territory, since despite most of the Lightnings training here at least half the days in any given week, they didn't hang around and socialise afterwards. The Suns on the other hand brought drinks, spectated, heckled, joined in and generally treated the entire section like an extra common room. Lussuria was down here as often as he was in Medical, checking on his Division members or cooing over the apprentices being tutored.

Admittedly she was not making herself hard to find; all Squalo had needed to do was follow the trail of confused, bemused and amused underlings, while avoiding the various props and creatures she'd Conjured in her wanderings.

_Just, why tribbles? Why? What have I done to deserve tribbles? _Squalo shook off that thought; it wasn't helpful. He'd set two Squads and all the mooks they could rustle up to clearing the six-foot heap of fist-sized, cooing, pastel fuzzballs out of the Mansion, but it was guaranteed that _somebody_ was going to pocket one and try to keep it as a pet, if they hadn't already. Squalo didn't know if the Conjured tribbles would reproduce like their fictional counterparts, but if they did he was going to treat it like any other vermin infestation and follow the established precedent set by Boss: incinerate the affected rooms right down to the stone.

He finally cornered her in one of the training rooms, where she was deep in a very animated conversation with Alastor as a Tyrogue clung to her skirt, bounced on its toes and stared around the room with wide eyes. The Espeon was cooing at the baby Pokémon in between shooting looks at the Mist lurking just outside the doorway, the Abra was clinging to Luna's shoulder and staring around with wide brown eyes and a deeply unsettling grin, the Misdreavus was poking one of the punching bags and the Natu… was perched on Bel's head.

Bel, who was slouched against the wall with the rest of the spectator section, looking as lazily satisfied as a relaxed cat surrounded by canary feathers.

"Did you know the Storm Officer spent a full hour loitering in the front hall before she arrived?" The Mist standing next to him in the doorway said musingly in Hindi.

Squalo frowned. That was not normal Bel behaviour at all; loitering was for servants, apparently. How could the fourteen-year-old _possibly_ have known Investigator was going to show up this morning?

"No?" The Mist deduced, sighing. "Did _you_ know she was coming, Captain?"

"No I did not, Tájna," Squalo gritted out in the same language, finally bringing to mind the Mist's name; having forgotten was _not_ a blot on his competence, just a by-product of the security protocols surrounding Information. "But she's a Territory Master on par with Mammon, so all I can do to keep her out is ask nicely." There was no need for him to mention that Investigator was technically allied to the Varia and definitely connected to Knight; Tájna was Information so he knew that already. There was only one group of people who would visit the Varia and be known by their job titles and Squalo had made a point of adding 'Investigator' to the files yesterday.

Tájna accepted the truth Squalo had spoken with a nod and a rueful smile. "I think she would stay away if you asked nicely, Captain," the Mist offered. "She's been very… gentle… with everybody she's met so far. A lot of people are bewildered or embarrassed but nobody has suffered any kind of pain that wasn't entirely self-inflicted. But just the same, I think she's here for a purpose and won't be leaving until she's achieved it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Squalo said, meaning it. Since she was one of Boss's wife's Guardians, Luna's visit was likely related to Boss. Well, that wouldn't be her _explicit _reason for visiting, but it would be one of the implied ones.

"Secrets, Captain?" Damn Tájna for being a nosy Mist and having a _mandate_ to dig up absolutely everything everybody in the Mansion was doing or even thinking about doing.

"Quiet Week, voi," Squalo gritted out. It was the truth, so Tájna would accept it; Tájna only ever accepted the truth and it was half of what made him so annoying. The other half was his insistence on embodying his name and _not telling Squalo _about things he probably needed to know, purely because those things were _secrets_.

"A surprise?" The Mist looked like he could _smell_ it.

"A promise," Squalo corrected; Tájna did have a moral code and it involved the odd point that it was rude to tell other people's secrets if said other people had specifically asked you to keep them. This secret wasn't Squalo's, so Tájna would respect his silence on the matter. Until Quiet Week.

The Mist nodded equably, accepting that he wasn't going to find out this particular secret just yet. "She's got Alastor to agree to train the little guy," Tájna said instead. "Right now they're discussing diet and an appropriate style."

Wait, the Tyrogue was _staying_? Probably until it evolved, possibly longer? Squalo felt his temple throb. Yes, he _could_ forbid it, but it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference: Alastor had said yes, so Dark Horse would back him up and poke holes in Squalo's reasons for not wanting a Living Illusion of a Pokémon in the Mansion, then smuggle it in anyway and resent him for it all the while.

Damn it, if Alastor wanted a Pokémon then _he_ could clear it with Housekeeping; Squalo strode into the room.

"Vooi! What are you doing here?" He demanded in English.

Luna spun on her wheels and beamed up at him. "I'm ensuring Balkie-kun receives a properly supportive upbringing," she said brightly in Japanese, clapping her hands together in front of her chest. "He needs to train every day or else he gets jittery."

"I meant here generally; why are you visiting?" Squalo rephrased, switching language on reflex and observing how Alastor relaxed fractionally at his deliberate disinterest in the Sun's newest pet –or did the Pokémon count as an apprentice? Not his problem either way– while making a mental note that he was going to have to remind people that it was Housekeeping, not Squalo, who set the pet rules.

"Oh, I wanted to see where you lived," the Mist said airily, "it's really very charming. I can see why so many people want to move here. Oh, and I wanted to ask if you'd like another go through my Mushroom Kingdom now I've recalibrated it to account for your exceptional skill levels."

It would take less than an hour for _everybody_ in the building to hear that Squalo had been trapped in a Super Mario themed Territory by Investigator; the Rain Officer took a deep breath through his nose and reminded himself that he'd known it would happen sooner or later.

"I've got more prizes too," Investigator added with a sly smile, switching to French. "These rollerblades let me skate on the walls and ceiling, you know."

Squalo got the strong impression that everybody in hearing range was now intensely interested as well as shamelessly eavesdropping. "Such as?" He asked, curious despite himself.

Luna blinked blandly at him. "But that would be telling, Officer Shark. Although I will admit to the existence of trainable guard-plants, stealth accessories and some very interesting, one-use-only, reality-altering substances; all properly tested and guaranteed as safe for human consumption, of course."

"Can anybody volunteer?" Neprírodan asked, shamelessly invading the conversation.

The lunatic Mist beamed at the manic Sun; "Of course! I was hoping your Shark would let me post a sign-up sheet and a high-score table." Game, set and match to Investigator; well, at least this way his men wouldn't get bored despite the lull in proper missions…

"Fine," Squalo agreed, raising a hand to silence the spontaneous cheer from the rest of the room's occupants. "Luss gets to run it first, to check it's actually non-lethal and nobody's going to have an allergic reaction to anything, after which it's open to whoever."

"I can set up an access point in the building," Investigator offered brightly. "Plus a shunt point, so you can pull everybody out in an emergency." She tapped her lower lip. "Prizes can only be won once, anybody who actually gets _all_ the available points gets a special prize but can't play again and prizes are personalised, so won't work as well for anybody other than the individual who won them." She paused; "and I reserve the right to shut it off at no notice whatsoever; I _do_ have a job, although work has been slow recently. Oh, and feedback on the prizes please, especially if you have ideas."

"Deal," Squalo said; hopefully he wouldn't regret this too badly. "Now?"

Luna pouted thoughtfully. "Well, I _think_ I've told Mr Alastor everything he needs to know about my little one, so yes. Balkie-kun, Mr Alastor will be training you now; remember to eat your vegetables and get your injuries properly checked!"

The humanoid purple Pokémon hugged Luna's leg as she stroked its lumpy head crest, then bounced over to Alastor, glared up at the massive Sun and punched him right above the knee. Going by the look on Alastor's face, you'd think he'd just fallen in love; Squalo rolled his eyes and stalked out of the room, Investigator gliding agreeably after him with her Pokémon around her… and Bel still trailing behind. Bel wasn't the only person following them –half-a-dozen of the other spectators were ambling after them and gossiping amongst themselves– but Squalo was paying more attention to Bel right now due to what Tájna had said. The Storm Officer was rarely this quiet or this amiable, so his current behaviour was deeply suspect.

Still, Bel would wait; Investigator needed dealing with quickly so he could find out why she was _really_ here, deal with it and politely push her out the door with as much of her Nintendo menagerie as possible. The Varia kept him plenty busy enough already without adding on his Boss's Guardians-in-law!

* * *

Setting up the perfectly circular pipe entrance in one of the smaller games rooms took Investigator seconds, but the Mist then spent a further half-hour Conjuring up a massive mirror next to it and rearranging the room's internal dimensions to allow for cinema-style seating. Squalo quickly realised with a sinking feeling that this was going to be a _spectator_ activity; well, at least this way more Varia would get to enjoy it at once?

"Here, this is yours," Investigator said, handing him a marble with a grey-blue inclusion that held a whisper of his own Flames within it. "This way people can view recordings as well as watch live. See, you put the marbles in here," she tapped the funnel emerging from the wall beside the mirror, "and once a person has finished their game it comes out here–" she pointed to a dish set below the funnel "–with the recording in. Only the person whose recording it is can remove it from the dish, but once it's out anybody can touch it. To watch a recording you put the marble in here–" she tapped two matching indentations in the lower frame of the mirror "–then tap the glass twice to begin. You can watch two recordings together in parallel or just one on its own; two makes comparison easier but one gives you a better field of vision."

"Very straightforward, darling," Lussuria said approvingly, having been fetched so that testing could take place as swiftly as possible. "How does the Territory work?"

"The door's here," Luna said, gesturing to the pipe entrance, "but before going in you set the difficulty level on the dial next to the entrance. Only the person about to go in can set the difficulty, as it's Flame-locked, and only two people can be in it at a time; they won't be in the Territory together but in parallel iterations. Difficulty starts at Easy, followed by Normal, Challenging and Quality. Once I have enough data I may be able to put in a few more levels, like a Squad one, but for now this is it. Sign-up sheet is already on a board beside the door and keyed into the Flame-lock: It's the person who does the writing on the sheet who gets the slot and after they emerge their score will appear on the high-score sheet next to the sign-up sheet. Nobody can go on twice in one day or more than three times a week and while you _could_ take firearms in, you'd have to watch your bullets carefully as they won't get replenished. You can't take food in or anything that registers as alive, but I think that's it. Hm… oh yes; if you're in there more than ten hours of Territory-time it will kick you out because there is a limit to how long bodily functions can be safely deferred."

"What about the shunt?" Squalo asked. Investigator widened her eyes at him.

"Oh I can't put that in here: people would misuse it to preserve their high-scores. Is there an office that's in a central location but generally empty? That would be the best place." _The Dragon's Office, if you please, Sir Shark; your Lord and Master needs access to his belongings and paperwork._

Squalo did not twitch at the words that appeared in his brain without actually passing through his ears; security was security and this was actually a very good reason for Investigator to be visiting. Squalo should have realised Boss would want his own clothes to wear; he'd probably have to take the Mist down to Xanxus' laboratory too, so she could ensure Boss could get at his gunsmithing tools. Heavy news tended to send Boss straight to the workshop and there was a _lot_ of heavy news piled up in the files on the new shelves.

"Fine. Luss, go ahead; I'll get this set up."

There was a rush for the seats as Ido vanished at speed in search of real marbles; Squalo made sure to casually pocket his own marble as he escorted Luna out of the room and up the stairs to Xanxus' office. Both the Espeon and the Misdreavus stayed behind, settling in to watch the currently-blank mirror along with Bel and the Natu.

Squalo did not talk as he led the way to his Boss's office; Mammon would be watching closely and he wasn't sure if or how Investigator could disrupt that without the Arcobaleno noticing.

"In here, voi," Squalo said shortly once they reached the door to the office of Boss's suite. Luna rolled inside without a word, the Abra flopped over her shoulders snoring slightly, and the Rain Officer closed the door behind him as he followed her in.

As soon as the door was closed Luna spun around and tapped it; the door promptly sprouted glowing green flames along the bottom edge and a floating purple letter 'C' twirling happily through it.

"The fuck, voi!"

"It's a save point," Investigator explained airily; "this suite now has a secondary iteration to it, which we are currently inside. Everything non-living in one version is also in the other, and any changes made to the suite can be 'saved' to both iterations by tapping the 'C' before you leave. I'll set up a corresponding save point for the Dragon to use, so he can come here and work without anybody noticing. After leaving today you won't ever be able to access this iteration again, but you can come and visit at any time the normal way. Only you and Xanxus can see the save point because only you two are playing the game."

"Can you set another one of these up without entering the room?" Squalo asked, his Boss's workshop at the forefront of his mind.

"So long as it is an enclosed space without anything living in it, yes," Luna said, gazing at him thoughtfully. "I'll set up the shunt point somewhere else, I think."

"Medical," Squalo said firmly; it was the best place since there were always people in Medical and trying to mess around and play pranks in there was actively suicidal behaviour.

"Lead on, Sir Shark," Luna said, tapping the floating 'C'. Squalo opened the door and walked out, Investigator right behind him; turning around proved that yes, the flames and floating letter _were_ only visible from the inside.

"Medical first, since the office was unsuitable," Squalo said aloud, mostly for Mammon's benefit since if the Mist Officer hadn't been eavesdropping before he _definitely_ was now, "then since it's getting on towards eleven I'll take you by the kitchens for a drink." Which coincidentally meant they would walk past Boss's workshop along the most direct route back to the modified game room; no need to make a fuss about things.

"A drink would be lovely, but after that I really must get going; I'm expected for lunch elsewhere," Investigator said agreeably. "If your minions could make sure they have the Pokémon they don't want to keep waiting by the front door for me to pick up when I leave, that would be lovely."

"Won't they fade eventually?" Squalo felt compelled to ask. Yes, some Mists could do Real Illusions that were _so_ realistic they could actually breathe and metabolise, but they were still Flame-constructs for all that. However Investigator was a witch as well as a Mist, so probably had far more extensive resources at her disposal for making things actually come alive.

"Only if they aren't loved," Luna said obliquely. "Things that are truly loved take on a life of their own, you know."

"Like those stories about hundred-year-old umbrellas?" In Squalo's opinion Japan had some of the _strangest_ folklore known to man.

Luna beamed at him. "Yes, exactly! Only it doesn't have to take a century; umbrellas aren't exactly _loved_, are they?"

"I suppose not," Squalo conceded as they arrived at Medical. "Well, here we are."

"I'll key it into your Flame, then show you how so you can key other Officers in," Investigator said brightly, "then we can go for lemonade. Today feels like a lemon day."

Squalo twitched; life had _definitely_ given him lemons today, but all the distraction of the Pokémon and the live-action Super Mario did mean he'd probably get away with leaving the building this afternoon to visit his Sky, so as to give all the bad news in person before Xanxus found it for himself in the files. People would think he was going for a walk or getting drunk privately, either of which was fine by him. Both were perfectly logical choices after being forced to deal with lunacy that casually surpassed Varia normal by a long way.

* * *

Translations 

Osa = wasp (Polish); also axis (Czech); he/she dares (Italian); she-bear (Spanish); among others…

Este = evening (Hungarian); also obstacle, barrier, hurdle (Finnish); east (Spanish and Portuguese)

Debo = bear (Syriac Aramaic); slightly misspelled

Jombi = zombie (Korean)

Tájna = secret (Russian)

Ido = gone (Spanish); also well –as in something you draw water from– (Japanese)

Neprírodan and Télos are previously mentioned in Parenting is not a Varia Quality (in the omake)


	133. Chapter 133

Beta'd by the courteous Insane Scriptist.

Okay, I have a couple more chapters so I'll be updating Monday and Tuesday as well. Then, as usual, a pause; I've finished my accounting qualification now so I'll also be applying for jobs and all that jazz, so it might take a while to get another set together. I _love_ writing this story though, so I'm not going to stop!

* * *

**Of cultural exchanges and really bad news **

Squalo managed to get away from the Varia right after an early lunch; he usually left the Varia anyway on Saturday afternoons, as it was when Delfina finished school early and spent the rest of the day at Petronilla's, so he tried to visit her there as often as he could. It wasn't _every_ Saturday, as some weeks the Varia was busier or requiring more supervision than others, but Squalo tried to schedule assignments during the week since being in charge of scheduling was one of the few perks of being in charge. He generally left the Varia around three rather than barely after midday, but he didn't have anything better to do and they'd just been visited by a friendly but still terrifying Mist who had personally embarrassed him, so nobody was going to comment. Not if they wanted to live.

He'd also taken his motorbike, so it really did look like he was following his usual routine slightly ahead of schedule. Squalo was pretty sure Information knew exactly where he went on Saturdays, but it wasn't relevant to the Varia and had no impact whatsoever on his work so it wasn't relevant enough to get written down anywhere public. It would be written down _somewhere_, just in case some moron tried to take out a hit on Delfina or she showed up in the periphery of another hit, but not anywhere people not part of Information Squad could read it. Tájna was very particular about the secrets he protected and not letting other people see them.

A big part of why most of the Varia could never remember who was in Information was because Information made a point of knowing everything about everybody in the Varia, which was enough to make any assassin paranoid. Which would be enough to make some people Dumb enough to try something really Stupid, so it slipping people's minds was for the best. A few had tried Dumb things in the past but Information never let them try again despite generally leaving the perpetrator alive; the idiot in question tended to have a few more memories missing than usual afterwards.

Squalo was going to visit his sister and his friend, but first he needed to see Boss and give him an overview of Vongola deaths and disasters before he found them out for himself some other way. Boss's wife definitely knew about the deaths, if only because of her inside man –or woman– but was very tactfully not mentioning them just yet. Which was another reason why Squalo wanted to tell Boss sooner rather than later: if he let it wait she might tell him first and Boss would take it amiss that somebody not part of the Vongola was telling him important Vongola news. There was also the very major risk that if Squalo procrastinated at all Boss would find it in the paperwork Investigator had just ensured he had access to, so the sooner this was out of the way, the better.

He still felt very bad about dropping it all on Boss at once, but as Blaise had demonstrated yesterday, speedy and surgical deployment of bad news followed by plenty of things to break would keep Xanxus on an even enough keel to prevent major explosions. Of course since Ottava had been Boss's favourite relative it was probably going to go worse than yesterday had, but Squalo could hope. There were a few things bolstering that wisp of hope, beyond the obvious evidence of the Zabini having long-established and effective methods of coping with bad news.

Maybe having his wife there would help? Mutual emotional support was supposed to be part of the whole marriage thing so far as he could tell. Whether Xanxus would _let_ her help was another matter entirely, but then again as one of Boss's Guardians Squalo was 'supposed' to help too. Well, according to the Vongola anyway, but that had never been a part of how Xanxus and Squalo's relationship had ever worked before so it probably wouldn't start being that way now. Squalo preferred issues he could solve and emotional issues were not really solvable; well not generally speaking and even then, the people affected still had to do the resolving on their own.

* * *

The drive leading off the road down to Boss's wife's house actually lead down to a massive garage and stable block to the left of the main building, where there were a few people loitering around a classic car that had been completely disassembled. Along with the loiterers there were three people in coveralls going over the pieces and talking to a fourth person taking notes, suggesting this was either a work activity or a serious enough hobby to almost count.

"Pretty motorbike," one of the loiterers said, walking over and giving him a friendly grin. Said loiterer was visibly British in colouring and bone structure but their Italian had all the tones and inflections of the local Sicilian; clearly Luna the Lunatic had been very conscientious about ensuring her Lady's minions would be able to blend in as much as possible. If she in fact been the Mist implanting the local lingo into said minions' heads, which wasn't guaranteed considering how many Mists said Lady had at her disposal.

"Thanks," Squalo said tersely, getting off and handing over his helmet.

"Visiting the Lord?" The minion asked, accepting the helmet and reaching out to steady the motorcycle with his free hand.

Squalo nodded sharply.

"Very well; Jasper!" The minion bellowed back over his shoulder, "Get out here!"

"Coming!" Jasper turned out to be an older teen bearing a family resemblance to the minion who had taken charge of his motorbike –in fact all the loiterers and mechanics looked related– wearing distinctly horsy-looking clothes. In the sense that they had horse-hair on them and he was wearing paddock boots; Boss's wife kept horses?

"Take the gentleman up to the house; he's here to see the Lord," the older minion said briskly to the younger one. "I'll put your bike in the front garage," he added to Squalo, pointing at an open double door; "just let someone know when you leave."

So nobody thinks it's been stolen, Squalo added in his head as the man wheeled his motorcycle away.

"This way then sir," Jasper the teenage minion said politely, wiping his hands on his jacket and gesturing along the compressed limestone drive leading along the front of the house. No, not at the path: at the door in the nearside end of the building. Squalo turned and easily kept pace with his temporary guide as they walked along the edge of the garage block to the corner of the building, then up the side to the door.

Jasper the minion didn't even bother knocking, he just pushed the door open and bellowed, "Hello the house!" along the rather bare hall; in English, not Italian.

"What?" was shouted back in the same language.

"A visitor for Lord Potter!" Jasper replied, which was met by not-quite-intelligible swearing and the sound of a quick scuffle.

"Guests go round to the _front _door, Jaz!" scolded the soberly dressed housemaid who pulled the door open properly.

"S'fine, I'm not visiting properly, just delivering a few messages," Squalo said quickly in English, not wanting to go through all the formal rigmarole that inevitably happened when _officially_ visiting somebody believed to be 'important'. He had to put up with a bit of that whenever trying to meet Nono when he hadn't been specifically summoned and it was a tedious business, no matter how familiar with the process he was by now.

The housemaid visibly considered this, leading Squalo to wonder if she was actually the _housekeeper_ rather than 'just' a maid. She looked to be in her thirties, which was certainly old enough to be a housekeeper. "You're one of my Lord's people?" she asked eventually.

"I am," Squalo agreed, omitting the polite 'madam' since she hadn't called him 'sir' either.

"Not a guest then," she decided firmly. "This way please, sir."

Squalo followed, taking note of the polished tile floors, simple but sturdy decorations and the muffled sounds of cooking, laundry and similar domestic activities going on within earshot. The housemaid led him briskly along the corridor, which had a completely unnecessary kink in the middle of its length which was _definitely_ intended to be defensive, then through a side-door and up a narrow back staircase onto a much more expensive and decorative-looking hallway with doors along the far side and windows on the near one.

"My Lord is in the lavender music room; second door on your right," she said, pointing off to Squalo's left along the hallway. "I think he's with My Lady."

"Thanks," Squalo said as the maid turned and hurried back down the stairs, closing the door he'd just walked through –which was wallpapered to blend in almost invisibly with the décor– and heading over to where she'd been pointing. He was pretty sure he hadn't actually walked far enough to be where he actually was in the building –provided of course that the view out of the hallway windows was in fact relevant– but since this was a magic house it made sense that you could build in short-cuts for the serving staff. People generally wanted the kitchens to be as far from the residential area as possible yet still get hot food and quick service.

Now he just had to hope Boss was in good enough mental shape to take the news of his being the last living Sky in the Vongola other than Nono without cracking.

* * *

Xanxus lay back along the massive couch in the music room his wife had picked out to retreat to, his head in her lap as he tried to come to terms with all the strangeness he'd been introduced to over the course of the morning. The feeling of her fingers on his scalp and playing with his hair and feathers was very soothing, as was the serene contentment he could feel through their marriage bond. Xanxus was grateful for the tranquil atmosphere; it made thinking much easier.

The layered labyrinth in the sub-basement was actually the easy part: it was a security precaution that doubled as a secure escape route in case of siege and a lot of effort had gone into trapping it. The final security measure would be a gigantic snake with venom and eyes so deadly they held an actual Death Curse. This was only 'safe' for Dorea because she could speak to snakes and this specific snake was actually part of her inheritance, so she actually had a duty of care towards it as well, which the labyrinth would meet nicely as it was spacious, interesting and food would be provided.

His wife assured him that despite also being able to speak 'snake', his kids would _not_ be able to get into the labyrinth without adult assistance, unless of course there was an emergency severe enough to activate the last-ditch defence protocols. Hector had only been able to get down there because Knight had taken him, as in order for an emergency procedure to _work_ those involved had to know what to do. In this case, that meant making sure the kids knew that when a certain alarm sounded and their nursery fireplace turned into a green-lit chute, they were to jump down it _immediately_ and follow the arrows at the bottom to the Safe Place, where there was food, bedding and toys.

Xanxus both hoped that such measures would never be necessary and agreed with the necessity of having them exist at all. You could never be too careful.

The second and much trickier point he was processing was cultural rather than security-related, which was why it was giving him more trouble. It was the issue of bedrooms.

Being raised Catholic and Mafia, Xanxus had taken it as a given that he and his wife would share a bedroom. It was what you _did_ when you got married. Except it turned out his wife was an old-school aristocrat of the kind where politically arranged marriages were far more common than love matches, where having separate bedrooms was absolutely _necessary_ to ensure both parties had private spaces to retreat to and get away from each-other without losing access to clothing or personal possessions. Love was not a given in such marriage –in fact indifference or outright loathing was not uncommon– so private, separate bedrooms made cohabitation possible.

His wife had therefore considered it appropriate to set up an entire private suite for him right next to her own. They each had a large bedroom with a double canopy bed –and a door connecting the two rooms– a spacious dressing room with an en-suite bathroom and a sitting room accessible off the bedroom, with his own suite having an office accessible off _that _as well. The sitting room and bedroom both had doors onto a corridor, but none of the other rooms did. The complete floor plan was somewhat non-Euclidean, but Xanxus was used to Mists so he could get used to that. The bedroom politics and etiquette was however new and slightly unsettling.

As the husband, he was 'supposed' to have his wife move into _his_ house, where she would get a private suite –or at least a very large bedroom with an adjacent bathroom– which was completely hers, to the point that he wasn't even allowed _in_ unless explicitly invited. However his 'house' was full of Varia assassins and he'd been frozen in a block of ice for the past half-decade, so he couldn't possibly have moved her in. Xanxus in fact had not the slightest intention of moving his family into Varia HQ _ever_ because it was not even _slightly_ child-friendly and there was a better than even chance some of the less sensible assassins would 'playfully' try to murder his wife and kids. Just _no_.

So in the absence of a house to move into, Dorea had built her own house as close to his 'home' as she could possibly get, as in 'the grounds are actually adjacent'. Which was pretty hilarious in a dark way, mostly because it was pretty obvious that none of the Varia had even noticed the construction process. She'd also, out of deference for the fact that it was _her_ house not his, created a fully secured private suite for _him_ to have as uncontested private space. There were independent Wards he could activate so that only he and specific people of his choice could even see the doors, which according to his wife were standard. She had those same Wards around her own bedroom and bathroom, if not the sitting room.

Xanxus could understand the theory: in an arranged marriage a girl might get stuck with some total bastard she didn't actually want touching her, so being able to keep him out of her bedroom would make it possible for her to sleep at night. But having it exist _in practice_, in _his marriage_… that was harder. It implied Dorea didn't trust him to be able to keep himself in check. Well, that was what it felt like; he knew she didn't feel that way towards him at all –the marriage bond was very helpful that way– so the issue was cultural. His wife was from a culture were arranged marriages were the norm, not the exception, and it was also normal for women to pre-emptively barricade their bedrooms against the possibility of their husbands becoming abusive.

That was a shitty culture.

"Part of the reason for those Wards is to keep a husband out while their wife is giving birth," Dorea said quietly, tracing the curve of his ear with the ball of her thumb. "Or to keep the children out if their mother has come down with a contagious illness. They're also very useful for protecting visiting young women from drunken men during parties."

"But protecting women from their husbands is the primary function."

Dorea sighed. "_I_ trust _you _with my body; we are bonded because we share many fundamental traits. But at least my culture _recognises_ that rape can exist within marriage and takes precautions against it."

Xanxus winced on the inside; that was a _brutal_ indictment but he couldn't argue with it. The Varia did get steady business from abused wives wanting to be widows and desperate men wanting to rescue their sisters from husbands who took marriage to mean they had a _right_ to their wife's body regardless of her feelings. "I suppose."

"Besides, sometimes you may come home at six in the morning without having slept for two days and want to be able to rest somewhere you _won't_ get mobbed by small children," his wife went on with a smile. "Having your own bed is practical, even though I really do want you in mine."

Xanxus blinked lazily up at his wife. "Oh?"

Dorea pouted. "I'm _married_. I feel I should be getting the perks as well as the responsibilities." There was a twinge of longing and dash of lust underpinning the teasing, which Xanxus promptly vowed to rectify. Yes, it had been barely over a week to him since their wedding night, but to his wife it had been _much_ longer, _years_ longer. Plus, seducing her would be fun and might even help him coax her into actually falling in love with him.

He was just considering how best to word a response when there was a familiar flame in the hallway and a brisk knock on the door.

"Shark," Xanxus acknowledged flatly, slightly annoyed by the interruption.

"Boss," the shark replied tersely, closing the door behind him and dropping onto the couch on the far side of the coffee table. "Thought I should tell you the family news before anybody else did."

Because of course there'd been a load of shit going down in the Vongola while he was on ice; what else had he expected?

"Talk," he ordered, catching one of his wife's hands in his own and letting the other flop across his lap. Dorea squeezed his fingers gently, her other hand sliding away from his hair to rest on his shoulder. That didn't bode well at all.

"May seventeenth, nineteen-ninety-six, Enrico gets himself shot during an altercation with the Malatesta Family," Squalo said bluntly. "March fifth, nineteen-ninety-eight, Massimo winds up kicked off a dock with his feet stuck in a block of concrete. February eighteenth, nineteen-ninety-nine, Donna Ottava passes away in her sleep."

Xanxus couldn't help the harsh indrawn breath; he barely managed to keep the exhale halfway steady.

"February twentieth, two-thousand-and-one –this year– Federico gets himself reduced to bones while out on a midnight jaunt. March nineteenth, Nono announces the existence of another heir and that the Arcobaleno Hitman Reborn will be training him." Squalo finished, flopping back to stare at the ceiling. "Investigator's set something up so you can get at the paperwork and records from here without being noticed; thought you'd want to hear it rather than read it."

Yes, getting told in person was infinitely preferable to finding out things that were important and personally relevant from reading reports or notes; it still _hurt_ to know his brothers were all dead, never mind his grandmother. _Nonna_ had taken more of an interest in him as a person and in his education than the old fart _ever_ had. Knowing he was never going to see her again, that he'd _missed her funeral_ because the senile _liar_ couldn't be _bothered_ to let him out to attend it–

Xanxus blinked as the press of lips to his forehead brought him back to reality; he blinked again as he realised his eyes were wet. Was he _crying_ of all things?

"Squalo's gone," his wife said softly, gently wiping a tear away with a fingertip. She felt so sad, Xanxus realised; a deep ache that was somehow _clean_ in a way his own tearing grief really wasn't. And she was crying too.

She was crying for him. Because he was hurting. He wasn't hurting her, she was just crying because his pain was making her sad. Because she cared about him.

Xanxus sat upright on the couch, turned around to face his wife, dragged her into his lap and buried his face in her hair, shaking. As her arms came up and wrapped tightly around his chest, he stopped trying not to cry and _keened _as loudly as he dared, curling around her to muffle himself against her shoulder.

Ottava –his _Nonna_– was dead. It hurt. But his wife didn't think any less of him for showing it.


	134. Chapter 134

Beta'd by the beauteous Insane Scriptist.

Reviews are not showing up on the site, which is verry irritating as I can't read all the long ones! Hopefully they'll fix it soon...

* * *

**Of politics and perceptions **

Guilt was a tricky subject for a Giglio Nero Donna. Being raised Catholic –or at least sort-of Catholic– meant that guilt was instilled early and at considerable depth, but being naturally prescient significantly added to the burden. Were you responsible for the suffering of a person simply because you had failed to dissuade them from the course of action that you had foreseen would cause them pain? Or was your warning them the total sum of your responsibility, meaning that their suffering was all upon their own head as a consequence of their choices?

Aria felt there was no easy answer to that dilemma, especially since she knew from experience that foresight was a tricky thing; trying to prevent a potential future outcome could easily bring it about. Just look at all those Greek myths and legends featuring oracles. Oedipus was perhaps the most infamous example but Perseus's father was another and there were many more legends featuring the Oracle of Delphi or some other wise seer capable of divining the gods' will or the Fates' design. It _was_ possible to escape a prophecy but, as the stories proved, failure was very likely.

Or even her own recent experience with Federico Vongola, where her attempts to circumvent the vision she had of his death had instead somehow conspired to bring it about. It really wasn't fair: her mother had never done anything about what she saw, considering them to be Fate and therefore set in stone, and her inaction had led to her predictions coming to pass. Aria on the other had had fought Federico Vongola's demise tooth and nail yet it had _still_ happened. Why? How? She had successfully prevented various specific visions coming to pass when she was younger, so what had gone so wrong this time? What variable had she overlooked?

Was it something to do with the Arcobaleno Curse? It had certainly curtailed her ability to do more that catch glimpses of what might come to pass and the more detailed visions were overwhelmingly negative; a drastic change from the futures she had seen as a child and young teen. At thirteen she had once caught a glimpse of her future self, the greying hair and laughter lines a tantalising promise of survival beyond all odds and the bleak certainty of death that her mother's Curse held. Yet since inheriting the Curse at fifteen all she had seen was death: her own death shortly after turning thirty, the deaths of her Guardians and relatives, her underlings slain by accident, illness or deliberate malice and her allies cut down by means she could not perceive. Aria now knew why her mother had so often said that the future was sad; sorrow was now all she could see.

* * *

She had known Federico was marked for death from the moment she first set eyes on him at a party, but hadn't paid the matter any mind; death visions had by then become commonplace to her. However his determined pursuit of her –and his insistence that he was actually genuinely enamoured of her– had made the visions clearer and more detailed. She had been able to See that he would be dying _soon_, not just in some nebulous maybe-future decades away. Aria had not been able to determine _who_ killed him; all she saw was the funeral, a glimpse of Nono Vongola saying he would need to find a new Heir and the terrible grief afflicting Federico's Guardians. Enough to know what would happen, but not enough to know how to prevent the tragedy.

It was that grief that led her to do all she could to deflect the Decimo; his pursuing her made the visions clearer, so clearly his dying was a consequence of that pursuit. How or why Aria had no idea –still had no idea in fact– but a year of being charmingly but ever more doggedly courted by the much older man without any change in the visions had led her to doubt the truth of them. Could it be that her _refusal_ to accept his suit was what would get him killed? Did he actually genuinely love her, not just see her as a challenge and a conquest? If he did in fact love her, would her forcing him to accept her refusal actually break his heart, making him careless and lead to his death? Aria had made a point to be evasive, citing disbelief in his sincerity rather than outright refusing Federico's attentions –she may have been a Donna in her own right but the Vongola were powerful– and trying to put him off by referencing the Arcobaleno Curse. It hadn't worked; Federico had been utterly respectful of her choices and boundaries while being completely set on demonstrating his sincerity. It would have been more romantic if Aria had not been afflicted with grief-filled nightmares at least twice a week.

So she had relented. Gradually. There had been quiet conversations at parties where they actually _talked_ rather than him _trying_ to talk and her deflecting, dissembling and escaping as soon as possible. Federico had been utterly ecstatic and almost proposed on the spot barely a month later; his Mist Guardian had kicked him in the shin and _glared_ at him as he hopped and pouted, which had been hilarious. Aria had laughed and the way the Decimo _looked_ at her, soft eyes and silly grin, had destroyed her reservations. Yes, she could see his funeral looming over him, but how could she protect him from it if she kept her distance? Better to stay close, where she could confide in him and him in her, all the better to thwart the spectre of death hanging over him.

Aria hadn't really wanted a public courtship though; she had spent a_ year_ doing her best to drive Federico away and changing her attitude _now_, when Don Vongola was finally preparing to hand over his Famiglia to Federico, would make it look like she had been won over by the desire to gain power and influence. That would weaken both her own Family and the Vongola and with Federico having so many _other_ problems she didn't want to add to it. So she requested a private meeting with him, so they could discuss their options.

Federico's proposal was as preposterous as it was stupidly romantic: they would get engaged secretly, but tell people that they had actually been engaged for six months already, keeping up the façade of not-really-courtship because Federico didn't think his father would approve of him marrying the Sky Arcobaleno and she didn't want to be made a pawn in his Family politics. They would announce this right after the Inheritance Ceremony, and since they would have been 'engaged' for ten months by then they could marry at once. Federico was positive they could bend –or even break– the Curse in a few years if he put Vongola R&amp;D on the case and Aria had been seduced by hope and the possibility of being allowed to be selfish for once. She _did_ love Federico, she could admit it to herself now, and marrying him was something she wanted more than anything else in the world. The promise of those childhood visions seemed to be coming about and Aria couldn't resist it.

But in her dizzy delight she'd been negligent; in order to hold up the pretence of an extant engagement they had agreed to not tell their respective Guardians of the change. Aria had been a little hesitant about that, but Federico had convinced her it was for the best. Conspiracies were uncovered far more often than private secrets, so the fewer people who knew, the better. She should have insisted; should have protested that their Guardians were loyal to _them_ first and that her Family would not contest her choice to keep this a secret.

Federico however had been unable to contain himself and had secretly visited her, sneaking into her suite late on various evenings and spending the night with her. The first time she'd been terrified for his safety and had almost called Catrín to escort him home right away, but Federico had promised her that he would be safe, that he had been sneaking in and out of other people's houses for _decades_ and really, didn't she think this was rather fun? Having him be her secret? Having time just for _them_, away from the weighty expectations of their respective Families?

Truthfully, Aria's answer had been 'yes', but her selfishness and carelessness had killed him; he'd died on his way home after his fourth visit, killed suddenly and untraceably because none of his Guardians had been there to protect him. She felt terrible about it; she really had loved him and she should have made her listen to him and take her concerns seriously. She should have _warned_ him about the vision, even, so he'd _understand_ why she was so worried.

* * *

As an Allied Donna she had not had any choice but to attend Federico's funeral, which had been almost a month after his death and _exactly_ as her visions had portrayed. She had hated it; hated that she couldn't grieve properly where anyone could see, because nobody had known that they had been engaged. She had been crying in private on and off for _weeks_ already, mourning the loss of the future Federico had promised her, mourning the loss of _him_ and all his wonderful, frustrating habits.

Less than a week after the funeral she was mourning again: mourning that her unborn child would never know their father or his Family. She _couldn't_ let anybody know about the spark of life she carried, the daughter who had suddenly become the focus of her visions: if anybody found out that Federico had a semi-legitimate heir, a _Sky_ Heir, the Vongola would rip itself in half. Nono had already chosen a successor from the wider Vongola and sent Reborn, the Sun Arcobaleno, to tutor them in all the things a Boss needed to know, so the existence of a more eligible direct heir would disrupt the succession and possibly even lead to her daughter being taken away from her.

Aria had already lost Federico; she was _not_ going to lose his daughter. Not to the Curse, not to greedy Vongola House Heads wanting a puppet they could manipulate, not to _anyone_.

The Giglio Nero Family Library contained a great deal of information on Flame Manipulation, including how a Sky Lady could lengthen the early stages of pregnancy to disguise who, exactly, had fathered her child. Three months would be enough to convince everyone that Federico could not _possibly_ be her child's father and give her time to find an appropriate partner within her own Family. Possibly her distant cousin Ercole? He was wildly in love with Enyo, her Cloud Guardian, but terrified of his father finding out and disowning –or even murdering– him. If she told Ercole something close to the truth and they worded the marriage contract appropriately, after the birth of her heir they could each take lovers of their own gender and not compromise the Family's succession. It would lead to gossip about her preferring other women to men, but that was infinitely preferable to the alternatives and would further disassociate her from Federico in people's minds. If she decided later that she wanted other children… there was always IVF. She would have to make sure there was a clause for that.

It really hurt that she would probably be marrying a sort-of friend in May rather than her fiancé in July, but there was nothing she could do to change that. She had her daughter's future to secure and Ercole was both a good man and smart enough to not try and interfere in the running of the Family. He was a much better choice than most for that alone, but he still wasn't Federico. It was going to be a very polite marriage.

Aria could make do. She had practice.

* * *

It was a quiet wedding. Aria had made it very clear that it _would_ be quiet because that was what she _wanted_, in which she was aided by the general political atmosphere of tension and unease that had fallen over the Mafia when Federico died and lingered still, even nearly three months on. Everybody knew Nono Vongola had an heir, but nobody knew who the heir _was_. Not their gender, age, nationality, personal inclinations or anything other than that they were of Vongola blood and were a Sky. Considering how large and sprawling the Vongola line had been known to be until the First World War, it wasn't much to go on. Considering that the Vongola's External Advisor was known in the highest Mafia circles as being descended from Primo Vongola, the heir might even not be European.

Aria did not actually care about any of that; the Vongola would stand or fall on its own merits. The unsettled atmosphere did however provide the gossips with plenty of perfectly plausible and sensible reasons why she was getting married _now_ and why she wanted to do so quietly. It helped that her own mother had a private wedding –in fact it had been a _secret_ wedding– and that her grandmother had also married in a small ceremony, although admittedly that had been because World War Two was raging on the doorstep at the time.

The current situation was hardly World War Two, but it was reason enough and there was sufficient precedent that people could think that strictly in-Family wedding celebrations were a Family Tradition. She was the third generation in a row to do so after all, so it was certainly _becoming_ a tradition.

The most ridiculous and hilarious thing about this marriage was that she had Harmonised with her husband during the process of hammering out the pre-nuptial agreement. Ercole was a Rain, capable but nothing special, and one she had known for over a decade; bonding with him all of a sudden had blind-sided her. Enyo had found her surprise tremendously amusing: the whole point of the pre-nuptial agreement was to find common ground and agree to terms, was it not? They had done so and common ground had added to mutual respect and trust to form a Guardian Bond. Which the Cloud was delighted about, because Guardians spending time together was _expected_ so he could drag his lover off whenever it suited him and nobody was going to be able to say a thing against it.

What the pre-nuptial agreement boiled down to was that both spouses agreed to only have children with one-another and not indulge in affairs with members of the opposite sex. Aria had already told Ercole that she would be pregnant with her firstborn _before_ the wedding and that said firstborn's parentage was her own business, but that later children could be conceived through IVF and would be his, because once married she fully intended to be _faithful_. For the pre-arranged interpretation of 'faithful' anyway, which was to do with the parentage of eventual children not sex. Ercole was almost embarrassingly grateful to be out from under his father's thumb and allowed to continue his relationship with the man was he was in love in, but the Rain had still sheepishly admitted that he was very glad he wasn't expected to have sex with her. Since while he was fully aware of her aesthetic appeal, he didn't like women that way. At all. No offense.

Aria wasn't offended; she still missed Federico too much to want to sleep with anyone and before getting engaged to the late Vongola Heir her lovers had been female as often as they were male. Restricting herself to one gender in the future would not be a devastating loss and was a small price to pay for the security of her daughter and potential future children.

However now she was married she could focus on the _important_ thing, which was finding a way to end the Arcobaleno Curse before it killed her. She should probably get in touch with the more elusive and eccentric of the Giglio Nero family's allies there; Nephele and her husband would be a good place to start, since tracking down Phoebe was likely to take _months_. Phoebe had always been more elusive than Nephele, which was ironic because among the Vongola they claimed it was the Cloud who drifted, not the Sun.


	135. Chapter 135

Beta'd by the magnanimous Insane Scriptist

Last prepped chapter... and I notice that the past twenty chapters have all taken place in just under a week, timeline-wise. There has been a _lot_ happening though.

* * *

**Of mourning and taking time **

There is only so much crying a person can do at any one time. Xanxus still hurt, a lot, but currently it was a numb, distant pain he wanted to ignore. Yes, _Nonna _was dead. Crying wouldn't change that. He was also in pain and crying wouldn't change that either. So he'd eaten some of the sandwiches that had been delivered to the music room when he wasn't looking, drunk the tea that had come with the food and managed to engage in a reasonably coherent conversation with his wife concerning favourite tea types and blends; they had different preferences there. Then he'd admitted to feeling tired and retreated up to his private rooms, embarrassingly grateful that they existed and despising himself for the hypocrisy of that thought. Only hours ago he'd been objecting to his wife having enforceable privacy and here he was, taking advantage of that same fortified privacy.

More than that, he'd have _killed_ for this kind of guaranteed space as a kid, even if it would have meant having to hide out in his –Xanxus swallowed hard– in his grandma's or his sister's rooms.

Except that somebody had been in here in the past hour or so. Xanxus focused, sharpening his senses and carefully looking around the sitting room. It was rather bare; white paint, no wallpaper, limited plaster and wooden mouldings, muted parquet flooring and plain curtains. Dorea had said he could make any changes he liked; as Crown Prince of Sabina he got an allowance and there was a lifetime's backlog –the length of his life at least– of it in an account waiting for him to spend it. Had the invader been delivering the stack of fabric and wallpaper books, furniture magazines and stationary stacked on the low table next to the sofa?

… No, well, they _had_ but that wasn't all they'd done. Xanxus even recognised the faint, elusive Flame-signature that was already shifting to mimic his own; that was Luna the Investigator. Sunny Mists were tricky like that, as their shed Flames would mimic and reinforce any other Flame-imprints present. The only reason Xanxus had sensed anything at all was that the room had been barren of other Flames for her imprints to mimic.

There was a note on top of the catalogues. Xanxus stepped closer and eyed it warily. A quick check proved it safe enough.

_I've set up a connection to your Varia suite_, it said in loopy cursive, _which you can access through your office door. Just turn the dial over the door to blue! You can retrieve anything from the suite, but only if you tap the 'C' on the other side of the door before walking back through with it. Turning the dial to red takes you to your workshop –your shark insisted_– _and turning to green takes you through to the office that is actually in the adjacent space. Black doesn't go anywhere yet, so turning the dial to black makes the door impossible to open. _

_Try not to drown in paperwork!_

_Investigator _

Paperwork was something for later; right now Xanxus wanted to wear his own clothes. Borrowed clothing just wasn't comfortable no matter the material or quality. It felt too much like begging for charity, made worse by the fact that it was his wife's sworn brother's clothing he was wearing and the man was still a stranger for all they were related; Blaise was his nephew, which reminded him that he had a half-sister. A sister who was far from impressed by their father and out and about doing who knew what. He supposed he could ask later; first he wanted his own clothing.

* * *

Staring at the contents of the wardrobe in his bedroom in the Varia Mansion –was he even _in_ the Varia Mansion right now? Something to ponder later– Xanxus tried to remember why he'd ever thought it would be a good idea to put Lussuria in charge of designing and creating the Varia uniforms. Luss had funny ideas about fashion and wasn't at all shy about wearing really outrageous things.

Oh, wait, now he remembered: the alternatives had been foisting it on Mammon –who would charge him– or Squalo –who didn't care and would probably have delegated it to someone else anyway. Xanxus had insisted on getting veto, so he hadn't worried about it much and had considered it a small price to pay to keep Lussuria from getting bored through lack of work. However what with getting put on ice, he hadn't been there to police his Sun Officer's style choices. Some of which were more offensive to his fashion sense than others.

There was his spare uniform from the year he'd been put on ice, a lingering relic of Tyr's administration with its high neckline and double-breasted front, the jacket finishing nearly an inch above the hips. The wide belt and slightly flared trousers hung alongside it; there was no spare pair of boots because boots cost a heck of a lot more and you didn't actually _need_ to change your boots like you did regular clothing. Next to those on one side were all but one of his everyday shirts, three smart shirts and the mishmash of odd outfits picked up for missions in foreign countries. Hiding at the far end, behind his winter coat, was the damaged wedding dress he'd peeled his wife out of two weeks and most of six years ago… which had been dry-cleaned and neatly repaired since he put it there.

Xanxus decided he didn't care who had found it or what they'd thought; it had probably happened years ago anyway. It was what was filling up the _other_ side of his wardrobe that was bothering him.

There were more casual shirts and a few fancier ones at the far end; all things he'd actually wear that were probably picked out by Luss based on the okama's familiarity with his clothing preferences. However between the new shirts and his original spare uniform were twelve more uniform sets, hung up in the regulation pairs that were issued to all Varia members on an annual basis, and they were giving him trouble.

So were the six pairs of boots, but that was slightly different.

Looking at the uniform choices Lussuria had made over the past five years, it was very clear that Squalo hadn't even _tried_ to rein the older man in. People had worn these? Willingly? In public?

Okay, the first one wasn't _that_ bad; he remembered Luss designing that one. It did look a bit teenage biker thug but it was far better than his Sun's earlier designs, so he'd gone with it. Despite the round-neck black shirts and the dark grey jeans not being his personal preference they had probably looked pretty decent on people as well as helping them blend in civilian environments. How Luss had managed to treat denim to the Varia's stringent Flame-proofing standards was a mystery, but he clearly had so Xanxus could let that outfit be.

The next outfit looked a bit like the original uniform in being double-breasted, but it hung to mid-thigh rather than finishing at the waist and was slightly less fitting, meaning it was actually possible to _move_ it in without undoing half the buttons. It was also matte charcoal grey rather than glossy black, which was interesting and classy; the straight-leg leather trousers were equally matte and dark grey, making that outfit look like a wedding suit rather than a uniform for killing people in. This outfit however came with two roll-neck jumpers rather than proper shirts –one in off-white and one in silver-grey– which spoiled the effect rather. Like the designer had tried to make the get-up look casual but had still wanted to involve a stupidly expensive suit.

The third outfit was the worst one though: it was an asymmetric coat-thing in sleek black leather that looked vaguely like the mutant spawn of a kimono and an abstract art project; Xanxus recognised the overall style as Versace and wondered why Luss had wanted to make the Varia look like catwalk escapees for a year. The low-waisted trousers weren't so bad but the shirts hanging up with them were _horrific_ and possibly _actually_ Versace rather than just a tribute design. Xanxus preferred dealing with knock-offs than the actual item; he couldn't understand why people would spend money on such terrible clothing but knockoffs were at least cheaper if equally terrible.

Xanxus did not like wearing colours and loathed loud patterns; those shirts were the epitome of all the reasons why. They were an eyesore. If Luss ever so much as _implied_ he should wear this kind of thing Xanxus would burn his hair off.

Possibly Luss had been trying for subtle psychological warfare against the old fart that year? That was at least a viable explanation for this eyesore.

The next outfit was both better and worse; the jacket looked like a leather sack with a collar and was _shiny_. Who the fuck thought shiny polished leather was a good idea for a bunch of assassins? Had Lussuria's brain turned to mush in his absence? The trousers were just as bad and slightly fitted in contrast to the sack-like jacket, which just made the combination worse. The sort of worse that had people asking 'how much' for whatever sexual favour they were willing to pay for.

Xanxus was going to burn both those tasteless jackets and all the horrendous Versace shirts. He didn't care that they were Flame-treated; Wrath Flames and sheer will would win out eventually.

The next outfit was slightly less terrible despite looking like a white tuxedo with black trousers that somebody had decided to make in leather rather than finely woven wool. The black formal shirts with it were also not so bad, considering. He'd look like a reverse penguin in them but nobody would be able to say he looked _bad _due to how the leather was treated.

The last outfit however… Xanxus was torn. On the one hand, the trousers and jacket were dark grey, sensibly cut for both ease of movement and concealing weapons and were sleek fitting; the jacket even had a decent collar. On the other, they were pinstriped. Pinstripes were stereotypically 1920s mobster and that wasn't an image Xanxus was interested in cultivating. Not even when the suit they were on looked that comfortable. The shirts accompanying this uniform were… odd… but not outrageous, so Xanxus might actually try them on before destroying them as unwearable. It was just the contrast between the crushed velvet of the body and the smooth silk of the collar and sleeves that struck him as weird.

At least there wasn't a fedora to match. Luss had shown that much sense.

* * *

Xanxus considered just putting on the spare original uniform and calling it a day, but common sense reminded him that he'd feel irritable about the uniforms cluttering his closet until he'd tried them on and either reconciled himself to how he looked in them or destroyed them. So he lifted out one of each of the four new uniforms he was prepared to actually _wear_ along with one of his regular shirts.

After a moment's consideration he also removed from the wardrobe the trousers that went with the truly awful jackets; they were black and leather, so there wasn't much Luss could do to fuck them up without compromising on mobility, which his Sun Officer wouldn't do in the first place. There weren't even any decorative seams or pointless fringes to make chucking them out on principle easier.

Putting on one of his _own_ shirts was such a fucking _relief_. It felt right, it smelled right and hadn't been cut for a swordsman; knowing Squalo meant Xanxus knew a lot about swordsmen and that you needed to pick your shirts carefully or else you compromised your ability to execute an over-arm swing was one of the random facts he'd picked up. Blaise's shirts were fantastic quality but they hung wrong around the shoulders. Well, in Xanxus' opinion they did anyway; if he'd been more than just adequate with a sword he might feel differently.

"Mrrrow."

Xanxus stilled for an instant, then turned around and stared at the large, grey-furred cat standing in the doorway between the bedroom and main office of his Varia suite. It was in that peculiar shade called 'blue' that really wasn't and was looking back at him with worryingly intelligent eyes.

How the fuck had it got in here? Was it a Varia cat demonstrating a newfound talent to walk through walls? No, it couldn't be; Investigator's comments on having to tap the door before leaving in order to be able to take things out suggested this was a parallel dimension. So the cat had to have come from his wife's house. The privacy wards didn't block cats, he idly noted.

"Mrrrorr," the cat commented, wandering inside and sniffing at the furniture. Xanxus decided to ignore it; he had no idea how magic affected cats, but based on what Flames could do he was better off leaving the animal to its own devices. Wasting an hour trying to corral a cat would be Dumb and Xanxus wasn't. He was going to try on the various pairs of trousers and the decent jackets, maybe try on some of the new shirts and jumpers, and take the ones he liked to put in the wardrobe in his new bedroom. Then he was going to remove the really awful jackets and shirts and burn them to ash.

He should probably take the mended wedding nightdress away too; clearly someone _had_ noticed it, but as Squalo definitely hadn't had an inkling of his marriage then whoever was keeping his wardrobe in order hadn't mentioned it to the shark. Whoever it was in Housekeeping was keeping their mouth shut then; good. Xanxus put the matter out of his mind and tried on the biker-thug uniform, pulling the wardrobe door all the way open so he could see himself in the mirror.

He looked so _young_. Even with the dress shirt adding a bit of class, the denim and motorcycle jacket made him look sixteen; not just the sixteen in body that he actually was but sixteen in mind. He looked like somebody playing at being an adult, trying to look mature and edgy while deliberately distancing themselves from their parents. A child playing dress-up, a rebel for the sake of rebelling; a teenager.

Good enough for undercover work, but not to wear on a daily basis. Not when he was Varia Boss and married with kids; reminding Dorea of how young he was would just make their relationship more awkward than it was already.

Xanxus tried the double-breasted jacket with the matching trousers next; as he'd expected they made him look like a wedding guest or a banker. Even with the spotted feathers in his hair making him look disreputable and wild, the suit still made him look sober and mature; in fact with the suit, the feathers made him look dangerous and authoritative. He could easily pass for twenty like this; he'd be keeping this outfit to wear when he wanted to be formal and intimidating.

Both the jacket and the trousers had good pockets too, which was a sight better than most other suits Xanxus had worn until now. Pocket space was a frequent sacrifice to sleek lines.

The trousers that had come with the terrible jackets fitted well enough, despite making him look like a punk rocker. That was an occupational hazard in the Varia though, what with the frequent combination of leather and rumpled formal shirts, so he could let it slide. They'd be good on missions.

The reverse penguin outfit looked a bit less reverse penguin with a white shirt rather than the black one provided, but the overall result was still of his having just escaped a summer ball or an American high school prom. He did look older in it, just not _that_ much older. Handy for formal occasions when he wanted to be under-estimated then, or infiltrating a party for an assassination. Not great for everyday wear though; the white jacket was too showy. He wasn't sure how many Varia had actually worn it on missions.

That left the pinstriped uniform, which was almost identical to what Squalo had been wearing when he first visited; the only difference was in jacket cut, as Squalo's was altered to allow for his swords while Xanxus' own had allowances built in so he could hide his X-guns under it. Well, the previous set he'd given to his wife would fit; he needed to make himself a new pair.

Squalo had ensured he would be able to access his workshop through Investigator's Mist-magic, so Xanxus could actually make himself a new set of guns whenever he wanted. He'd have to start thinking about the design. He knew he wanted them to be bigger and he did need to catch Blaise to ask about those Flame-dissipating matrices and if they had ever been adapted to amplify instead. No point reinventing the wheel if somebody else had already worked out the particulars.

He needed to try on the current Varia uniform first though.

Except, well… pinstripes.

He was definitely prejudiced against pinstripes; Enrico had always been wearing them, when he wasn't wearing suits with actual _stripes _of course. It was been horrendously cliché and he'd only managed to make them look good because he put so much effort into keeping fit. Not staying in fighting form, keeping _fit_ so he _looked_ toned and energetic. Massimo had been solid with a bit of a belly, but at least he'd been honestly shameless about his weight gain rather than vain and insecure like Enrico. Massimo had actually been mostly muscle; it just hadn't been lean muscle. Massimo had other insecurities though and Federico had probably only been in shape due to fucking every woman who fluttered her eyelashes at him.

Fuck. They'd all treated him like _shit_ more often than not and he _still_ missed them?!

He had to try the uniform on; he never actually worn pinstripes before due to not wanting to look like an Enrico groupie, but his eldest brother had been dead five years now. Nobody would be making comparisons anymore.

_Why does that make me feel like I've been punched in the gut? I always _hated_ the comparisons and deliberately went out of my way to dress differently. Enrico with his stripes, trying to look like the pictures of Nono as a young man, Massimo in his round-neck shirts and casual jackets defying the social order, Federico in his v-neck jumpers and loud ties picked to make him look sober but approachable. I created my own image so I'd stand out from all of them and now there isn't anybody _left_ to stand out _from.

_Fuck this shit_._ The cat won't judge me for crying._

* * *

A little later Xanxus stared critically at his pinstriped reflection, not entirely sure how he felt about it. On the one hand, the uniform was properly cut, easy to move in and far more Flame-resistant than he remembered his first uniform being. The thin cream lines were also barely visible against the dark grey ground and reasonably close together, creating a slightly textured effect rather than outright stripes, drawing attention to his height, the sleekness of the trousers and the width of his shoulders. He didn't look _bad_, per se; just pinstriped. He also looked much more mature, but rather less bland than he had in the double-breasted jacket.

All of Xanxus' ties were narrow, black and rather abused-looking, but with this outfit he might actually consider branching out a bit. Not into wider ties though; they all reminded him too much of the old fart and his dead brothers. Maybe a cravat like Blaise had been wearing or just slightly more interesting narrow ties.

"Mrrrow?" The cat twined around his ankles, purring loudly as he leaned down to scritch it behind the ears. He'd been snuggled by the cat throughout his little breakdown, which suggested he'd been appropriated by said cat as a favoured human. Xanxus didn't mind; he liked cats. Smart cats at least.

"_You should probably distance yourself_," he told the cat in Sicilian; "_I'm going to set things on fire._" Those awful jackets had been contaminating his wardrobe long enough already.

Burning Flame-resistant material was not actually as hard as all that with Wrath Flames; you just had to really _want_ the material to burn. Where those atrocious jackets were concerned Xanxus was very, _very_ motivated, so they burned rather well. Less well than he'd been expecting, the sack-like one in particular, but that was actually encouraging as it suggested that Lussuria had significantly improved the uniform treatment procedure.

Considering how awful the hybrid-kimono-mutant had looked, Xanxus could see a whole lot of Varia trying to surreptitiously destroy it on missions in ways that wouldn't lead to them having to buy a new one. Having the uniform 'not stand up to combat conditions' was one of the few ways a Varia assassin could get out of paying for its replacement. That year had probably been very educational all around.

Grinning at the mental images, Xanxus piled up all of his shirts with the spare original uniform, the now jacketless pairs of trousers and both sets of the double-breasted uniform; there was a good chance he'd have to look formal and mature since he was a royal prince and those looked formal enough and were armoured. The reverse penguin outfit went back in the wardrobe with the teenage biker gear and after a pause Xanxus decided to leave the spare pinstriped uniform in there too; he could always fetch it later. Then he added his wife's wedding dress, because the sooner that was away from snoopy assassins the better.

He wasn't going to deal with the boots today; he couldn't _face_ dealing with the boots today. They could wait; he wasn't running missions so his current ones would be fine for a while longer. He'd have to break them in anyway and the pair he was wearing was comfortable and familiar.

Hanging the pile of clothes over one arm, Xanxus headed for the door. He'd have to come back for underwear and socks, but that wasn't a big deal.

"Wrrraaooo?"

Of course, he couldn't leave the cat in here either. Fortunately it seemed happy to follow him out.


	136. Chapter 136

Beta'd by the dedicated Insane Scriptist.

Yes, it's update week again! Rejoice! Also a warning: things are getting political on the Vongola side of things...

* * *

**Of news and changes **

Squalo was tired. His morning had been full of Pokémon and Mist-madness and then he'd had to break the news to Boss that his grandmother and brothers were all dead. That had been utter shit, as seeing and feeling his Sky go to pieces when he _knew_ there was nothing he could do to help was miserable. Boss didn't _want_ Squalo to see him fall apart, so _all_ the Rain could do for his Sky was tell the truth as cleanly and swiftly as possible then make himself scarce.

Squalo recognised that making himself scarce was in fact the best thing he could do for Boss, but that didn't mean he _wanted_ to do it. Yes, Boss's wife was there, but Squalo knew that Boss had only been married for a week before the not-a-coup so he'd only actually _known_ his wife for a fortnight. Still it was very obvious that Boss trusted her completely, as otherwise he wouldn't have zoned out with his head in her lap or started tearing up, which had been when Boss-Lady had caught Squalo's eye and glanced at the door. Squalo had taken his cue and left, but it still didn't sit right to leave Boss like that. Especially since he didn't know Dorea Black and therefore had issues trusting her.

Actually no: he was jealous that Boss trusted her to the point of being completely emotionally unguarded with her. Logically it made sense –that was the entire point of marrying, so that one person you trusted that much couldn't get away– but Squalo didn't know her and Xanxus was _his_ Sky. Yes, he knew a bit _about_ her but he didn't know _her_ and it niggled.

Being jealous was also Dumb and he needed to get over himself, because Boss was _Boss_ and had never, ever shown that kind of weakness to Squalo before, so why would he start now? Xanxus wasn't that kind of Sky. So that Boss had somebody he trusted with that part of himself, somebody he was comfortable leaning on and confiding in for all the emotional shit, was a good thing. That he was actually _married_ to that person was even better, because it meant Boss had full access and could talk to them whenever. Boss would be able to work through emotional shit more quickly and healthily than he used to, so he'd be more grounded, balanced and rational. Squalo wanted Boss to have that, because as soon as he was back running the Varia he'd have to deal with Nono and there was a metric fuckton of really awful baggage there that Boss would have shoved in his face on a daily basis and just letting it build up until Boss exploded wouldn't do anybody any good.

So yeah, Squalo knew he needed to get over himself. It didn't make doing so any easier. And fuck, he was tired. It was still pretty early for visiting Nilla, but Delfina would be there by now and he'd built up enough goodwill with his Mist friend that he could probably get away with lying face-down on her couch for a few hours this one time.

Actually, he could detour by Changeling's blind drop to see if she'd left him anything interesting before visiting Petronilla; that would kill half an hour and maybe distract him a bit. Yeah, he could do that.

* * *

Sprawled on his back along the top of his bike as he skimmed the inch-thick wedge of pages Changeling had dumped in the post box drop, Squalo wondered if it was too late to write off the day entirely and just start Sunday early. He should just have gone straight to see Nilla, even though she'd have known right away that something was up and poked at him until he told her something plausible. Because this? This was a fucking _disaster_ and he wanted to go get blind drunk then spend the rest of the day with his head under a pillow. Except that would be _irresponsible_ because if Changeling had managed to put this together then other people would too, since she'd actually made a dossier of unsecured information that anybody could get hold of _then_ gone snooping for the details in places she really shouldn't be. The unsecured information was bad enough but the extra bit provided by the snooping made it all so much worse.

The amount of new information provided by that snooping was more 'icing on the cake' than providing radical new data, which was pathetic and really, what were Don Vongola and that moron Sawada _thinking_ here? This was just utter shit. All of it. Seriously, _Squalo_ wanted to cry just reading this garbage, this utter _failure_ of operational security and what, what was this?! No, no, _nooo_… but the information on the page wasn't changing no matter how much he wanted it to.

Squalo tilted the papers to thwap against his face and groaned. Why? Why him? He was a fucking Varia assassin, not an intelligence operative. He couldn't do anything about this travesty; counterintelligence was not his remit. It wasn't even Varia Information's remit. It was _supposed_ to be the CEDEF's remit but clearly the _Consulenza Esterna _was Made Of Fail –fucking _useless_ scum– so Squalo had to do something to ensure the prospective Vongola heir didn't get assassinated before having a chance to demonstrate whether or not they would actually be up to the task of running Sicily's oldest and most influential Mafia Famiglia. Well, that would take until Reborn was done with him but it was clearly going to take years and it just took one assassin to end it all before the results started showing. It would take some time after Reborn started getting results for the tutoring to actually start paying off; there was a lot of shit to learn and train for and all of that took time. Hopefully not too long though, as Nono could plausibly die of old age in the next five years…

Which meant he was going to have to share some of this with Nilla, because she was in Intelligence and whoever she answered to now Ottava was dead _needed_ to know this shit; fuck Iemitsu, seriously. Useless scum needed to die and stop dragging the Family down to his level.

Squalo privately resolved to give it a year, then suggest it to Boss. Having Xanxus active and participating in Vongola politics would do a lot to stabilise the mess things had turned into after Federico's death, so Iemitsu having a tragic accident would not actually be all that much of a problem for the Family; Boss would be much better for the Family than whatever the fuck Sawada thought he was doing, so long as the death looked so accidental nobody would suspect Varia involvement. One advantage of Boss having been out of circulation for so long was that fewer people would remember how much Boss and Iemitsu had hated each-other. Basil and Changeling could keep the CEDEF on its feet for a year easily, then once Basil knew the ropes and had won some respect Changeling could come home and burn off her years of accumulated stress by killing people in untraceable and messy ways.

Waiting a full year would give Boss more than enough time to re-establish himself within the Varia and get as comfortable in the position as he could, considering how rightfully tense and uncertain the general atmosphere was due to Nono and Iemitsu's crappy decisions and general failure. The Vongola were probably going to notice Boss was missing this Quiet Week, although it would probably take them a little longer than that to realise he was back with the Varia and then they'd want to know how he'd gotten defrosted, which would drag Boss-Lady into things. Admittedly Boss being back would put the Vongola in a better position with its allies, since most of them were likely still shit-scared of him and would think he was an eligible heir, but Squalo couldn't see Don Vongola or the External Advisor actually appreciating that. Still, Boss would have a lot of things other than Vongola politics to busy himself with, having his wife, kids and the entirety of Sabina –what with being Heir to an actual nation– to attend to.

In the meantime Squalo had a Harpy to talk to and his sister to see; maybe Nilla would unbend enough to serve alcohol rather than the usual tea. He could do with a glass of something strong.

Sitting upright, Squalo tucked the written report and the confidential data into his saddle compartment and slid the stapled dossier into his jacket; he could stop by a stationer to get that photocopied on his way to his friend's place, so she could have her own copy. Changeling wrote in code, of course, but she switched codes every time and they were all pretty basic, provided you understood the language she was using as a base. The dossier was in Japanese –oh the irony– so Nilla wouldn't have a problem with it. Last month's report had been in Romanian, which the Harpy would have had more trouble with, and had made Squalo chuckle because he knew who'd taught Changeling the language and that relationship was never going to stop being funny.

Although Squalo was deliberately trying delay revealing the existence of Erica's youngest kid to Boss until he'd read about Maínomai's Curse and how much more grounded the Mist was without it. Erica having a kid was kinda good news, but Xanxus might not take it that way considering his previous experience of Maínomai's antics.

* * *

"You're early."

Squalo ignored both the superfluous statement and the tone, which implied that the Mist was already thinking furiously on the possible reasons behind his appearance well ahead of schedule and how it could be worked to her advantage. Delfina watched him curiously from where she was sprawled on her stomach on the floor beside Nilla's couch, her homework in front of her and a pen twirling between her fingers; dumping his motorcycle leathers on the rack by the door, Squalo stripped off his boots and padded over to the couch, collapsing face-down on top of it.

"Ah, one of _those_ days," Nilla commiserated wryly. "Let me know when you want some tea, dear; any way I can inconvenience those responsible for your misery?"

It was times like this that reassured Squalo that his friend really _did_ care. He fished the copy of the dossier Changeling had put together out of his jacket and waved it blindly in Nilla's direction, face still planted in one of her cushions.

The wedge of paper was taken from his hand, followed by the swish of turning pages and flutter of loose sheets. Squalo tried to persuade his brain that no, it really didn't need to rehash everything that was on those pages in time to Nilla reading it; it had been bad enough the first time around. He didn't _want_ to remember it.

Nilla did not speak for several minutes, but the small sounds of dismay and disgust meant she really did not need to. The disbelieving huffs also spoke volumes.

A smooth-skinned female hand patted the back of his head. "Thank-you for bringing this travesty to my attention, Squalo-dear," Petronilla said, her tone brisk and pleasantly foreboding. "I'll set about rectifying the situation at _once_. Do you mind my bringing the other Harpies in on the matter?"

Squalo flapped a hand dismissively; he didn't give a shit so long as he didn't have to do it and it happened.

"Well then, I'd better get started." Swift footsteps marched out of the room and there were the muffled sounds of somebody dialling a phone, followed by Nilla's voice speaking sharply to whoever was on the other end.

There was a poke to his midsection and Squalo shifted onto one elbow to glare at his ten-year-old sister, who looked supremely unimpressed with his attitude and was wielding her pen with intent. She would mark him if she had to.

"Vongola shit I shouldn't have to deal with," the swordsman grumbled, signing for clarity and emphasis.

His sister tilted her head forwards, all the better to look down her nose at him as she signed an accusation of deflection.

"Yeah, there's other shit, but I'm managing that," Squalo admitted as quietly as he could. "This garbage was just the last fucking straw."

His sister whacked his ribs in response to the swearing but turned back to her homework. Squalo sighed in relief and flopped back down onto the couch; he was going to ignore everything for a few hours and hopefully some of it would go away.

* * *

Squalo would have liked to have some good news for Xanxus after all the bad and shocking news that had been dumped on Boss so far, but it didn't look like it was going to happen. Boss's wife stealing him from out of the Iron Fort, the effects that would have on Vongola politics, Iemitsu's terrible ideas and Nono going along with them… it was a horrendous mess and Squalo had no idea what to do about resolving the component issues in a remotely cohesive fashion even _without_ dealing with Sabina and the magic stuff. He didn't know enough to be able to predict what was most likely to happen, much less how to defuse the range of situations which might pop up and…

He needed to stop thinking about it before he gave himself a stress migraine. Even though this utter disaster was almost on par to the succession conflict that Quarto Vongola had kicked off when he nominated his Spanish mistress's son as Quinto over his legitimate kids. Except that rather than the External Advisor supporting one candidate and the Vongola Boss another with the Family split down the middle between them, this time it was the External Advisor and Don Vongola backing a single candidate while the rest of the Family screamed at them for being blind, Dumb and Stupid.

Seriously, even without the 'violent, bloody empire of terror built on corpses' aspect, the Vongola was an international business enterprise. You couldn't just hand it over to an untried foreign teenager and expect it to _not_ fall apart! There was a reason heirs were trained from early childhood and introduced to their fellow heirs within the Vongola Alliance as young as possible, and it wasn't just so the Skies could amass a suitably political array of Guardians.

Squalo groaned; his head was throbbing. He needed to stop thinking right now or else he really _would_ get that migraine.

Fuck the Vongola boss and fuck the Sawada-moron. Squalo was a _Superbi_ and he wasn't about to stand for this shit; it looked like a quiet visit to Pantera was in the cards for Sunday afternoon. Pantera would be able to see what kind of god-awful fallout would result from this bit of news and Squalo not being able to tell his Family Heir that Xanxus was defrosted would make the situation look about three times worse. If the Family was going to still be standing after this they needed to be ready for the shit to hit the fan, because it _would_. There wasn't any way to avoid that, not even if Boss _did_ step into the spotlight during Quiet Week. No matter how good he was, Boss could only shovel so much shit at once and Nono and Iemitsu were both wallowing in it, mucking up the Vongola and everything connected to it.

And fuck wasn't it an indication of the level of incompetence and destructive collusion involved that the _last_ time the Superbi took any serious action against the Vongola's general policies as a Family –which preparing for war counted as, no matter how subtle they were about it– had been when a Superbi Sky committed suicide following a rape, accusations of guilt pointing at the Vongola of the time's presumed-Heir, with general inaction among the House Heads and wider Vongola allies being a major factor in pressuring the suicide? Because _fuck_ the Vongola.

Growl, Leona.


	137. Chapter 137

Beta'd by the felicitous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of family and familiarity**

When eight o'clock came around Xanxus was sprawled comfortably in an armchair, his feet on the coffee table and the cat in his lap as he read the paperwork Socialite had given him on the wizard-meet. He'd managed to get in two hours of reading before four, at which point his kids had dragged him out into the gardens –along with their mother– for proper British afternoon tea and a lot of running around. How on earth Dorea's gardeners had managed to create a proper British lawn in arid Sicily Xanxus had no idea –other than 'by magic' which was obvious– but the grass was soft and springy enough for wrestling and tickle-fighting to not result in bumps and bruises. Lots of grass stains, but magic probably made those less of an issue to wash out.

Xanxus had however run out of energy very quickly, due to still being convalescent –off bed rest did not mean able to resume daily activities as normal, it just meant you weren't likely to fall flat on your face while walking to the bathroom– and his wife had immediately distracted the kids by having a horse brought over from the stables for them to take short rides on.

A winged horse, so the 'short rides' were actually short _flights_ sitting in their mother's lap as she directed the horse with obvious familiarity and skill, the groom who had brought the horse loitering near the tea table and telling horse-stories to whichever two children were not being flown the length of the gardens. Some stories were repeated, especially if the twins were separated, usually at the promptings of his daughter who reliably demanded the groom tell it again for her twin.

Xanxus had listened in on the horse-stories; most of them featured his wife at various ages and a couple included other relatives as well judging by the mentions of 'your mother's cousin so-and-so'; Draco was cited a few times, as was Dawn and a 'Trish' and several other names he didn't recognise but were probably distant relatives or in-laws since not everybody mentioned could be a family member. There were also stories featuring hippogriffs and griffins, both magical species that Dorea was apparently very fond of.

Xanxus did actually know how to ride a horse; it had been a part of his education as Nono's 'son' that he had really hated because the damn beasts were horribly skittish. Riding something with a raptor brain could be interesting though, so he'd have to ask his wife about riding a hippogriff or a griffin. Flying horses might be less skittish than the regular kind, but Xanxus really wasn't all that bothered.

At six his wife had announced it was bed time for little people, but Hector had instantly grabbed onto his mother's skirts and demanded "Towee, Mama!"

Cassie had responded to this by turning on Xanxus and asking _him_ to read her and Marius a bedtime story. Xanxus had experienced an instant of dissonance at the request: on the one hand instincts had said yes but on the other the loud voice of bitter experience had pointed out that nobody had ever read _him_ bedtime stories, not that he remembered anyway. He however managed to stomp down on that unhappy train of thought and say 'yes' to his daughter; he had promised himself to listen to his instincts in parenting matters and his instincts said yes.

Even though he did have to later admit to his two five-year-olds that he had no idea _how_ to read a bedtime story. Thankfully Marius and Cassie knew exactly what they wanted and were able to explain the process to him: it involved different voices for each of the characters and not missing any of the words out –that was cheating– so Xanxus had fun mimicking various accents he'd heard and assigning them to the different characters according to who they reminded him of. He ended up with one child tucked under each arm on the settee in their shared bedroom, all three of them snuggled under a blanket, his kids leaning in to look at the pictures and giggling at the accents he was putting on.

It was sweet and fun and easy; if Dorea hadn't come in at seven thirty to tuck them both in, Xanxus might have ended up reading to them well into the night.

"Read to us again tomorrow, Papa?" Marius asked hopefully.

"I promise," Xanxus agreed firmly; he wanted to spend as much time with his kids as he could and this counted. The books weren't half-bad either. A lot less pandering and patronising that he thought they'd be but still simple enough for children to understand them.

* * *

"Scuse, have you seen–" Xanxus did not look up from his reading; the voice and Flames were almost-but-not-quite identical to Investigator's husband, which meant they belonged to Lawyer's husband; Thing One.

"–ah. I see you've met Chaos."

Xanxus _did _pause then, glancing down at the cat sprawled across his lap then up at the light brown haired Mist who had just stepped inside the room. The Mist who had a massive, bright green snake as wide as Xanxus' upper arm wrapped around him; it had to be at _least_ five metres long and the shape of its head was all wrong for a constrictor.

Venomous snakes did not usually get that big. Then again, there was apparently a giant one with venom so potent it carried a Death Curse that was going to be installed in the labyrinth in the basement, so it figured that other snakes could reach a size where they could swallow horses with ease.

"Ah, right, introductions!" Thing One –Jerry– said brightly. "Fizz, this is Alexandro Zabini, Dorea's mate and the father of her hatchlings. Zabini, this is Fizz, Dorea's first snake."

The snake turned and looked at him, tongue flicking out before it nodded in a way that was definitely deliberate. A magic snake. It definitely wasn't just cats that could be made smarter then. The question was, how smart?

"A pleasure," Xanxus said, only slightly ironically. The cat in his lap –Chaos the cat? – made a mrr sound and got to her feet, kneading Xanxus' thighs a little before leaping to the ground and wrapping herself around Jerry's ankles, purring like an engine.

"Chaos is mine," Jerry added, "or possibly I'm hers; you can't tell with cats." As he bent down to scratch the cat behind the ears Fizz the snake unwound itself from his body and dropped to the floor, winding its way across the carpet and curling up beside Xanxus' chair. Getting watched by a very large and unusually intelligent venomous snake was not something Xanxus wanted to consider the implications of right now, so he returned to his reading. Fay and Dawn had agreed that the best time to deal with the slander was Monday, so he had another thirty-eight hours to get all the reading finished in and going by the various clues dropped, Sunday was supposed to be a family day so he probably wouldn't get any reading time in then. Better to be ahead than behind and forced to try and cram everything into a few hours on Monday morning; that was a recipe for a faux pas and he'd rather avoid those, especially considering his general ignorance of most magical particulars.

"Dinner's in half an hour," was the last Xanxus heard from the Mist before the door was gently closed, both man and cat on the far side of it. The snake remained, shifting slightly closer to his chair and leaning its head over the back so it could look down at the papers he was reading.

Xanxus was not very keen on the possibility of _literate_ snakes, but recognised that if gorgons, sirens and winged horses were real then a whole lot of other Greek mythological creatures might be also and snakes with a taste for literature were not by any means the strangest possibilities. Carnivorous horses and three-headed dogs weren't either.

Well, at least he wouldn't be bored. He still had a lot more to get through and a serpent reading over his shoulder was a lot more ignorable than another person doing the same.

* * *

Dinner was private: just him and his wife, sat at the table in the sitting room of her suite that had been pushed up against the wall with a vase of flowers on it when he'd been shown around earlier. Now it was the settee and the armchairs pushed against the wall though, leaving plenty of room around the table and upright chairs. The food was extremely good and the wine some of the best he had ever tasted, but most of Xanxus' attention was on his wife and their ongoing conversation. He was deliberately ignoring the snake, which had followed him to dinner and was coiled up on the settee. His wife had said something to said snake before dinner was served by the house elves –which had revealed that 'speaking snake' involved actual hissing and some interesting body language– but she had otherwise let it be.

"Plans for tomorrow?" He asked after the wizard politics discussion had petered out. Mostly centred on social do and do-nots, as well as bits and pieces that hadn't made it to the files like blackmail and hushed-up scandals to reference or hint at if necessary.

Dorea smiled wryly. "A private service in the basement chapel after a late breakfast, then I was going to take Marius to England to deal with the security on Black Manor. We had to move out at once when Papa died, since the Wards were on War footing and only the Lord Black can reduce the security standings. Marius is old enough now for me to be able to walk him through the process, so once that's done we can retrieve some heirlooms and ensure everything's as it should be. I need to wake Baz too, so we can move her into the labyrinth here, which could take a while."

"Not Cassie or Hector?" He asked, wondering if she intended to make this a private mother and son outing or if his wife and their eldest would just be heading out earlier than the rest of them. It also made him wonder where the staging area would be, since it sounded like the Black property was too dangerous to enter until the Wards were lowered. Possibly a property belonging to the Potter side of the family, maybe an equivalently sized Family Estate –which he was Lord to despite never having seen– even?

His wife shook her head. "Not until we've managed to lower the security. The Wards will let in a Lord Black regardless, so Marius is in no danger at all, and as a Black and his mother I can get in _with_ him so long as he wants me to, but taking anyone else would probably go badly." She sighed. "The Blacks have some of the best Wards in the world, but impeccable security has its disadvantages."

Xanxus knew the feeling; Varia security was mostly Mammon and reasonably secure as a result –save from powerful yet amiable crazies like Luna– but Vongola Security had always been a headache because there were so many people coming and going, many of them not really allies, so it was as impregnable as a sieve. It might be easily fortified against open attack, but it was still ridiculously easy for an individual to sneak in and out of. Most of Vongola Security was Housekeeping's Mists watching everything like hawks, looking for people wandering where they shouldn't be or hiding malicious intentions. Automated security could be more secure, but it was always less flexible.

"What do they like?" He asked instead, referring to his daughter and younger son; since he was going to be entertaining them for several hours without their mother to hand, he'd prefer to know a bit more about them without having to ask his wife's Guardians. Even though they'd probably tell him; almost complete strangers knowing more about his own children than he did rankled.

Dorea smiled fondly, peeking across the table at him from under lowered lashes. "Hector likes hugs and playing with his toys; he's a bit young for anything more complicated than that for all he's started talking already. He likes shoulder rides too, and being swung around or tossed in the air. Cassie likes adventures and stories with scary monsters in, though she gets grumpy when the scary monsters lose. Apparently big, scary monsters are supposed to _win_ since they're stronger and smarter than the heroes."

Xanxus chuckled; he could almost hear his headstrong, forthright daughter's complaints, almost see her pouting and crossing her arms with her nose in the air. A little girl fascinated by monsters; definitely his kid. He'd always liked the monsters more than the heroes too, as the monsters were mostly existing in peace and just terrorizing trespassers before they were slain for heroic glory.

"She likes you, too." Xanxus stilled in his seat, not letting the sudden tension show in his body but belatedly aware that his wife could read him easily through their marriage bond. The faint amusement tingeing her utter certainty was underscored with anger, but only very slightly and it wasn't directed at him. "Tell her about yourself: stories about growing up, funny things you saw or did."

"What about Marius?" Xanxus didn't want his eldest son to miss out.

His wife grinned. "Oh, you'll be called on to tell the stories all over again when Marius is there, then again when some of the little cousins are visiting; Cassie will make you repeat everything until she knows it by heart, in between asking all the questions she can think of."

Ah yes, of course: his daughter was a demanding little Cloudy Storm; how could he have let that slip his mind?

"And if stories lose their charm, well, you can always play hide-and-seek or tag," Dorea went on teasingly. "I'm sure Cassie will drag a few of my Guardians into playing if she decides that's what she wants; it's not like any of them would mind."

The idea of his kids playing tag with their mother's Guardians was unexpectedly painful; the old fart's Guardians had never had any time for him, being even less interested in him than their Sky was, and while Ottava's Guardians had always treated him considerately they'd been too old for running around. Then again, even aged four Xanxus had been too feral and wary to take the risk of asking adults to do childish things with him. Nebbia and Nuvola had taught him to play card games though, as well as how to cheat at just about every last game of chance in existence.

The idea of his _own_ Guardians doting on his kids makes him snort, caught between hilarity and trepidation; he didn't think _any_ of them had a clue how to behave around children, Bel least of all. Luss would fuss and coo and dote, but the okama often came across as unnerving and creepy despite being genuinely fond of 'cute' things so that really could go either way.

"Sounds good," he agreed, taking another sip of wine. It really was very good wine. Actually, that gave him an idea: "Want me to tell you some first?" She was his wife after all, so it was only fair that he told her a bit more about himself. He'd learned quite a lot about her today, from the tour of the house, from Socialite and from listening in on the groom who'd brought the winged horse over. He should reciprocate.

"I'd love that," Dorea admitted, her soft admission a significant understatement considering the swell of warmth and affection he could feel from her.

Xanxus smirked at her across the table and tried to think of where to start. Not at the beginning; his first few years in the Vongola Mansion had been pretty rough and he definitely hadn't enjoyed them. He had a few good stories with Erica in them though: "When I was thirteen I helped my niece blow up a building."

His wife fumbled her knife, shock and suppressed amusement radiating from her. "Why were you– wait, and you got away with it?"

The Varia Boss grinned. "Of course."

"Don't just leave me hanging here, Xanxus," Dorea protested, setting her cutlery down on her scraped plate and resting her wrists on the table as she leaned forwards. "Tell the story!"

Xanxus basked in the genuine interest and feeling he could sense from his wife and settled in to narrate.

* * *

"_Seriously_ a seagull?"

Xanxus nodded, smirking at his wife's exasperation in the face of past Vongola idiocy.

"But, but if they'd just _checked_ straight off…"

Xanxus hummed sympathetically. Yes, that particular occasion had severely disillusioned him where the common sense and awareness of reality of his eldest brother's Guardians were concerned. In hindsight the entire affair was _hilarious_ but still. Very embarrassing even just to witness at the time.

"What a bunch of self-important twits," Dorea muttered, shaking her head and finishing her sherry. Dinner was long since over now and the plates had vanished who-knew where, but they'd lingered over after-dinner drinks as Xanxus shared stories from growing up Vongola. Dorea had volunteered a few anecdotes from her time at school –magic school was all very well but calling the place 'Hogwarts' suggested whoever had done the naming had less than zero taste– which had been extremely amusing. In fact the funniest part of those stories had been how clearly oblivious Dorea had been to the effects that Skies had on the people around them while still using those effects to her advantage.

In fact, it was entirely possible his wife was _still_ oblivious to the way people who weren't Skies reacted to people who were, Active Skies in particular. Going from how she'd told the story, she seemed to think that people were going along with her ideas because either a, they understood them and thought they made sense, or b, were responding to her Family background. That they could be being dragged along by fascination and charisma did not seem to have registered as a possibility, which was adorable. It also suggested that his wife and her people didn't actually know all that much about Flames and their effects, which was something to look into later.

Now however it was getting a bit late and he was feeling tired and sore. The skin grafts were much less obvious now than they had been even this morning, but he definitely wasn't healed yet. It wasn't really _that_ late, but considering the near-certainty of having to deal with kids early tomorrow morning, well… yeah. He did need to get enough sleep.

Besides, there was his wife's request from earlier to consider as well. He was almost sure her mention of wanting him in her bed had not really been sexual –well there had been a generous helping of that too but it hadn't been the _primary_ feeling he'd got off her at that point– and he really didn't want to push her right now, not when they were just starting to feel comfortable. Xanxus was acutely aware of his wife not being in the same place as before he'd been put on ice and re-establishing common ground was probably going to take time. He didn't begrudge her that –practically six years was a long time and he was tremendously grateful that she'd _waited_ rather than writing him off as dead– but at the same time, he wanted to settle into being married to her rather than languish awkwardly in are-we-courting-maybe-but-how-far-is-too-far.

Which meant he had to ask really embarrassing questions and do his best to not make any assumptions at all, regardless of how much articulating some of those uncertainties made him want to squirm and pretend he could manage without asking; he wanted his marriage to _work_ and that meant putting effort in and asking questions he might not like the answers to.

"You said you wanted me in your bed," he stated bluntly, making an effort not to snicker when his wife blushed and quickly set her glass down before she dropped it. "Was it just that, or more?" Xanxus was acutely aware of how cultural innuendo was and didn't want to misunderstand; his wife might have been British but he'd seen multiple examples already of rather serious linguistic and cultural drift between 'regular' British and 'magical' British. So best to be explicit and plain as possible until he understood what she meant.

"I… er, um, right now or generally?" His wife hedged, fiddling with her rings and not looking him in the eye. Xanxus could feel embarrassment, lust and uncertainty from her, which wasn't a great combination really.

"Right now." Specificity was good and keeping things specific meant not committing to anything that might make one or other of them feel uncomfortable later.

Dorea took a deep breath and sat up straight, meeting his gaze firmly despite her heightened colour. "Right now, just that; I, um, being married with an absent husband meant I had to keep all my male friends and most of my Guardians at arms' length, er, Blaise excluded since he's my brother, but, um, I miss the hugs okay? I'm taller than most of my friends and it really wasn't appropriate to fall asleep on the people who _are_ taller than me since they were your body-doubles and not _you_. And, um, I don't have any close adult relatives left for that either; Draco's mother and her sister are closest, being cousins once removed, but they've got their own lives and aren't in the country most of the time. My only male blood relative who is around a lot and _does_ give hugs is Leo and he's more like a kid brother, so, um…"

Xanxus quickly got to his feet, strode around the table, lifted his wife upright and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. The way she just _melted_ in his arms and the strong sense of safety and comfort he could feel from her through their bond as she wrapped her own arms around his ribcage was… he couldn't think of words that properly encompassed the feeling. Not in English or Italian or any of the other languages currently at the top of his mind. The feeling was heat and sharpness that hurt but in a good way, along with steady groundedness and a funny squashy feeling entirely unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

'Love' didn't quite cut it, not for such a complicated and layered emotional bouquet. Why did English have only one word for this? Not that Italian was that much of an improvement… neither were most other European languages, to be honest. Japanese had a bit more variety and nuance, but he wasn't sure his wife understood Japanese. A bittersweet sense of contentment and closure, a fleeting feeling of patience rewarded and a myriad of other phrases didn't even convey half of it but those feelings he at least had _words_ for.

Shifting his grip, Xanxus lifted Dorea up off her feet, letting her move her arms to around his neck and easily supporting her weight as he wrapped one arm firmly around her thighs and the other across her back. "Bed?" he asked, savouring the shiver the word elicited.

"Please." It was barely a whisper, but Xanxus heard it. He also heard the underlying plea; he wouldn't push for more. Not tonight. Maybe not in the morning either.

They had time. There was no sense in rushing the important things.


	138. Chapter 138

Beta'd by the active Insane Scriptist.

Some people may have missed yesterday's chapter, since despite me updating _well_ past Midnight Pacific Standard Time the site for some reason registered the chapter as having gone up before then. Time on the internet is _definitely_ unreliable...

* * *

**Of homecomings and emotions **

Xanxus opened his eyes to grey-edged darkness and the muffled sound of birdsong; sunrise. That, since it was the front end of May, meant about five o'clock in the morning. Considering it was Sunday and Xanxus was sprawled beside his very warm wife, he did not feel inclined towards getting up. Not when wife smelled so nice and a slight shift would let him feel her body pressed against him from cheek to thigh. He pulled her a little closer and kept his arm wrapped around her.

Letting his eyes drift closed again, Xanxus basked in the warm, smug feeling of being in bed with his wife. This was sweet, sweet victory, everything he'd ever wanted but had never thought he'd actually get. Breathing in the scent of his wife's hair, faintly floral with the earthy undertones of clean sweat, he slowly drifted back to sleep.

* * *

Dorea woke to diffuse light peeking around the edges of the curtains, the muffled but unmistakeable sounds of excited small children being managed and her husband's warm, steady breathing against her neck and shoulder sending anticipatory shivers down her spine. She was held firmly in place by his arm across her abdomen, thumb pressing against her hip, and his knee between hers pinning the skirt of her nightdress to the mattress. She wasn't entirely sure where his other arm was –possibly behind him or curled up under the pillows– but there was no way she was going to be able to get up without disturbing him.

Her treacherous hindbrain promptly came up with an annotated list of all the really _interesting_ things that might result from her waking her husband, especially if she went about such a thing in a certain way. Dorea was very tempted, but was uncomfortably aware that they hadn't yet managed to fully banish the awkwardness from their relationship. Having it show up unexpectedly in the middle of sex would completely ruin things and it wasn't even a full day since Xanxus had found out about the deaths of most of his foster-relatives. It was entirely possible that he wouldn't be in the mood and her pushing the issue would only make things more uncomfortable.

She could probably get away with a good morning kiss regardless of the circumstances though.

Twisting around onto her back, Dorea tucked her knuckles under her husband's chin and tilted his face up towards hers. His eyes fluttered open at her touch, revealing hazy blown pupils rimmed with red that twitched abruptly into focus as she leant in to kiss him square on the lips.

Pulling back from the chaste kiss, Dorea caught her husband's eye and the general drift of his emotions through their marriage bond then leaned in again; kissing was very welcome. Her husband sliding a hand up her back to cradle the top of her spine and pulling her on top of him as he rolled onto his back, kissing her back all the while, was equally welcome and made her stomach tighten in anticipation. Her own hands braced against his bare chest, then moved to follow the hard lines of muscle she could feel through warm skin, the jagged tissue grafts easily distinguishable by their smoother texture.

The sound Xanxus made and the way his entire body stiffened under her as she ran her fingers along one such section of grafted tissue across the lower edge of his sternum, the nails of the hand around her neck digging in with a convulsive twitch, made Dorea feel giddy, hot shivers dancing under her skin and enticing her onwards. She could tease a little, couldn't she? Her fingers lingered over the slick, new skin, pressing gently but firmly and her husband jerked out of the kiss with a gasped expletive. Dorea didn't recognise the word, but curse words were easily picked out by emphasis regardless of language. Dipping her head down to his neck, Dorea deliberately licked down another graft following the line of muscle up from the hollow of her husband's throat towards his right ear, her fingers still pressing against the smoothness zigzagging across his ribcage.

"Are you ravishing me this morning?" Her husband asked, voice achingly deep and with a rasping, breathless edge that made her toes curl. Then the question registered and Dorea hesitated.

"Er, maybe?" She prevaricated, propping herself up with one arm so she could meet Xanxus's eyes. He looked –and felt– amused, but heady lust and the keen-edged desire for _more_ were bubbling right beneath the amusement, poised to swamp them both. There was caution there too though, and now she was paying attention Dorea could feel the ragged tendrils of grief and pain writhing under everything else.

"Would you like me to?" She asked, aware of the slightly naughty grin playing across her lips.

Watching her husband's scarlet eyes widen and darken with desire and surprise was utterly satisfying and very encouraging indeed.

"I want to taste _all_ your scars," she added, relishing the way his eyes went faintly glassy and the muscles in his neck corded at her declaration of intent.

"Do I get to reciprocate?" Xanxus rumbled back at her, propping himself up with one elbow and tugging on her hair with his free hand.

Dorea paused. On the one hand, yes she very _much_ wanted to ravish her husband this morning. On the other, part of her was having issues with the idea of _him_ ravishing _her_. Not good. Marriage was supposed to be equal. So, what was her problem exactly? Beyond sex not being quite appropriate or well, entirely wanted just now.

"I don't feel up to intercourse yet," she admitted, managing to pin down and articulate her misgivings.

"Fine," her husband grinned, showing teeth; "lots of other options."

He really _was_ fine with it: Dorea could feel his acceptance and utter lack of resentment with a faint twinge of something else that was too tangled in the lingering grief to be recognisable. Relief, delight and gratitude briefly surfaced but were quickly subsumed by heat and desire.

"May I?" she asked, finding a new and interesting jagged wedge of grafted skin to run her thumb over.

"Go ahead," her husband said easily, amusement blooming through the bond again.

Dorea very deliberately bent down and ran her tongue along the scar she'd been toying with as firmly as she could; the way his muscles clenched under his skin was intoxicating. "I wonder if I can make you beg," she mused, sitting back on her heels across his stomach so she could take in more of him at once in the dim light.

Her husband raised an eyebrow at her. "Try," he suggested evenly. Dorea felt something in her stir eagerly at the challenge.

"Oh, I will," she said sweetly. She was going to have _fun_.

* * *

Xanxus was definitely enjoying his Sunday so far, and had high hopes of it setting a trend for all future Sundays: A few hours in bed enjoying his wife's attentions and being attentive right back so neither had been left wanting, a late breakfast without the kids then going down in the basement chapel at ten o'clock. It turned out his wife didn't have a priest or pastor on staff, so the 'private service' involved singing straightforward and child-friendly worship songs in English and Italian for three-quarters of an hour with a handful of his wife's Guardians, followed by a bible passage and fifteen minutes talking about it with the twins, as Hector was considered to be too young to sit still and concentrate for that long. Then the twins sloped off for elevensies with the Guardians and Dorea spent another half-hour in prayer and contemplation. Xanxus had done likewise, setting aside his grief to give thanks to Christ, the Virgin Mary and every saint he could think of for his wife, his kids, his health, his freedom and his newfound extended family. Xanxus was rather ambivalent about whether or not Mary and the saints _did_ actually intervene –their doing so was not exactly biblical– but expressing thankfulness wasn't going to hurt anyone even if it wasn't all directed at the correct source.

He did feel much better afterwards though and made a mental note to stop by and sit in the chapel midweek. It had a restful atmosphere that would make it easier to think through the implications and consequences of his brothers' deaths. Once he'd processed a bit, that was. Squalo had mentioned a new heir existing and that they were being tutored by Reborn, but Xanxus hadn't really been paying attention after realising that his brothers and grandmother were dead; too distracted by grief, although he did want to puzzle over the matter later to try and work out who it might be.

That was something for another day though; what he was doing right now was being primary parent to his daughter and younger son while his wife took their eldest –wait, was Marius the eldest? He was Lord Black but girls couldn't inherit so Cassie could plausibly be _actual_ eldest– son to take the Ward security of Black Manor down from war footing.

There was also a whole new building to explore, since Dorea had decided it would be most practical for them to stay at Potter Manor for most of the day since Xanxus would be terrorising the Wizengamot on Monday. That getting to Potter Manor had literally involved _walking through a doorway_ in the basement of her house in Sicily and immediately arriving on the other side of Europe had been just a bit freaky, but Potter Manor was a very nice house. You could feel that it had been inhabited by dozens of generations of Skies who had all loved the shit out of it.

The Vongola Mansion had never really felt welcoming, but this house did. Hell, the house was more openly demonstrative than the man calling himself Xanxus' father had _ever_ been and wasn't that sad, that despite twelve years of considering himself Xanxus' parent the old fart cared less about him than a fucking _building_ he was visiting for the first time? The entire damn house felt vaguely sentient to his Flames: it was singing 'mine, mine, mine', as much as a building could, and kept trying to _hug_ him. With its Flames, that was; none of the walls or curtains were being grabby, thank-you God. The fuck kind of people had his wife's ancestors _been_ that their _house's_ reaction to a career criminal grandson-in-law showing up was 'I must hug him right now'? Was this normal for Skies outside the Mafia? Well the house was probably unaware of his background, but that still only explained so much.

Xanxus was never going to admit to _liking_ the cuddly house, but it was unexpectedly soothing on his nerves after the week he'd had. Especially since Dorea had keyed him into the Wards system –as was his right as Lord Potter apparently– so he could actually feel the _entire_ house and grounds as well as get a sense of everybody else present, which did wonders for his mental comfort as it meant _nobody_ could sneak up on him, not even the house-elves. It was like a Territory that ran off magic and Sky Flames rather than Mist, which was damn clever and he wanted to find out how to build one. He could do that later though; for now he had his kids to entertain.

* * *

Clothing didn't really matter in a visit to the Ward Room of Black Manor, beyond the importance of comfort, sturdy footwear and sleeve cuffs that weren't going to get in the way. Dorea was therefore wearing a rather severe walking dress and her duelling boots and Marius was is his own walking suit, which had buttoned sleeves he was fiddling with as he waited for her in the entrance hall to Potter Manor. He stopped as soon as he saw her though and hurried over to grab hold of her hand.

"Are we going now, Mama?" He asked, grey eyes eager.

"Yes, we are; I'll call a house-elf to take us there, then we'll go down into the Ward Room and I'll explain what you have to do step by step so you can do it."

"Yes, Mama." Marius looked a little impatient –she had explained this before– but did not complain.

"Moppet," Dorea said clearly. There was a crack and then Dorea had her first house-elf hugging her knees and babbling happily, still wearing the pillowcase frock Dorea had stitched as a child.

"Mistress Dorea is returned! Mistress Dorea is calling Moppet! Mistress Dorea is coming home?" Moppet pulled back on making the question, huge eyes watery and hopeful.

"Moppet, this is my son Marius, the Lord Black," Dorea said gently, tugging gently on her eldest boy's hand. Marius took a small step forward and Moppet's eyes widened.

"You is Moppet's little Lord? Master Black has grown so much!" The house-elf bowed. "Moppet is housekeeper of Black Manor."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Moppet," Marius said carefully. "Can you take me and Mama to the Ward Room?"

Moppet rocked on her heels. "Moppet cannot go in the Ward Room; is sealed from elves. Moppet can take Master Black and Mistress Dorea to the door but no further. Moppet is sorry." She looked distressed at being unable to grant Marius' first request.

"That's fine Moppet," Dorea said quickly, before her elf burst into tears. "I knew the Ward Room was sealed. Taking us to the door is enough. I'm going to instruct Marius on how to reduce the security from war footing and then we'll be able to visit regularly."

"Mistress Dorea and Master Black is not staying?" Moppet asked shyly, fiddling with her skirts.

"I've found my husband, Moppet, and want to live near where he works," Dorea said gently. "We will be visiting a lot though, as Marius and Cassie are old enough to spend time with the people they will be going to Hogwarts with and I want them to have a chance to make friends. I expect we'll be at Black Manor at least one day a week." She would be installing a Vanishing Doorway as well, for instantaneous travel to and fro; not actually _in _Black Manor though, as that would defeat the point of the security. Probably in one of the other buildings on the Estate.

Moppet beamed. "Moppet is happy for Mistress Dorea. Moppet will take Master and Mistress home now." She held out her hands. Dorea carefully took hold of Moppet's right hand and Marius caught her left, then they were gone from Potter Manor.

* * *

Xanxus could sense his wife's emotional turmoil long before she actually returned to Potter Manor, but as it felt controlled and an underlying thing he ignored it in favour of walking Hector slowly along the Picture Gallery and helping his toddler son introduce himself to the pictures. Magical portraiture was a bit creepy as the paintings held Flame-imprints and a whisper of something that was almost but not quite like the angry ghosts that sometimes attached themselves to Varia who had killed them, but something about how the paintings were made very clearly bound the imprints into the canvases and boards in a structured manner, preventing them from degrading or warping. That was an idea he'd rather not share with the Varia, since having angry ghost paintings seemed like a thing one or other of them would do for fun and to experiment with the possibilities.

Chatting to the paintings was also very interesting: he'd learned a hell of a lot just from casual conversation, including that the Potter Family had historically used Flames and Magic together to create Alchemy, which sounded suspiciously similar to what Talbot did, but not limited to rings. Maybe he could do something with it for the pair of guns after the set he was currently planning on making; he still had to find out if the Flame dissipation ward would work for amplification if he twisted it a bit.

He'd also heard quite a lot of interesting shit about the Zabini, including that they were the Royals that all the other European Magical Royals sucked up to and were secretly terrified of. They also ran a magic school, one of the four major European schools –not counting the one in Russia– so they had a disproportionate influence on the educated elite and a hell of a lot of power.

Cassie had decided the paintings were boring and was currently playing tag with Barty –Negotiator– and Socialite, both of whom seemed perfectly happy to run all over the building either in pursuit of or being pursued by a five-year-old shrieking happily at the top of her lungs. Xanxus wouldn't have minded joining in except that he could already feel exhaustion creeping in around the edges, so chatting to paintings with his youngest son it was. Hector wasn't that heavy until you carried him at chest height off and on for most of an hour; holding the toddler on his hip didn't work too well as his youngest was constantly squirming and leaning towards the pictures. Getting him not to touch the paintings was a lost cause, especially when Hector was standing on his own two feet. At least the paintings didn't seem to be taking damage from sticky toddler fingers; some kind of protective coating possibly?

It was admittedly very satisfying to have his son cooed over and complemented by so many in-laws, even if they were all dead ones. He'd also had matrons telling him how handsome he was and approving of his wife's taste in men, shrewd men eyeing his wedding ring and giving him tips on how to improve his control of their bond so it wouldn't distract him while he was working and young couples congratulating him on finding his 'best match'. Xanxus decided he liked the idea of a 'best match' rather than a soulmate, as it implied that both he and Dorea had a choice in the matter and _could_ feasibly have been happy without ever meeting each-other, but would never meet anybody who suited them better than each-other. He'd always been sceptical of the 'one and only' bullshit that Federico was so enamoured with, so the concept of 'most suited provided we put the effort in' was much more palatable. It was more realistic than expecting things to just work out because they were 'made for each-other'.

It was coming up on lunchtime and Xanxus was just starting to wonder if Dorea and Marius were going to miss the meal when his wife abruptly arrived in the front hall of the Manor alongside their eldest son and the same house-elf that had taken the two of them away two hours previously.

"Hector, Mama's back," he said conversationally to the boy babbling happily at the painted Georgian matron kneeling on her skirts and doting on him verbosely.

"Mama!" Hector squealed, waving his arms up at his father. Xanxus obligingly lifted the boy up into his arms, nodded a goodbye to the paintings –most of whom were waving and encouraging him to come back any time he liked– then jogged down the hall towards the staircase, his son giggling happily and pulling on his jacket collar.

Reaching the top of the main staircase, Xanxus paused for a split-second then gave in to the temptation of sliding down the banister rail: it had _clearly_ been designed with sliding in mind as it lacked an upright baluster at the bottom, so he should take advantage. Hector shrieked in delight as they whizzed down, Xanxus landing easily on his feet then setting his son on the floor so the toddler could rush over to his mother.

"Mama! Me an' Papa tort to pen-tins!" Hector exclaimed, tugging on her skirts.

"Really? Were they friendly?" Dorea asked, picking up her youngest with ease and glancing over at Xanxus with a smile that did not reflect her inner upset.

"Es!" Hector crowed before lapsing into incomprehensible baby babble. Dorea still made appropriate noises though, expressing interest, appreciation and curiosity at intervals in the nonsense until Hector decided he was bored and demanded to be put down again.

Xanxus walked up to his wife as she watched her youngest dash off, slightly unsteady on his feet but managing very well for his age. Rence –who had watched the entire exchange from across the room– followed after the toddler, presumably to ensure Hector didn't accidentally injure himself.

Asking if she was alright when she clearly wasn't would be pointless, so Xanxus didn't. "Trouble?" He asked instead, wrapping an arm around her waist.

His wife sighed. "No. Marius lowered the Wards just fine; he's going to be terrifying as a Ward-breaker when he's older. It's just… I lived in Black Manor from when I was ten to when I was sixteen, and even before I turned ten I visited every single weekend. But now it's empty of everything except memories."

Ah, so it was the connotations of visiting that had caused the emotional turmoil; Dorea had been forced out of the place she saw as 'home' with her father's death, so of course going back there would stir up old memories. Nothing Xanxus could help with, or at least not directly. "Love you," he said instead, bending down to press a kiss to her lips.

The sense of fondness and spike of attraction he could feel through the bond were very encouraging.

"Never leave me?" His wife asked, tone light but painfully wistful.

"Not by choice," Xanxus stated firmly, "and feel free to hunt me down whenever." He kissed her again; "You are more important to me than anything else." And that was a scary thing to realise but no less true for that, despite his not having known her for even half a month. She'd given him love, a family and his freedom.

Dorea huffed a not-quite laugh, the feelings carrying through the bond a mingling of wonder and pain. "I am definitely going to take you up on that."

"I look forward to it," Xanxus vowed. It might get awkward if she showed up while he was with the Varia, but they would have to suck it up and deal. He was married now and he refused to be as shitty a husband as most Mafia men seemed to think was acceptable. Being frozen for years on end had been bad enough and there was no reason to not be available whenever possible. Especially since magical transportation was good enough that a person could walk from Sicily to England just by going through a doorway.

"I think it's lunchtime," his wife added after a long but comfortable pause. Xanxus let go of her waist, then firmly placed her right hand in the crook of his left arm.

"Shall we?"

Her smile was answer enough.


	139. Chapter 139

The inventive Insane Scriptist actually **wrote** a large chunk of the middle of this chapter as well as beta-ing it; Superbi Family traditions are more her thing than mine and Pantera is her baby. All hail Izzy!

* * *

**Of pride and preparedness **

Squalo had texted his cousin Pantera before setting off back to the Varia Mansion late on Saturday afternoon, letting the Superbi Family Heir know he wanted to meet the next day. He didn't mention any details, but Sunday was the day of rest so Pantera would know this was important and urgent. The Rain Officer also stopped by Information to make another copy of the dossier and hand over Changeling's reports; if there was anything the Varia _could_ do about this fucking disaster, Information would get it done. Unfortunately however the problem went way beyond the Varia so they'd have to hope Vongola Intelligence came through for the Family. Because since Vongola Intelligence did not technically exist and was run by somebody who was _not_ Iemitsu or Nono Vongola, that meant their shit shouldn't have infected it, right?

Of course Squalo was getting the Superbi involved as well, but that was slightly different: nothing at all to do with counter-intelligence and everything to do with getting something in place for when the Vongola collapsed under the weight of Don Vongola and Sawada's combined Stupid. Telling Pantera would be enough; the Superbi Heir knew his responsibilities and was good at his job, so Squalo could put the matter out of his mind and focus on helping his Boss get back up to speed on Varia matters by Quiet Week.

On Sunday morning Squalo went to Mass as usual in the Varia's chapel along with about two-thirds of the Assassination Division –the Mafia was very religious and the Varia was unusual in having so many people in it who _weren't_ Catholic– then moved his name onto the 'Out' board and set off towards the Superbi Estate. Most of the Varia who were from Mafia backgrounds and on civil terms with their families visited relatives some Sundays, so his doing so was not noteworthy. That it was well-known in Vongola circles that the Superbi had massive Family get-togethers in May meant Squalo's absence from HQ this Sunday was _expected_. Thankfully this year's reunion was in the last week of May, although he could already see signs of various relatives preparing for it.

Not that Squalo had reliably attended said family reunions in the past; he'd got a lot of flak from his younger relatives back when he first took over the Varia and promptly handed it to Xanxus –although most of it had been poking fun at him for cutting his own hand off– then a whole lot _more_ from _everyone_ the following year for getting left carrying the can while Boss was 'indisposed'. He'd skipped out on the next two reunions due to being abroad and the one after _that _had been shortly after Ottava's death, so he'd thankfully _not_ been the main topic of discussion despite his prolonged absence. He'd also got a hell of a lot more respect from the people his age and older for what he'd achieved with the Varia, which had been nice; even Leone, Pantera's father, had commented on his performance.

Squalo had actually been writing to his uncle and cousin –well technically Leone Superbi was Squalo's cousin once removed, but Don Superbi was Squalo's father's age so he called the man uncle– almost from the moment he'd defeated Tyr, wanting sensible advice on how to run a Vongola House made up of genii and crazies, and they'd both been very helpful and had commiserated extensively. Squalo had got the feeling they were also making fun of him a bit –probably for _being_ one of those hard-to-manage people himself– but family did that so he could deal. He'd made a point to poke fun right back, to keep things fair.

* * *

The Superbi Estate was a beautiful and fairly sprawling estate a way west of most of the rest of the Vongola and slightly south of Cavallone territory, with a good view of the sea. It had to be large to house all those visiting from further away during the annual reunions, although Superbi who weren't local usually occupied various guest houses and holiday apartments in the surrounding area. The sprawling estate was rather typical of the sort built by anyone of sufficient wealth that wanted to make a statement with such an expense, or who felt obliged to by their social station, but the level of decadence, detail and workmanship put into the buildings and grounds of the Superbi Estate was truly magnificent. There was lots of Hellenistic statuary, an abundance of elaborately sculpted ironwork –both as fencing and freestanding– stained glass detailing in almost every window and so on. All the decorations were the result of ancestors and more recent relatives deciding to show off their skill in their chosen professions or hobbies, so the entire Estate was filled with elegant and attractive details which were worked in everywhere; thankfully not to the point of bad taste, but some installations were regularly moved around like show pieces at a museum, doing a tour of the estate. Squalo had learned a fair bit of art history and various anecdotes of relatives living at different times just from exploring the estate with relatives back when he was still young enough to need minding.

The entire complex was also defensible, being built onto a hill with the main house on top of the hill, terraced gardens, seemingly oddly-placed white stone walls with reliefs carved into them, with decorative but still highly functional fences and gates added here and there. Squalo had no idea how one of his relatives had managed to make bullet-proof stained glass but he had, then managed to get his artistic efforts to replace the plain but otherwise functional windows of the main house; normal bullet-proof 'glass' wasn't really glass at all but a type of plastic, and while bullet-proof 'glass' was often layered with normal glass, the bullet-proof 'glass' would slowly warp over time, becoming less transparent, and the thicker it was the heavier a calibre it could resist although it let in less light. That polymer warping hadn't happened in thirty years, so who knew how _that_ had been achieved.

Ignoring the main hall, Squalo turned towards one of the smaller guest homes on the estate; Pantera as Heir could live in the main hall –where his more artistic relatives really showed off because that was the purpose of the place, to host guests and showcase Superbi talent– but practically his cousin preferred to use one of the smaller guest homes as his own personal space. A smaller space afforded more privacy, even if the price of that privacy was the necessity of maintaining it himself.

Pantera opened the door when Squalo knocked, letting him in and yawning as he did so. He and his second-cousin didn't look particularly similar in terms of colouring, Pantera having dark hair and cat-green eyes to Squalo's sliver-blonde and grey, but the underlying bones of their faces were somewhat similar –especially around the jaw– as was the shape of their eyes and eyesockets.

It wasn't that Pantera was a slob or a slacker despite dressing and acting like one, as Squalo well knew. Pantera just liked to be underestimated and his cousin had put a fair amount of effort into ensuring it. Which explained why Pantera looked as though he had just rolled out of bed moments ago, bare feet and all, although his fondness for old Pink Panther cartoons only explained the vibrant pink of his shirt and not the rumpled mess it was. _That_ could be better explained by the lingering scent of sex in the air and the expression on his cousin's face. Someone had a good morning.

"You look like you're attempting to be professional 'cause I'm here and are failing miserably. Have you even looked at your unrepentant and trying to be professional face in a mirror?" Squalo asked as the door closed behind him, quickly shucking his boots.

"Strange that you'd recognize that sort of face when you never visit unless it's business or required." Pantera replied, leading the way down the short hall into his main room.

"Sometimes on good days, I actually look in a mirror." Which was more than enough talking about _that_, in Squalo's opinion; he was here to talk business after all.

"You should do that sometimes; possibly while looking for ways to acquire more good days in the future. You've commanded the Varia for some years now so you're quite the commodity, and will be even more so after your eventual retirement from the Varia since finding a suitable partner there is unlikely. Although a number of acquaintances think that there may be something between you and Don Scarlatti's daughter given the manner of her recruitment. A bit of drama, fan the rumours a bit and maybe you won't get ambushed by those intent on match-making after your service in the Varia is done."

Urk; and that was _not_ what he had wanted to speak to his cousin about today. "I suppose that you're managing to do that?"

"Considering that Immacolata accepted my proposal last night? Quite well." Pantera smiled happily and with considerable smugness at his achievement; it was about time as they'd only been dating for three years now.

"Congratulations," Squalo said automatically, "on your upcoming nuptials, that is. You've just ensured the family reunion will turn into a riot." Not that the Superbi family reunion wasn't boisterous and chaotic anyway, but competition among relatives for authority over various parts of wedding planning and more meant that instead of some people just getting bloody noses and black eyes, Squalo was fully expecting a few broken bones. Possibly a concussion or two as well if things got really heated.

"The best way to have people overlook clandestine meetings and movements is to disguise them as something else; especially something that looks much more peaceful and legal," Pantera smirked; Squalo was relieved to know that he wasn't the only Superbi taking note of the situation and that the others were starting to take action.

"Well, you might want to revise a few things then," Squalo commented as he fished out the annotated copies of Changeling's dossier he'd made the day before and handed them over.

Pantera, unlike Petronilla, kept his breathing steady, but made dissatisfied humming sounds at irregular intervals. Then he eventually placed the papers down on his lap for a moment to think, his fingers tapping at each other at the tips. The moment stretched on for a full minute, then two before Pantera heaved a heavy sigh.

"Well that's going to raise a few concerns," he said in a moment of profound understatement. "But you're not as worried as I am, suggesting you know something else that you're not going to tell me. So either a Varia secret or a personal one, something that gives you reason to be optimistic. It isn't just some sort of false hope either, because you're far too practical for those."

And this would be why his cousin was dangerous; he was _too_ smart, sometimes. "Be careful or you'll end up cutting yourself." Squalo warned.

"Eh, if Leona's already growling, I'm sure that a bit of subterfuge isn't beyond your capabilities. Just remember, should it come down to such a situation, you still have my full confidence and that of the Family. But as it's unlikely I'll get a chance to speak freely with you for a while, he has an invitation to my wedding. Verbal will have to do; we haven't discussed how the actual invite is supposed to look yet. I'm expecting an argument there."

"I don't think you can get away with wearing that much pink at a wedding unless you're the bride. Maybe a tie?" Squalo suggested without an ounce of irony. His cousin owned an actual _pink_ _suit_ and had worn it in public several times, but that wasn't something Pantera could get away with at his wedding. Not unless his bride saw the funny side, which was vanishingly unlikely. Weddings were serious business, not a time to mess about with fashion choices.

Pantera made a vaguely dissatisfied sound in his throat. "I'm sure a pink waistcoat would be acceptable as well, especially with a grey suit."

"Well _I _will not be wearing pink at my wedding," came a dry female voice from Squalo's right, "so hopefully my mother will settle for pressing her tastes on you."

Squalo had never met his cousin's girlfriend before and Pantera had never mentioned her surname –a smart move among Superbi as it made it harder for relatives to hunt her down and interrogate her on her intentions– but he could tell just looking at her that she was a Lanza. Those purple eyes bred surprisingly true, as did the fine, feathery hair. Immacolata Lanza had a warm olivine complexion, sharp eyebrows and medium brown wavy hair with a faintly reddish undertone, which probably looked impeccably stylish when she was properly groomed. Right now however she had bed-head and was wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms with a sports bra and very obviously did not care that her fiancé was entertaining a relative.

"You're Xanxus' Rain Guardian," she added, turning to eyeball Squalo thoughtfully.

"Have we met before?" Squalo asked, despite being mostly certain they hadn't; his cousin's fiancée might have been a Latent but she was definitely Cloudy. Possibly a Cloudy Lightning, as Lightnings did pop up regularly in the Lanza Family but very rarely bothered to become Flame-Active. Considering the travesty that was Lightning Flame-training, Squalo was not surprised.

"No. I knew Xanxus, not you."

Squalo paused. "You knew Boss?" From what Squalo had picked up from Xanxus' sparse comments and complaints before the not-a-coup, Nono had kept Boss very isolated from his peers outside of official Mafia events. Xanxus had not attended Mafia Academy –not even part-time like his older brothers apparently had as teenagers– nor had he been encouraged to hang out with his peers among the closer allied Families. Everybody had known _of_ Xanxus, what with people seeing him at events and meetings and gossiping about it, but he hadn't exactly had _friends_. There were those he was civil with, maybe even friendly but none of them were of an age or station to be considered 'friends'.

"Erica is one of the few Lanza girls around my age in the closer family," Immacolata said, wandering into the kitchen and emerging again with a glass of water, "so we hung out a lot, along with Olivia and Simona. Xanxus tracked us down a couple of times when he was fourteen, but Don Vongola put a stop to it as soon as he found out." She sipped her drink. "Erica said there was a massive fight and the Iron Fort's blue study needed a new coffee table afterwards."

That put a very disconcerting spin on Nono's entire relationship with Xanxus; had the Don Vongola been trying to make Boss less attractive an heir-prospect by ensuring nobody knew enough about him to form a nuanced opinion? That was Stupid; isolation fucked people over worse than almost anything else.

"What was he like?" Pantera asked, looking vaguely curious. Which meant he was paying a lot of attention and hanging on his fiancée's every word; she clearly recognised that, because she took another sip of her drink before answering:

"Very respectful and polite; occasionally crude, but it was never personal. Ferociously idealistic, completely brilliant and rather hot-headed, but not threatening," she smiled; "a fascinating boy, really. A shame Don Vongola denied him the opportunities to really shine that were granted to his older brothers."

"Should I be grateful he's not been able to compete for your hand?" Pantera asked dryly. Which was flirting and really, Pantera was fishing for a personal opinion because somehow the Superbi Heir had never actually met Xanxus; mostly due to Pantera keeping a different social circle to the late Vongola heirs, which in turn was partly due to the age difference but mostly due to not being Dumb. Nobody with any sense had wanted to be around Enrico when things went wrong for him or around Massimo when he was pissy. Federico had been more tolerable, but still. During the planning phase for the coup Squalo had been making vague plans to introduce his cousin to his Boss after they'd won, but then the coup had turned out not to be and everything had gone to shit.

"I've always preferred older men," Immacolata said sweetly. Squalo felt that the two of them deserved each-other; Immacolata would certainly keep Pantera on his toes. The Rain Officer also couldn't help wondering how Boss's wife would react to Mafia Ladies attempting to poach her husband; he had a feeling it would be a sight to see, even though it was very likely that there would be no proof of foul play afterwards and nobody would ever find the bodies. Dorea Black-Potter had no shortage of prior experience in disposing of rivals, although prior rivals had been political not personal.

But he'd told Pantera what he needed to say and given his cousin the information he needed to get the rest of the Superbi moving, so his work was done. It wasn't like Squalo was going to help plan the wedding, much less do any of the work involved in moving the family towards preparing for a mafia war to break out; he could best help by not doing anything to draw attention to the possiblity of collaboration between the Varia and the rest of the Superbi –especially considering those of his relatives who didn't live violent lifestyles. It also gave Pantera plausible deniability for anything Squalo and the Varia might do in the name of procuring Xanxus, while giving Squalo the peace of mind that appropriate actions were being taken for the current political situation. Being underprepared was as bad as not having prepared at all, as Squalo knew very well. Then when things were as done and settled as they were going to get until the new Decimo was settled in his role, well, Pantera would have shown off a closer connection to Boss than pretty much any other person could claim at the time, should Boss appear at the wedding.

Which Boss _would_, because of politics and securing backing, plus connections that Boss couldn't pass up. So Boss would go if he had the option and ability to, resulting in both parties benefiting; even without an actual physical invitation, so Pantera had deniability there should Xanxus become a complete persona non grata, due to a lack of physical evidence that he'd ever been invited at all. That level of Sneaky was impressive; Pantera's father was almost as sneaky and far more established; that was why Leone was the one that usually dealt with the Vongola and their Hyper-Intuition.

"Well, I've said my piece," the swordsman said, getting to his feet; "I'll see you both at the reunion and congratulations again on your engagement."

"Thank-you, Squalo," Immacolata said calmly, wandering out of the room and back into the kitchen. Pantera watched her leave with a besotted grin on his face.

"Isn't she excellent?"

"She looks lovely," Squalo replied, allowing several different shades of meaning colour his words, which registered even if Immacolata looked a little confused as she emerged again. He pulled on his boots. "See you week after next."

"Remember to bring Delfina!" Pantera called after him, not bothering to get up and see him out of the door. Squalo snorted; Delfina _hated_ the get-togethers, but she'd come because not coming meant inviting everybody to gossip about why you were missing and hunt you down to get all your opinions on the subjects discussed in your absence. Being out of the country on business or horribly ill were the only acceptable excuses for not showing and Delfina wasn't going to manage either.


	140. Chapter 140

Beta'd by the versatile Insane Scriptist.

Le sigh... I think the reason my updates are showing up earlier than they should be is due to the clocks changing: specifically that they haven't changed where **I **am yet but have in America. So yeah, don't miss reading yesterday's chapter!

Also, if you have not read Parenting is not a Varia Quality yet, **now is the moment! **This chapter has a lot of references to it, so you might find yourself drifting without the appropriate background information. If you don't want to read the _entire _thing before this chapter, at least read the last chapter, 'A Mafia Murder Mystery' as that will cover the high points.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Of intimidation and interference **

Waiting was not Bel's favourite thing, especially when he didn't know exactly what he was waiting _for_. On Saturday he had been promised 'great things to come', although he wouldn't quite describe the day's amusements and the remaining Pokémon as 'great' other than in entertainment potential. Sunday had been quiet beyond a few scattered mishaps as peasants adjusted to Conjured monsters and now it was Monday and the liver of the chicken he had sacrificed was counselling patience, discretion and re-examining old assumptions for new revelations. Which suggested the future greatness was quite a ways off still, which was annoying. Bel didn't like waiting.

Bel wasn't entirely sure _why_ he was feeling so restless, but at least 're-examining old assumptions' gave him somewhere to start. Taking the disembowelled chicken down to the kitchens and swapping it for a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, the Storm Officer wandered outside and sat on a bench beside an apple tree, staring across the slightly misty gardens and pondering his assumptions. What assumptions did he make, and more importantly, which of them qualified as 'old'? Were they the ones he'd picked up very early in life, or the ones he's not thought about for a long time? He let his thoughts meander, re-examining what he _knew_ as fact against what he _thought_ was fact.

His brother was dead like all the peasants of the estate he was raised on, his birth-country had recently celebrated his little sister's eleventh birthday and acceptance into Durmstrang –shame it wasn't Sabina– and Royalty was always better than the peasants, as was proper and should be evident. An example would be the fact that the Varia was still functioning without a proper Boss far more effectively than the CEDEF was _with_ one. Ugh, the CEDEF... his own reaction meant he should think more about them and what he thought he knew.

That the CEDEF was going to self-destruct in the next few years regardless of the efforts of the very capable peasant Maínomai had a daughter with was an assumption that probably didn't need revisiting, for instance. Sawada was just that Stupid.

Wait… Bel paused in his chewing. The actually capable CEDEF secretary's _name_ might have been Lanza, but she was Vongola. The Head of Vongola Housekeeping was her mother and Maria-Chiara was Don Vongola's daughter, something he had pieced together himself; all the Lanza were practically Vongola anyway, having been part of the wider Family from the moment of their founding due to Secondo being said founder's father. Possibly not his _actual_ blood-parent as the records were unclear, but that didn't make the Lanzas any less Vongola really: there'd certainly been enough marriages binding the two Families together over the centuries. The only reason they weren't _called_ Vongola was that Quarto had decreed that only Skies descended from Primo or Secondo were allowed to take the Vongola name.

So Erica Lanza had Vongola blood, was capable and most importantly was not in a position which had required her to swear any binding oaths. Yes, she was a Rain, but that wasn't _all_ she was; Bel had a decent sense for Flames and the secretary was _interesting_, although nobody else seemed to have noticed. Then again, he was a Prince and therefore better than any peasant could ever hope to be at such things.

He should visit; it was early enough in the morning that he could probably catch her before she left for work. Since Keunmul Squad had been hired to replace her during her maternity leave, her address was known to the Varia. Bel brushed the last few crumbs off his jacket and headed back inside.

"Manservant!"

* * *

Erica was deeply unhappy about a great many things right now, to the point that she was starting to seriously consider taking some sick leave. Yes, her maternity leave had only ended six months ago, but she'd not been given _any_ compassionate leave when her uncle died in February and since then the amount of pressure at work had become almost overwhelming. Three different field teams had imploded in the past two months, with members getting fired for 'failing to comply with CEDEF guidelines' –read losing their cool in the field to the point of sabotaging the mission– and others having mental breakdowns and getting put on medical leave. A dozen secretaries had handed in their notice, in tears as they admitted that they didn't _want_ to leave but it was all too much and they couldn't keep up, several analysts had quietly gotten jobs elsewhere and Iemitsu had to _know_ it was going on because she wrote it in the weekly reviews but he wasn't _connecting_ the data to its implications, which was that the CEDEF was falling apart and the smart and self-aware people were getting out before they got crushed in the collapse.

While Erica would have _liked _to count herself among the smart people, she did not feel she had the option of leaving: she was Varia, not CEDEF and Squalo wanted her where she was, so she was staying. She was not able to get out _yet_ at least.

Today she had to induct the new secretaries –she had hired a quarter as many again as CEDEF policy strictly called for so as to hopefully reduce the stress levels and ensure they had a buffer– and she really wasn't looking forward to it at all. Seeing those hopeful, promising teenagers worn down by the increasingly toxic atmosphere in the CEDEF offices, the unreasonable demands and crushing dismissiveness from the External Advisor and the impossibly weighty yet utterly unclear nature of the job requirements, made Erica feel guilty. These days it was also making her _angry_, because what was this? The CEDEF was a Vongola institution, despite not actually being part _of_ the Vongola, one that had been founded by Primo's Cloud Guardian to moderate and guide the Vongola! It was not supposed to be a vanity position for the Don's nephew to systematically ruin as he sucked up to Nono and encouraged her grandfather to make increasingly unfeasible decisions!

Dressing for the day had become like armouring for battle and Erica was disproportionately grateful for her impossibly comfortable boots, sleekly tailored –and actually discreetly armoured– black skirt suits and the bracelet that enabled her to ignore her boss's Toxic presence. She had also bought more makeup in the past nine weeks than she had ever owned before in her life and had an entire _shelf_ of hair-care products where there had before been only shampoo, conditioner, a hairbrush and a couple of hairclips. Not to mention the fact she'd caught herself buying coloured nail polish ten days ago and realised that yes, she _did_ need that tiny extra layer of mental fortitude it provided, even though she only put it on her toenails.

Her next report to the Captain was going to include a demand for a raise.

Stepping out of her apartment, car keys dangling from her fingers and office keys tucked in an inside pocket, Erica stopped dead on her doormat and stared in uncomprehending dread. The Storm Officer grinned cheerfully back at her, leaning against the wall directly opposite her front door and twirling a curved, jagged-edged blade around his fingers; _definitely_ demanding that raise.

"Hello again, peasant," the fourteen-year-old said affably. He was far taller than he'd been the last time she saw him, as tall in his boots as she was in her two inch heels. Which was admittedly not particularly tall –Erica was only five foot three in bare feet– but she'd last seen him nearly four years ago and he'd barely come up to her shoulder then.

"Your Highness," she managed, her tone utterly void of either sarcasm or pleasantry. That was a tell, she _knew_ it was a tell and there was _nothing_ she could do about it. The teenager's grin widened.

"I thought I should drop in and assess CEDEF security, what with the current political situation being what it is," the Storm Officer informed her, his evident enjoyment of the prospect utterly infuriating. "Better me than one of the Family's enemies, ushishishi."

The chuckle at the end of the sentence made Erica want to stab the Storm with her keys. However he was technically a senior officer –even though he didn't know that– so she just locked her door and tried to think coherently.

"Why are you approaching _me_ about this?" she asked after pocketing her house keys.

The self-proclaimed royal's wide smile settled into a disconcerting smirk. "Well, you _are_ Vongola," he said softly, pushing away from the wall and politely offering her an arm. Erica took it; manners _mattered_ to Belphegor and the formality helped her remember not to be afraid. "You are also Sawada's de-facto second-in-command, although the moron doesn't seem to have noticed," the teenager added sourly as they headed for the lift.

"So you want nominal approval to grease the wheels and ensure nobody runs screaming when they notice you in the building," Erica said dryly as they waited for the lift to arrive.

"Exactly!" the teenager chirped, his toothy expression not anything near as friendly as a smile. "It's for the good of the Family after all."

True, it would be. It would also frustrate Iemitsu no end, ensuring his focus would be entirely on the Varia Officer beside her for most of the coming week rather than on the imaginary shortcomings of the staff. Plus it would give her employer the kick in the pants he needed to sign off the upgrades in security she'd been trying to slide past him for _months_. It wasn't 'pointless remodelling' like he dismissed it as; without a team of Mists to act as security, the CEDEF building had to rely on technology which needed power, wires, space and more. Technology also required updating and replacing regularly, as well as maintenance checks to make sure nobody had hacked their system, which was the _point_ of all her requests.

The lift arrived. Erica allowed herself to be ushered inside it.

"You aren't doing it for the Family though." She said as soon as the doors were closed.

"Ushishishi, of course not," Belphegor of the Varia admitted candidly. "I want to meet your daughter."

_Over my dead body._

The thought was so _clear_ that for a moment Erica thought she'd said it out loud. Terror and determination and maternal protectiveness spiked and merged into something approaching primal fury and reality seemed to slow down, coming into achingly sharp focus.

"No." It was strange how serene and calm the word sounded.

"Ushishi… I don't mean _now,_" the teenager said easily, smug satisfaction and delight colouring his body language. "Once she's old enough for rational conversation. There is nobody in all of the Vongola alliance who knows more about politics than myself and being Maínomai's daughter, she'll have the intelligence to actually learn about such things."

"I will consider your offer." He was telling the truth; he didn't mean her daughter any harm at this moment in time; he _did_ think any daughter of Maínomai's would be worth the effort of cultivating; he was being very polite about everything; and he was actually prepared to accept 'no' as an answer so long as her reasons were rational. She knew this.

"You should probably see about getting a Storm to teach your son a few tricks," Belphegor added as the lift slowed to a stop in the basement garage. "He might otherwise end up getting used as leverage against you, Vongola."

"I am a Lanza," Erica said flatly as the doors of the lift opened.

"No, you're definitely a Vongola," the Storm Officer contradicted her, grin widening in a way that instilled a terrible sense of foreboding in her heart. "Orange eyes really suit you, by the way."

"What." Erica turned to glance at the tinted window of a nearby car and felt her stomach drop to her shoes: orange eyes.

Sky Flames.

What!

Cackling gleefully, the Storm Officer wandered closer to the car and let himself into the back seat. "I'll see you at the CEDEF, Vongola!" he carolled before slamming the door behind him. Erica barely noticed the car driving off, being far too busy panicking about her sudden and incomprehensible change in Flame-type.

The best person to talk to about this would have been Great-Grandma, but she was dead. Second-best… who _did_ she knew that _definitely_ knew more about Flames than she did?

Pýř.

Oh _dear_. This was definitely going to go sideways.

She didn't _want_ to be a contender for the position of Vongola Boss! Having Sky Flames made her eligible for the role but there were so _many_ reasons it wouldn't be a good thing for either her or the Vongola and she… she needed to find out the how and why her suddenly being a Sky _first_. Then she could figure out how to deal with it.

First things first, call the office and let them know there was going to be a security check… and that she was going to be arriving later due to a family emergency. Then text Pýř, who would hopefully not be on a mission, and pray he would forgive her for expecting him to think complicated thoughts at seven thirty in the morning.

She should probably go back upstairs for this.

* * *

Pýř was eating breakfast and letting Maínomai's chatter about recent intelligence that Information were up in arms about roll over him when his phone pinged; somebody had texted him. Fishing the phone out of his pocket, Pýř's eyebrow slid up his face at the number; why was Erica texting him at this hour of the morning?

Clicking on the message –it was probably important– Pýř read it, stilled and read it again. No, it really did say that.

_Storm Officer paid me a visit. My Flames are now colour-complementary to before. Help? _

On the colour wheel, blue was complementary to orange. Sky Flames were orange.

Pýř abandoned his half-eaten breakfast and untouched tea, texting back a one-word reply; Erica would provide him with more of both and this was definitely urgent.

"Pýř? Something wrong?" Maínomai hurried after him as he left the room, headed for the Front Hall.

"Erica," Pýř said shortly, quickly deleting the text before his partner could read it. Erica had asked _him_, not Maínomai, which meant she wanted her child's father kept out of the matter for the time being. Pýř would respect her wishes on the matter.

Maínomai threw an Alteration over the two of them to protect the conversation from eavesdroppers. "Is she hurt? Did Sawada do something?"

"No. Personal; Flame thing," Pýř elaborated. He wouldn't be able to ditch his partner unless Maínomai calmed down and agreed to being ditched. Which the Mist _would_, because he knew that Pýř considered Erica to be Territory and took her wellbeing very seriously; it also wasn't a situation that adding Maínomai to would improve.

"Oh; okay," Maínomai relaxed. "I'll go find Vahn and get him to spot for me while I try out some new Alterations on one of the mooks. Give her my best."

Pýř nodded, moved his name from the 'In' board to the 'Out' board and jogged off towards the garage, already trying to think of reasons for Erica to have gone from being a Rain to a Sky.

Well, the most _obvious_ reason would be that she'd always been a Sky; she just had never Activated anything other than her Rain Flames before now. Skies were different because their Flames were actually produced by a balanced _combination_ of all the other six Flame types Activating at once, which was why they were generally stronger Flame-wise than anybody who only had one Flame Active: every living person needed at least 5 percent of each Flame-type in order for their brain develop properly, even if they never Activated their Flames. So really, the maximum strength of the Flames of a person who wasn't a Sky could never be more than 75 percent and those people tended to be so far out of the range of conventional sanity they were barely functional in society. Generally speaking, 60 to 70 percent was considered 'High Affinity', 60 to 50 was 'Average' and anything less than 45 was 'Low Affinity'. Of course Affinity had nothing to do with how strong a person's Flames were; that was to do with resolve, not affinity. It didn't affect their reserves either. Affinity only affected how easy it was for a person to access their Flames in the first place.

For instance, Pýř actually had a rather low Affinity to both Cloud and Storm Flames; around 45 and 35 percent respectively. But he could still use both of them independently or in varying mixed proportions and had worked hard enough at learning to do so that he no longer had any trouble calling upon either. When he'd first become Active he'd actually been using a mixture of both Flames, but time and practice had enabled him to separate them out and refine his skills in each to a razor's edge.

Skies were different: a truly balanced Sky –which didn't exist and was therefore purely hypothetical– would have exactly 16.666 percent of each Flame-type. Realistically, a very strong Sky would have between 16 and 17 percent of each Flame-type and be able to access about 96 percent of their total Flames, which was masses more than even a person of High Affinity of another Type and was part of why one of the Varia descriptors for Sky-tricks was 'bullshit'. Regular Flame-Actives weaponised maybe one or two –sometimes as many as three– aspects of themselves; Skies weaponised _everything_. Even a relatively mediocre Sky was well ahead of the average in terms of Affinity.

Pýř knew that Erica was about average in terms of her Rain-Affinity and that she didn't have an obvious secondary Affinity. Knowing _now_ that she was a Rainy Sky rather than just lacking a strong secondary Affinity, Pýř guessed she was around 50 percent Rain and 10 percent of each other Flame-Type, putting her Sky Flames at 60 percent and making her fairly pathetic in competitive Sky-terms. However she was _still _a Sky, a _Vongola_ Sky at that and reading between the lines of the history books Settimo Vongola had probably been at about that level or possibly even weaker; his reserves had been as pathetic as his Affinity, which Erica's were not.

However Erica definitely did _not_ want to be Decima or summarily pressured into marrying the verifiably pathetic Decimo candidate that her grandfather and the External Advisor were pushing for, which meant he'd have to help her hide her Flames while teaching her to use them and helping her pick and vet potential Guardian candidates. It definitely wasn't going to be easy. Achieving the first could be accomplished simply enough by keeping the change a secret; the latter would be trickier since he wanted worthy choices for Erica even if they weren't Varia Quality. The _real_ trick would be sneaking past Maria-Chiara the fact that her daughter was a Sky with Guardians. Then again, his partner was an Alteration specialist, which would make hiding such things easier so long as the Head of Housekeeping's senses weren't sharp enough to pick up on Harmonisation.

The Cloud grinned to himself as he got into a car with appropriately augmented steering. He had a Sky of his very own and he hadn't even had to Bond with her as a Guardian for her to let him make her Territory. This was going to be _interesting_.

* * *

Pýř's reply to her text had been almost instant, so Erica filled the time between getting the text and her friend's arrival by popping out to the bar across the street from her apartment building for fresh brioche and brewing a pot of the black tea the Cloud liked best. She also washed her makeup off so and splashed water on her face so that the redness around her eyes was less obvious; yes, she had burst into tears the moment the door of her apartment was closed behind her, but that had been because she had felt completely overwhelmed, not because she was panicking. Much. Some panic was permissible when the assumptions you had build your life on were summarily upended; especially ones with consequences like _this_.

Her eyes had been normal when she'd looked at herself in the mirror, but calling up the deep, sharp determination Bel's comment on Serena had invoked in her had brought the orange back to her eyes and experimenting with her holdout knife had proved it was terribly easy to make the weapon glow amber.

It made her want to cry all over again that she knew her grandfather's reaction would be to get _more_ insistent about suggesting she marry somebody 'appropriate' while assuming that of _course_ she didn't want to be Decima. Which she didn't, but not for the reasons Nono would assume: He thought she was inexperienced and retiring, easily exploited by men, an impression formed in her teens by the circumstances of Amadeo's conception and further reinforced by Serena having been born without there being an openly recognised 'father' –by which people meant 'husband'– in sight.

Erica actually didn't _want_ to run the shit-show that was the Vongola because she was already running the CEDEF and it was a thankless task. She also knew none of the allied and subordinate Dons would respect her –partly due to her gender, partly due to her lack of combat reputation but mostly to do with her being a single mother of two– and that her first act as Decima would probably be ordering the assassination of the External Advisor, along with ordering her grandfather to defrost Xanxus since she had no idea how to do it herself. Erica would then make Xanxus her deputy and have _him_ run the Vongola with her as figurehead, which would cause all kinds of fuss because it set a _terrible_ precedent. A historical one that would set up the means for regency for underage or 'incompetent' heirs within the Vongola, which was not the sort of legacy she wanted to leave behind for her successors. Add on that her taking over would not resolve the lack of Sky candidates available to succeed her, so she'd be pressured to have more children and remain as Donna until another suitable Sky was old enough to take up the mantle of Undicesimo. All of which assumed she had the political support to survive that long in the first place.

Even then, it all relied upon her getting enough support from the wider Family to make it as far as the Ring Battles without being assassinated. She knew she could defeat Nono and Iemitsu's candidate –reading between the lines of the reports of Tsunayoshi Sawada it looked like he was suffering from either severe emotional abuse or a major brain chemistry problem, possibly both– but to even get that far she needed Guardians and even if she _didn't_ make a play for the Boss position, she would still have people Harmonising with her, because that was what Active Skies _did_.

Varia members at least tended to be very picky about Harmonising and bonds generally, and Erica was mostly sure she _couldn't_ Harmonise with Pýř, partly because even if she hadn't known it until now she'd actually always been a Sky and hadn't Bonded with him like that yet, but mostly because there'd been a discussion on bonds during her pregnancy and Pýř had mentioned that he was 'almost entirely incapable of Harmonising with a Sky' due to certain formative experiences. He hadn't elaborated further but Erica had the impression his childhood had been far from pleasant in more ways than one.

It was possible that she might Harmonise with Maínomai now she was an Active Sky as Harmonisation happened more quickly for Flame-Actives, but Erica didn't _want_ to. It would jeopardise her friend's Varia career –which he loved– and really, she was _happy_ having him as a friend who wandered in and out of her life because he _wanted_ to. Having him feel _obliged_ to look after her because they were Bonded really, seriously did not appeal.

Besides, Maínomai and Pýř were Xanxus' people. Their first –and to be honest only– loyalty was to him. Erica wasn't going to poach some of her uncle's best people when he wasn't here for her to talk to him about it first.

* * *

The front door opened and Pýř stepped inside; it was such a relief to see him that Erica had to take a moment to quash the tears that rose to her eyes.

"Thank-you for coming over," she managed in German after a moment, which her Cloud friend had used to take off his boots and coat. "There's tea and brioche in the kitchen waiting for you."

Pýř nodded, took her hand and led her into the kitchen, gently pushing her into a chair and sitting next to her before pouring himself a cup of tea and ripping apart a brioche so he could put it in his mouth in bite-sized pieces. Erica felt herself settle in his presence; he was powerful and dangerous and could kill her easily, but he considered her Territory so right now she was as safe as she was ever going to get. Pýř was Varia Quality and a veteran who had access to the Varia's Archives and extensive intelligence networks; he'd know how to deal with this and even if he didn't, he'd make a way.

"You mentioned Bel?" Pýř asked after finishing the brioche and his first cup of tea.

"He was waiting for me in the corridor when I left for work," Erica said, "he walked me to the lift and when we were inside it, he mentioned wanting to meet Serena."

Pýř went terribly still but his Flames twitched.

"Everything in me rebelled against the idea," Erica admitted, "so I told him no. Which he thought was wonderful and gratifying, modified his request to when Serena was older and promptly called me Vongola. I must have Activated Sky Flames right then and there." Erica paused, "and he was _expecting_ me to. He was so _smug_ about it and didn't call me 'peasant' _once_ afterwards, just 'Vongola'. He also suggested I get somebody to start Amadeo on his Storm Flames."

"Bel won't say a word," Pýř said confidently; "he only answers to Boss and you are Boss's favourite relative. He only minds the Captain when he wants to behave."

I know that and I know he won't tell," Erica agreed, then paused; _how_ did she know? "Pýř, my Intuition has gotten sharper." She winced; "of course it would, I'm an Active Sky. This is so _inconvenient_."

Pýř snorted in amusement and cradled his second cup of tea. "You don't want to be Donna?"

Erica glared at the Cloud. "You could _not_ pay me _enough_ for that, not even if you emptied every bank vault in Switzerland," she hissed. "I want the Family to be stable enough that I can _leave_ the CEDEF and _rest_. I have no idea what comes after that but anything _not_ involving Sawada Iemitsu would be a lovely place to start."

The Cloud nodded acceptingly. "Maínomai can change the Alterations on your bracelet to make it look to everyone like you're still just a Rain," he offered, "and I can hunt down somebody discreet to help you learn; I've got a lead there I can follow up in your name." He paused. "Lussuria is Boss's Sun, but they are not and probably will never be Harmonised."

Erica considered this. "I don't want Maínomai to Harmonise with me," she admitted, "because he would let it limit him. But if you want to be my Cloud, unofficially of course, I would like that."

"If you don't want to Harmonise, you won't," Pýř said bluntly, "even though you _are_ somewhat compatible. You're right about it limiting him though."

"You can tell him then," Erica decided, "and even though I don't want Maínomai to be my Guardian I still want him to be my friend. He's a fantastic friend and he matters to me."

Pýř grunted and pulled out his phone; he was probably texting his partner so the Mist would pop over and fiddle with her bracelet.

"How did nobody know I was a Sky before now?" Erica pondered aloud, pouring herself a cup of her own tea.

Pýř frowned. "How did you first Activate?"

"Federico got me Dying Will Pills for the first time, so I knew what my Flames felt like, then had me call on them repeatedly until I could do it by myself regardless of circumstances and mood. He wasn't exactly willing to toss me into danger, after all." It had been right after Xanxus was put on ice, not even four months after she'd given birth to Amadeo. Federico had probably decided to get her started on Flames as soon as he heard she'd been raped, but her pregnancy had meant the training had to be put off for most of a year.

Pýř nodded. "Sky Flames are a balanced combination of the six other Types," he stated. "You have more Rain Flames than each other Type and the pills Activate a person's dominant Type. No Sky can _ever_ Activate from the pills as no-one has such perfectly balanced Flames. Bel made you unthinkingly angry and you instinctively called on _all_ of your Will rather than just the Rain fraction."

"On purpose," Erica specified.

"Bel is a genius," Pýř said dryly.

"Will he have a plan or was this for fun?"

Pýř shrugged. "He'll have several plans, based on which way you jump. You are your own person and he clearly respects you a little. Do what you want and leave Bel to me."

"Thanks Pýř," Erica said quietly.

Pýř poured himself another cup of tea, radiating contentment. Well, at least _somebody_ was confident…

The next minute Pýř's phone peeped, then three seconds later Maínomai materialised in the kitchen.

"Is everything okay? Erica–" The Mist paused. "Erica, you're a Sky. Why are you a Sky?"

"Rain-primary, balanced secondary," Pýř said succinctly. "Bel provoked her."

"Why would Bel –ah, I see," Maínomai swooped in to hug her. "Don't worry; you don't have to do anything you don't want to. I promise. Pýř said he wanted me to fiddle the bracelet's Alteration and now I'm here I know why he wanted me to do that, so it won't take me a moment." He paused. "Are you going to try for Heir?"

"And have the CEDEF collapse the moment I leave?" Erica said dryly. "I don't even want to have as much authority as I do where I am, Maínomai; none of the Dons would respect me anyway between having Amadeo so young and lacking a reputation for strength. I also have no Sky heir of my own, which _was_ a factor in Great-Grandma getting chosen for Ottava, and would be expected to produce one. Possibly by Iemitsu's barely-teenage son as a political compromise, which is a far from thrilling idea. No, I'm going to keep a low profile, learn to use my new Flame-Type and once the Decimo has been confirmed I'm going to hand in my notice to Iemitsu and have an actual _life_."

"Fair enough," Maínomai conceded. "I've fixed up your bracelet; anybody who doesn't _know_ you're a Sky will only be able to feel your Rain-Flames."

"Thanks," Erica said, going up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek; "I have to get to work now, but I'm going to ask for some leave soon so I can get my head around this."

"I'll let you know when I find someone," Pýř said, getting to his feet and briefly squeezing her shoulder. "Take care."

"I will do," Erica promised, putting on her boots and heading out the door. She wasn't wearing any makeup but since her run-in with Prince the Ripper she had somehow lost the will to care about the opinions of her co-workers or the delusions of her boss. Things had changed; she had options now, even if they were extreme and not at all to her taste. She _could_ kill her grandfather and Iemitsu, capitalise on the surprise and upset of the Family, build a power base during the confusion until she had enough support to do as she wished regardless of her less than stellar reputation.

She would rather it never came to that though.


	141. Chapter 141

Beta'd by the martial Insane Scriptist.

This is not the last update of this cycle: I will be updating from Monday to Wednesday as well.

* * *

**Of the art of being completely infuriating **

Lal walked into the CEDEF building on her own two feet, crossed the reception area at a brisk but unhurried pace and nodded polite thanks at the fieldwork operative who reached out to slap the call button of the lift for her on his way past. As she waited two secretaries and an analyst joined her, stepping into the lift alongside her when it eventually arrived.

"You want Sawada's floor, right Ms Mirch?" the older secretary asked absently as she pressed the button for the third floor, "and Andrea wants the copyists." She tapped the button for the fifth floor, which was indeed the level the copyists occupied.

"Yes, the twelfth floor please," Lal said briskly. CEDEF staff were always very considerate; they did this for everyone, not just her, so she allowed it as good manners rather than pity or an assumption of helplessness. She was tiny but not helpless; _never_ helpless.

"And Chiara needs the surveillance archives, which are on the eighth floor," the secretary added to herself in a barely audible mumble, pressing that button too as the doors closed behind them and the lift started moving.

The CEDEF's lifts were programmed especially so that the twelfth floor had precedence over all of the others, since that was the floor the External Advisor worked on, so the first stop was the one Lal got off at. Marching out of the lift the moment the doors were sufficiently opened to let her past, she headed across the airy foyer towards Iemitsu's office. She had an appointment for ten thirty and intended to be exactly on time for it, as always.

Jumping up to kick the door handle so it opened for her, Lal entered the office and stopped dead, surprise and embarrassment giving way swiftly to utter fury. Why, if he was just blowing this meeting off after specifically requesting her presence today then she'd teach him to do otherwise! Turning on her heel, Lal strode straight back out and over to the secretary's desk. Erica Lanza was there, as she usually was, and Iemitsu's apprentice was sitting on the floor beside her, carefully going over a stack of forms and taking notes on a pad of paper.

"Good morning Lal," Erica said serenely, not looking up from her own stack of paperwork. "How might I assist you?"

"Where is Iemitsu?" the former COMBUSIN leader gritted out.

"Ah. A moment, please," Erica murmured, reaching out to tap a few buttons on the intercom then press down. "Coriander, where is the External Advisor?" She asked, leaning closer to the microphone.

There was a crackle. "Ninth floor right now, Madam Secretary," was the slightly distorted reply. "He has lost our intruder and is grumbling about the security."

"Thank-you Coriander," Erica said firmly, cutting off further comments. "Tell him Lal is here for the appointment he requested."

"Will do." The sound cut off with a click.

"An intruder?" Lal asked sharply. Erica seemed dangerously laissez-faire on the subject, considering the ninth floor was there employee paperwork was kept.

"Belphegor of the Varia is testing security in light of the recent political difficulties," Erica said blandly, turning over a page and making a note.

Lal remembered the little horror all too well; an unholy terror of a child and years of being Varia had no doubt make him worse. His moniker 'Prince the Ripper' was evidence enough of _that_. "Did he _ask_ first?"

Erica looked over at her for the first time that morning; Lal did not take a step backwards despite being well aware that the young woman's expression was a very dangerous one for a Rain to be wearing.

"He was waiting outside my apartment first thing this morning," the secretary said ever so mildly, "so as to let me know before work."

Having a Varia Officer on her doorstep that early in the morning explained Erica's current attitude completely; a nasty shock like that would make far more strong-minded people decide that they couldn't be bothered to care anymore. That she'd actually come into work at all rather than calling in sick was very impressive for somebody who wasn't combat trained.

The intercom buzzed; Erica pressed the button. "Twelfth floor."

"Boss wants Lal to come help down here," crackled Coriander's slightly apologetic tones. "We're splitting up to cover all the archive floors simultaneously and he'd like her to check the sixth floor with Turmeric."

Lal hopped up onto the desk. "Tell him I'll be there presently," she said shortly. She had been _hoping_ that after the meeting she would be able to take a team out to investigate the turmoil that was Northern Italy these days and get some up-to-date information of who had taken over where, but that clearly was not going to happen until the bratty Storm Officer had been kicked out of the building.

Speaking of which, why was Basil here and not downstairs helping?

"Why hasn't Iemitsu taken his apprentice along?" Lal asked.

"One of the Officer's first acts was to attempt to abduct Basil, while expressing an eagerness to corrupt him to 'the Dark Side'," Erica said, tone desert-dry as she made air-quotes. "Upon retrieving Basil, Iemitsu insisted he stay out of the way. So I am inducting him into the appropriate methods of filling out mission forms and surveillance reports."

That sounded altogether like Iemitsu; Lal sighed heavily at this clear evidence that the External Advisor had been blatantly played by the Storm Officer. "Thank-you Erica." She had better head down to the sixth floor, where the analysed data and coherent intelligence reports were stored. It had the best security in the building, but that probably didn't mean much against a trained assassin with Storm Flames…

…and she would have to take the stairs, since the lifts didn't stop at that floor.

* * *

The sixth floor was quiet, but not silent despite the thick walls dampening all external sound; Lal could hear the humming of the florescent lights, the distant clatter of somebody using a photocopier and the muffled thuds of other people on the emergency staircase she, Turmeric and Hyssop had just left.

It was not possible to directly access the archives from the staircase; the entire point of this area being laid out like this was to make it inaccessible. They would have to walk along the brightly illuminated corridor that followed the outside wall, the wall on their other side all thick panes of mirrored bulletproof glass, then around a corner to the archive's office. Lal hated visiting this floor even on good days; the narrow corridor was a kill box and _knowing_ that people on the far side of the glass could see her clearly due to the dim lighting inside the archives made her testy.

Today was even worse than usual as there might be a Varia assassin lurking in the stacks and watching them. The mirrored security glass with its metal mesh would however stop a bullet travelling in both directions and even hamper Flames for a moment, so they should probably get moving.

Lal caught the eyes of the two men and jerked her head down the hall before setting off at a comfortable trot, her shotgun balanced across her shoulders. Considering this was _technically_ a security check she probably would not get a chance to shoot Belphegor, but she still _wanted_ to. He was Varia! He wasn't supposed to _be_ here! CEDEF security was an internal matter!

The steady whoosh and thump of a photocopier continued, gradually getting louder as they headed down the hallway and turned the corner. The thick glass window of the archive office showed nothing but darkness and the door beyond it was ajar; both completely out of line with security requirements. The photocopier noises came from beyond that open door, in the copy room; it was not permitted to take files out of the sixth floor archives once they'd been submitted, so if anybody wanted the information they had to photocopy it.

Lal gestured to Hyssop, who slipped ahead and quickly pulled the door all the way open so she and Turmeric could run inside.

"Hello peasants," Belphegor of the Varia said cheerfully, perched on top of the desk that the unconscious archive manager was lying bound and gagged under as behind him another Varia worked the photocopier. "Security is completely terrible, you know; you really need a microphone for the archive office rather than having holes in the glass. A setup to seal the corridor and gas invaders would help too, although that still wouldn't stop a professional such as the Prince, ushishishi."

Lal ground her teeth. "You are stealing confidential CEDEF information!" She snapped.

The Storm Officer laughed again, twirling a curved, serrated blade around his fingers. "Stealing? No, we're not _stealing_ anything, baby: this information exists to inform the Vongola Family of goings-on both within and outside the Family. We're just _using_ it. Of course, it seems to have been _years _since anybody used it, so the Prince understands that you may not have realised its purpose. We aren't even taking anything _away_, see? Manservant is making copies!"

Behind the sniggering teenage assassin a tall, dark-haired man moved a stack of freshly copied sheets into a box, closed the lid and placed a crocheted toy pig on top; both box and pig vanished, replaced by a box with a crocheted toy cow on top. The older assassin removed the cow, opened the box and then started photocopying again.

"Stop that! How is this testing security?" Lal demanded. She couldn't shoot the teenager –for one it wouldn't work because he was a Storm and highly capable due to being Varia Quality so the bullet would swiftly cease to exist should she shoot at him– and starting a fight against a pair of assassins in an enclosed space where they had a hostage would be the height of stupidity.

"The Prince is now testing how quickly and appropriately the CEDEF can respond to espionage," the teenager said sweetly. "Don't worry, the Prince won't go anywhere until your boss shows up." He waved a stopwatch, showing that a little over eight minutes had already passed.

Lal ground her teeth, tried her radio –jammed– and stomped out of the room, Turmeric hovering uncertainly behind her.

"Hyssop, go back to the stairs and keep trying your radio until you can get through to Iemitsu. Tell him we've found Belphegor and he has an external accomplice," she gritted out. "Turmeric and I will stay here and keep an eye on them."

The Varia duo clearly had a Mist on the outside helping them move the paperwork, so hopefully one of the teams would be able to locate said Mist and destroy the copies. Lal recognised that the Varia in general performed a necessary service and specific individuals could be very helpful in certain situations, but the Storm Officer was not at _all_ helpful _ever_ and she itched to see him taken down a peg or six.

At least he hadn't killed anyone yet; Belphegor's epithet of 'Prince the Ripper' was well-earned for all that he targeted hitmen rather than civilians, that Lal was aware of anyway.

* * *

"Hello again Vongola." Erica looked up sharply from her paperwork to find the grinning Storm Officer leaning his elbows of the front of her desk, fingers laced under his chin with a knife dangling from one finger. When had he gotten here?

"Would you stop calling me that?" She asked tartly, not needing to glance down to know that her little brother had looked up at the sound of Belphegor's voice and was probably watching the exchange avidly.

"The Prince will not," Belphegor drawled, pulling his hands apart and twirling the knife. "And the Rainlet won't tell anybody either, will you Rainlet?"

Erica glanced down at Benvenuto –Basil– who blinked innocently up at the Storm Officer, looking far younger than the teenager of almost fourteen that he was. "Won't tell who what, your Highness?"

"Ushishi… good Rainlet," Belphegor chuckled quietly. "I had fun today, Vongola; I'll write you a report and have Manservant bring it over."

"I'm so _glad_ you had fun, your Highness," Erica said with all the deadpan sarcasm she could muster. "The archive manager is probably going to hand in his notice once he's calmed down, Lal will be in a foul mood all month, Iemitsu _will_ blame me for everything despite security matters requiring his approval to go ahead and I've already had two field operatives and three analysts resign since apparently 'Varia assassins testing the security' is more than their nerves can stand."

Prince the Ripper _cackled_, swaying on his feet and grabbing onto her desk for leverage. "Oh, I _do_ like your cheek, Vongola," he managed eventually, "but I have to be going now; it's nearly noon and I want to be back at Headquarters for lunch. Until next time!" He pushed away from the desk and sauntered off towards the stairs.

"I hope there _isn't _a next time, Highness!" Erica called after him; the gradually fading sniggering as he vanished around the corner and down the emergency staircase was not at all satisfying, but she did feel somewhat better for insulting the Storm Officer to his face.

"Was that really wise?" Basil asked quietly once the distant sounds of mirth had fully faded from hearing.

"No, it _definitely_ wasn't," Erica admitted frankly, "but I think I have stopped caring."

Her little brother pondered her statement. "Just today or indefinitely?" he inquired perceptively.

Erica considered the matter. "Indefinitely," she realised; was it something to do with the massive spiritual change she had undergone this morning? It seemed likely. "Potentially permanently," she added, wondering if it should bother her. It didn't and she didn't care enough to make an effort.

"Are you going to hand in your notice too then?" Her little brother was possibly a bit _too_ perceptive sometimes; she hadn't realised he knew how much she had come to hate her job lately. She hadn't been that fond of it to begin with, but only recently had she developed a genuine and lasting antipathy for the CEDEF generally and Iemitsu Sawada specifically.

"Not yet; I need to see the current security situation through and train up a suitably intrepid replacement," Erica decided. "But I don't think I'll be here this time next year."

"Good," Basil said firmly. "You've been so sad lately," he added when she looked at him inquiringly; "I don't like it."

"That will change soon enough, I hope," Erica reassured him. "I'm planning on taking training leave in a few weeks as it is."

"To _actually_ train?" Basil asked, the naïve expression on his face a blatant misrepresentation of his actual thought processes.

"Brat. Yes, actually to train; it's been a while since I pushed myself and better now than in an emergency," Erica said, kicking her little brother gently in the knee. "Finished with those forms yet?"

"Yes." The 'ages ago' was fairly explicit subtext; Erica narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh, _really_? Then I'd better get you started on something more _challenging_. Such as… filing protocols." Which were myriad, arcane and somewhat variable since where things went was partly subject to where Iemitsu _thought_ they should go, which was subject to change.

Basil made sad puppy eyes up at her, which she ignored; he had brought this upon himself.


	142. Chapter 142

Beta'd by the cunning Insane Scriptist.

This is not the chapter I was _intending_ to publish today, but Muse insisted and I'd much rather keep the timeline straightish so here it is. Oh, and I did update Saturday, which people may have missed due to strange website-time shenanigans.

* * *

**Of backstage scrambling and days off **

Tracy Davies still wasn't sure what she thought of Dorea's prickly teenage husband, so she was reserving judgement. What she'd seen of him so far was promising, but 'promising' wasn't everything and he had to live up to those promises before she was willing to truly accept that he had Dorea's best interests in mind. Oh he certainly _loved_ his wife –was utterly, embarrassingly smitten in fact– was love wasn't everything. Being in love didn't necessarily make people altruistic or understanding of the object of their affections.

It had taken Dorea almost a decade to convince Tracy that she was a person who did genuinely hold the best interests of her people at heart. It could easily take her husband just as long.

Although Tracy did have to admit that the surly, snarly Zabini was ridiculously cute when he was pining after Dorea; mentioning the Lady Potter's recent difficulties with British politics had been a calculated move to see how he would react and his heart seemed to be in the right place. Still, Tracy would have to wait and see how well he lived up to that.

The fully fledged Healer and Slytherin alumnus usually divided her time between working part-time at St Mungo's and spending time on Dorea's Estate in Sicily, which was where she did her experimental potions work, but last week things had been completely different due to Padma, Millie and Leo retrieving Alexandro Zabini early on Tuesday morning, as Tracy had then had to spend most of the following day and a half assisting in surgery as Draco and the Zabini brought over specially for the task put Dorea's husband back together for her. That had all been planned for in advance, of course, so she'd not missed any work; her next clinic at the hospital was a week on Monday.

Tracy had spent the rest of Wednesday and the first half of Thursday completely dead to the world, but Friday she had been back at work first thing in the morning, which rather amusingly had involved fixing her patient's larynx after his wife punched him in the throat.

He'd definitely had it coming for getting himself frozen like that and leaving Dorea in the lurch, in Tracy's opinion. If he ran off half-cocked and did something like that _again_ she was going to recommend that her friend put her husband on a leash… although the realities of such a thing would likely be far less amusing then the image the words conjured.

* * *

She'd been tidying the sickroom late on Friday afternoon, ensuring that all the broken crockery had been swept up and taken away by the house-elves and the dents in the walls were repaired, when her mirror chirped. Tracy promptly pulled it out and tapped the 'respond' rune, slipping the mirror into the inside pocket she'd had stitched into the neckline of her apron specifically so she could talk and listen to people while keeping her hands free. "Tracy here."

"Padma here."

"Hermione speaking."

"Hey, who's using Rhea's mirror?" That sounded like Leo.

"This is Blaise and yes I've borrowed Rhea's mirror so I can talk to everybody at once," came the Italian's slightly sharp tones, "and I've done that because this is _important_. Dee, Padma, Luna, Rence, Fay, Ginny, Mione, Millie, Leo and Odile; is that everybody?"

"I'm listening in too," spoke the voice of one of the Prewetts; "Jerry here, and Frank's with me."

"As am I," came Draco's drawl.

"Right, thanks," Blaise said. "This is an important Zabini thing concerning my new brother-in-law, so please listen and wait until the end for any questions. Alexandro asked me to get him some new feathers, specifically spotted woodpecker feathers. Those are explicit warning feathers, so everybody really _needs_ to back off and not push boundaries for as long as he's wearing them."

There was a pause, but Blaise didn't seem to have anything else to add.

"What do spotted woodpecker feathers mean exactly and how do we 'back off', as you put it, without isolating Dorea or seeming standoffish?" Rence asked evenly, the flat reasonableness of his tone giving away his dislike of his fellow Guardian's suggestion.

"Yes, _details_ Zee," Daphne said sharply.

"Sorry. Right," Blaise said sheepishly. "Spotted woodpecker feathers indicate strong territorial feelings, generally due to the Zabini in question having recently had their boundaries and personal space trampled all over and disregarded. They indicate that the person wearing the feathers is on edge and will react very violently if you encroach on those battered boundaries, possibly without a full verbal warning beforehand that you _are_ encroaching. The feathers _are_ the warning, so _please_ be polite, helpful and explicit; and please don't prod and tease too much until he's calmed down and settled in enough with Rhea to pick out some different feathers."

"So he's feral," Tracy surmised, having read a _lot_ of papers and case studies on Zabini –the red-eyed ones in particular– in preparation for Dorea's husband's return; "like a Black Owl who's nesting, an injured hippogriff or a wyvern in mating season."

"Yes, a lot like that," Blaise sighed. "He's not had the upbringing red-eyed Zabini usually get either, so he's _very_ feral right now. Just… give him space, okay? Let him get to know his kids, spend time with Dorea and get his head on straight before you start poking at him. Please? He's probably always going to be a bit feral, but he's running on fear and instincts right now and that's not a good combination if he's going to stay sane. Well, by human standards, which are what would be best for Dorea to be dealing with."

"Should we clear out for the weekend?" Leo asked. "Visit relatives, see friends? That kind of thing?"

"That might help," Blaise agreed. "Not everyone of course; we need to show that we're supporting Rhea after all."

"I'll go visit Justin then," Fay said brightly. "See you all on Monday!" A soft musical note sounded as she removed herself from the conversation.

"I'll stay for now," Daphne said firmly, "and see about arranging to take Hector to visit somebody on Saturday."

"How about Deborah and Aquila?" Leo suggested. "Draco could take little Ella along too."

"Sounds reasonable," Draco agreed. "How about it?"

"I'll call Deborah at once," Daphne said firmly, also leaving the conversation.

"How about a field trip, oh wife of mine?" Jerry asked. "We could have a wander around Palermo and find out where the best bookshops are."

"That sounds restful," Hermione agreed, "and we could try some of the local sweets. Sicily has some very interesting and unique ones." Jerry was the one with the sweet tooth, but Hermione seemed to enjoy indulging her husband and helping him come up with new ideas for prank sweets.

"Frank and I will be visiting Etna," Luna said airily. "Some of the local wildlife is quite unusual."

"I have a patient to examine tomorrow morning," Tracy said, picking up the stack of books and the notebook and pen Alexandro Zabini had left behind and piling them up neatly on the side-table for later; he'd probably want to pick them up again so they should stay in plain sight. "Depending on how well he is I will either discharge him or not. If I discharge him I will spend the weekend at my parents; if not I will remain here tomorrow and measure my patient's progress again on Sunday morning." Tracy didn't think she'd have to stick around on Saturday but it was best not to assume. "See you all on Monday." She clicked off her mirror.

It had been a while since she'd spent a full day at her parents' house and it would be a nice change of pace.

* * *

"–and Roger seems to have set his heart on working in the Ministry, so he's not going to be helping out any longer. Not that I _mind_ that he's doing so well, not at all, but the stables won't run themselves."

Tracy nodded sympathetically as her father complained about his oldest child's disinterest in the Davies Family's traditional passion of breeding Abraxans as she helped haul the feed buckets on Saturday afternoon. They were the only family in Britain who reared the massive winged horses –even the smallest mares were over twenty-three hands and the tallest geldings got up to twenty-seven hands– which were still used in Wizarding circles for heavy haulage over long distances. Portkeys were all very well for people, but goods transported that way always got damaged or ruined despite every precaution taken and carpets had stringent weight limits, so Abraxans were what wizards used to move trade goods. Of course some people were experimenting in Enchanting Muggle vehicles to do that, but Tracy doubted her family would go out of business any time soon.

"And I know you love the horses, poppet, but you're pint-sized like your grandma and you can barely lift the foals when they're fledging!" Andrew Davies added, patting her on the shoulder with a hand large enough to palm her entire head. Tracy made a face; it was true that compared to her parents she was ridiculously short –her father was a good foot and a half taller than she was and could fell a fully grown Abraxan with a punch to the forehead– but she was still a Davies for that!

"Dad! At least I _help_!" She could do a wandless Featherweight Charm on reflex now, so she could pick up any of the foals shorter than she was. Being weightless _did_ upset the horses, true, but she'd long since worked out how to scale the Charm so their weight was just reduced rather than gone entirely and during the past few years she'd learned how to use her Sun Flames to reinforce and improve her muscles, so that she _could_ dead-lift the foals without magic when they were fidgety fledglings weighing over a quarter of a ton was pretty impressive considering she was five foot nothing in bare feet.

"Ah, yes, that you do," her father agreed, smiling fondly down at her. "Do me a favour and marry a _tall_ man with decent muscles who likes horses, won't you Tracy?"

Tracy rolled her eyes. "Will you stop badgering me over not having a fiancé if I get Dorea to lend me some of her people when this year's foals start fledging? I'm sure some of the Stewards would like to make their own way in the world and they're all raised on wrangling hippogriffs as much as Aethonans."

Andrew Davies sighed heavily. "Well, I suppose I _could_. For a little while at least; the Stewards are good people and I could use some stable hands who know their arse from their elbow."

"You're just hoping for horse-mad grandchildren tall enough to hustle the stallions," Tracy teased. Her father grinned widely.

"Well of course I am! Your brother and his charming wife already have a little one on the way, but I'm not getting any younger and I'd like to be able to hand the stables on directly rather than have to talk my successor through things from the sidelines. Words were never my thing."

"You do well enough," Tracy countered, smiling at her father. "Now, Mum mentioned in her last letter that Spitfire's latest foal had turned out a bit classier than the last two and I'd like to see her for myself."

"Ah, yes, little Avalanche! _Very_ classy she is; I'm thinking of selling her to Beauxbatons as breeding stock for their herd. They like to get a bit of new blood in now and again and she's got the colour and the lines for it," her father said enthusiastically, easily picking up six buckets and heading off out of the stables, Tracy falling in behind. "She'll need full formal training for that, so I'm thinking of getting in touch now and seeing if they'd be interested before committing to the expense."

Tracy made an interested noise in her throat as her father rambled on, easily carrying her own two buckets full of whiskey. Dorea's horses were all very well, but there was something about Abraxans she'd always found soothing and caring for them was pleasantly mindless after all the difficult thinking that Healing involved.

* * *

"Back already?"

Tracy didn't jump, because she'd felt Leo coming before he even opened the door of the Medical Laboratory –as what most of the Guardians and Shadows referred to as 'lab two' was properly called– and had been expecting him. Unlike Tracy, Leo had stuck around at the Sicily Estate on Saturday to help wrangle Dorea's twins, but he'd gone to visit his parents on Sunday and dragged his sister along with him, not getting back until this morning. Trish was in the Sicily Estate more often than not, but as she so rarely emerged from the Flame Laboratory –lab four to most people– that often got overlooked. She certainly never appeared for meals and if Dorea hadn't assigned an elf to her early on the older girl might well have accidentally killed herself through starvation and sleep-deprivation.

"I need to give my patient another check-up," she said calmly, "and Dorea needs one too. She's still recovering from having her equilibrium changed and there having been Flames involved means she may undergo a slight personality shift; carrying her husband's Flames and magic around for so long may have had a permanent effect, despite her now lacking those Flames meaning it would have become more habit than not." That had been just seven days ago and Tracy did not believe for a moment that Dorea had fully settled back into herself yet. Having her husband around and settling into a relationship would also have an impact, although it looked like it was going to have a more significant effect on said husband. Relationships did strange things to people, as Hermione and Jerry's marriage proved.

"Would hugs help?" Leo asked guilelessly.

Tracy turned around to stare at the younger Sun; like her, Leo always had an agenda. Leo's agenda just happened to be the physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of his family, his Head of House in particular. Leo may have specifically learned to Activate serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin and dopamine –the existence of which she'd been oblivious to before reading Fay's biology texts– to cheer people up, but he could definitely Activate all manner of other things if he chose to. He wasn't stupid or lazy and knew a whole lot more about Muggle things that Tracy did. Tracy had been too focused on getting her Healer credentials to pay much attention to other fields which weren't at least tangentially connected to magical medicine or patient care, be it mentally or physically.

"She needs to settle into the new normal and bond with her husband," the Healer said sternly. "No nudging her until I have determined what that new normal _is_, if you please."

Leo nodded acceptingly. "Fair enough. Cousin-in-law probably needs hugs too though."

"I'm sure Dorea is on top of that," Tracy said dryly, making Leo snigger.

"On top of, beside, underneath," the nineteen-year-old agreed slyly, grinning widely. "He's not going to say no."

Tracy chuckled; no, Alexandro Zabini definitely wasn't going to be fending off Dorea's advances. Any other women getting within a foot of him took her life into her own hands but if the teenager could have gotten away with spending all day in bed with Dorea, he'd have done it. In fact getting her to agree to do that sometime was probably on his to-do list. He was noted as being a driven individual, so Tracy had little doubt that it would happen soon enough and that Luna and Frank would be taking bets on _how_ soon it would be.

"By the way, have you noticed his Allure?" Leo added. "Seems to be where his magic is being channelled to."

"I rather doubt anybody over the age of six _missed_ it, Leo," Tracy replied. "I fully intend to bring that up during the coming week, since he'll have to do something about it if he wants to attend Fay's wedding come Saturday without being stared at and drooled over. Most people don't have the Occlumency shields we do." And having a bridesmaid or possibly the mother of the bride attempting to get close would be very unfortunate as _everybody_ would end up regretting that.

"Must have been hell on him growing up with that," Leo said casually.

Tracy agreed; Alexandro was lucky to have the Flames and physical strength to be able to fend off amorous weak-minded morons attracted by his Allure. That he was clearly unaware of even _having_ Allure had to have made it ten times worse, as not knowing he had it meant he'd never considered the possibility of suppressing it. Although going by the constant underlying anger her patient exhibited, maybe he hadn't always been able to fend them off… not without resorting to violence and Flames.

"Anything else you needed, Leo?"

"Nah; fancy a spar?"

Tracy smiled, setting down her paperwork; it was still only midmorning and she hadn't been planning on taking a look at either of her patients until evening. "Hoping to get back at me for ruining your perfect record?" She was the only person –other than the Dorea-and-Barty team who were terrifying and relentless– to have defeated Leo while sparring and she was very proud of that achievement. Even the tag-team of the two Things had fallen to the ninja.

Leo grinned ruefully. "Eh, more that I'm hoping that with you on the case, I'll be able to improve some more," he admitted sheepishly. "I've probably been slacking since getting back from China."

"I'd be delighted to kick you into shape then," Tracy said sweetly. "Shall we?"


	143. Chapter 143

Beta'd by the swift Insane Scriptist.

And it's the chapter you've all been waiting for! Xanxus Vs. Wizengamot!

* * *

**Of politics and culturally acceptable behaviour **

Xanxus didn't like politics; having to talk people into being sensible and doing something that would be all-around beneficial was bullshit, especially when the trash wanted you to give them a shiny prize for going along with it. However that didn't mean Xanxus was _bad_ at politics; quite the contrary. The entire Vongola had recognised that Xanxus was a fucking _genius_ at politics and had been starting right from his early teens, which was why he'd had every last Family backing him for Decimo; that was part of why finding out he wasn't the old fart's son and _couldn't_ become Decimo had cut so deep. More than half of the Dons had been scared shitless of him, but they'd all known he loved the Vongola and wouldn't ever let any outsider put one over the Family, not even if it meant taking the hard line and killing people. They'd respected him for that, as well as for his ability to get feuding morons to settle their differences and pull together _without_ resorting to outright violence.

Violence was a last resort in politics, unlike in the Varia where it was an upper-middling resort. Xanxus was perfectly aware of the differences in circumstances and could play the game well enough to win the respect of Dons three times his age, so destroying petty wizards slandering his wife behind her back was going to be _cake_. A satisfying change of pace with some interesting challenges, since he was operating in an alien culture with minimal information provided beforehand. Still, people were the same everywhere and from what he'd read in Socialite's notes, most of those slandering his wife were cowardly scum. The rest were just Dumb trash, so those ones would be getting a chance to grovel abjectly and sign away their souls on condition of good behaviour.

The scum was just going to die. It would all be legal and above board too, which was a very pleasant change from the old fart's insistence on being _nice_. Xanxus could be polite if he had to but he was _not_ nice, especially not as 'nice' as the old fart had wanted. Seriously, fuck nice. Nice never got a person anything except exploited. Xanxus was going to be fucking _terrifying_ and then once everybody really _understood_ how Dumb they'd been, he was going to make an example of the Stupid ones so the rest of them remembered the lesson and recognised that he was _generously_ not slaughtering _all_ of them over this shit like he had the right to. That way he wouldn't be coming back to Britain every other month to slap them down again, because they'd police themselves.

Lounging shamelessly in his seat in his double-breasted Varia suit, fingers tapping impatiently on the narrow rail in front of him so that none of the trash could miss his rings –something Socialite had mentioned as necessary to ensuring they all knew he had every right to be there– Xanxus watched through lidded eyes as the milling fools chattered on the floor below and gradually straggled into their seats around the room. Already he was being eyed warily by the wizards on the opposite side of the room and those sat near Veritas –as Dawn the Seer had informed him her Mafia codename was– were leaning towards her and whispering questions.

Xanxus ignored them; there were far more interesting things to look at. Firstly was how damn _young_ so many of the seated Lords, Ladies and proxies were. This was the highest legal body in Wizarding Britain and over half of the people in it weren't even thirty. Most of the rest were the old fart's age minimum, because magical people tended to age well and lived longer as a result, with maybe a handful who were middle-aged. You could tell they'd just come out of a fucking civil war by looking at the contrasts.

All the young ones knew each-other too. Not that they were friendly –Xanxus could see four distinct but overlapping factions just from watching how people greeted each-other– but they were all civil, clearly knew more than just names and seemed to consider even their least-favourite peers as a considerable improvement over half the old farts in the room. All those names, alliances and juicy details were starting to come into focus now Xanxus could put faces and Flames to names… and wasn't it interesting to see who in the room was Flame-Active and who wasn't. He'd found out about the Flame-training contract his wife had everyone she and her cohort had taught sign and he'd wanted to laugh, because that right there was power. She'd sworn them to silence and made them complicit, so every last Active Flame in the room with him would be backing him up when he called the ones who'd slandered his wife to the floor.

They weren't actually a majority in the room, but Xanxus could see Flame-traces on the papers and effects of several of the proxies and other Lords and those counted too. There was a full range of Flame types, some interesting ones which felt kind of off to the usual –like the two guests who had been at dinner on Friday, one of whom was sat behind him– but no Skies. He was the only Sky in the room, Active or Latent, and the only other Sky Flame he could sense on the proxies was his wife's. Something kinda interesting and _almost_ Sky was hanging around one of the proxies sitting closest to Veritas, but it was quiet and subtle compared to what Xanxus could bring to bear.

This was going to be a _slaughter_ and it would be fucking _glorious_. He could taste the ash already. Nobody here had a clue what a furious Sky could do to them even before setting people on fire and he was going to milk that ignorance for all it was worth. They'd be having panic attacks at the very _mention_ of his name for the rest of their _lives_, which would ensure he never had to come back and deal with this fucking _circus_ ever again.

* * *

Dawn watched the smile curving across Dorea's husband's face and felt a shiver race down her spine; she was a Black and laughed in the face of danger, generally while obliterating it, but this… well, now she knew what her cousin saw in Xanxus Zabini. Dorea was quite possibly the most dangerous person in Magical Britain, but her husband casually outstripped her by a wide margin and was utterly devoted to her wellbeing. Dorea and her husband were very sweet together, not that you'd be able to guess that right now since Xanxus was drawing attention in ways that had people concerned about his state of mind and intentions.

"Who _is_ that in the Potter seat?" Iphicles Carrow asked from behind her, eyeing the Prince of Sabina nervously. Iphicles was cousin to the Carrow twins and tended to lean on them quite heavily in matters of policy, since he'd not been expecting to inherit the Carrow Lordship from his great-uncle and was rather bad at picking out the intricacies and subtleties required for governance. Hestia was much better at it and tended to make all the major Family decisions; Iphicles was thus a contented figurehead on more normal occasions.

"That is Alexandro II Zabini, Lord Potter, Consort Black and Ruling Prince of Sabina," Dawn said quietly, knowing her voice would carry no further than the half-dozen seats in her immediate vicinity, all of which had close allies sitting in them.

"Merlin's _balls_," breathed Randall Lestrange from Dawn's left, sagging back in his seat. "He's going to _destroy_ them."

"Ash on the wind and a greasy spot on the floor," agreed Draco from his seat on Dawn's far right, past Howard Yaxley who looked like he was trying not to hyperventilate. "Breathe, Yaxley," the Lord Malfoy added dryly; "it's not you he's here to murder."

"Itty-bitty Dorea Black married _that_?" Yaxley hissed once he'd got his breath back a bit.

"Not so itty-bitty these days, Yaxley; she's taller than me," Draco drawled, raising an eyebrow, "and surely you didn't miss her taking over the country? I'm _sure_ you were here for most of that."

"Yes, but she was _always_ going to take over Britain," Yaxley grumbled. "I only knew her for her first year and most of that was in passing in the common room and at meals, but it was obvious even then; she's a _Black_, they do that sometimes. I wasn't expecting her to up and marry somebody who looks like Dark Lords only _wish_ they were as scary as."

"You should see them together," Draco smirked, eyes alight with amusement. "He _dotes_ on her; it's so sickeningly sweet it's disgusting." The platinum blond shook his head in mock-dismay. "I doubt dosing him with Amortentia wouldn't make a blind bit of difference; it might even mellow him out a bit."

Behind and slightly to Dawn's left, Remus Lupin made a faintly amused sound from his place in the Nott seat. "That bad?" the former werewolf asked lightly.

"The way he looks at her is _completely_ disgusting and he doesn't even have the decency to _leer_," Draco whined dramatically, slumping in his seat with the back of his hand flopped across his face. "My life has turned into a badly-written romance novel for lonely stay-at-home-witches!"

Lestrange turned pointedly to look directly at the Lord Potter, who was smiling thinly in a way that screamed of immanent gory slaughter, then back to Draco. "I don't see it," the skeletally lean wizard said humorously.

Draco huffed, letting his hand drop into his lap so he could glare across at his cousin-by-marriage. "Well of course you don't; she's not here is she? Really Lestrange, Zabini was right to tease her about breaking _all_ the princess rules and marrying the dragon."

"Okay, _that_ I can see," Carrow said faintly from behind Dawn. "Fire, fury and laying waste are probably inevitable then, considering some of the things the so-called 'Moderates' have been spewing lately."

Dawn tipped her head back so Carrow could see her smile. The older wizard squeaked very quietly.

"Relax, Carrow," Draco drawled, not looking up, "he's not here for _you_ either. Enjoy the floor show and make sure to memorise the occasion for the edification of your eventual children, why don't you?"

"Sounds like a plan," Yaxley muttered, slumping back in his seat. "Looks like everyone's here."

Glancing over at the Chief Warlock, Madam Longbottom, who was moving towards her lectern with purpose, Dawn settled in to watch. She already knew it was going to be breathtaking, but _knowing_ just wasn't the same as _witnessing_ first-hand.

* * *

Neville watched the room from his seat behind Dorea's husband as his grandmother called those assembled to order. He was one of exactly three people in the room –other than the man himself of course– who knew why Alexandro Zabini was sitting in the Potter seat and the matter promised to be… explosive. He suspected that few others had any idea of what was to come –beyond Dawn Woodmore and Draco Malfoy of course– but he knew _exactly_ what was coming as soon as Gran got started with the formalities that came before the actual official opening of the Wizengamot.

Xanxus Zabini –as he preferred to be called– was both very like and startlingly unlike Neville's cousin and most longstanding friend. A point of similarity was that both Rhea and Xanxus had completely terrible tempers. Dorea usually did her best to resist giving in to fury, but Neville had witnessed a few explosions in her early teens and most recently her pregnancy-induced fits of temper, and she was utterly terrifying when she got going. More so now she could access Soulfire than she'd ever been before; when bawling somebody out the Lady Potter's Flames seemed to bear down like a tangible weight, suffocating and crushing even as they amplified the press of her mind and mood against those unfortunate enough to get in her way.

They never lasted though: Dorea's outbursts were potent but inevitably short and she usually apologised for the lapse afterwards. Most of the time she barely showed her anger; generally she kept it out of sight and didn't nurture it if she could help it. If she used it at all it was as a fuel for her justice quests –such as the downfall of Voldemort and the restructuring of the Ministry– or as warning that she was getting too invested in something trivial.

Xanxus Zabini on the other hand lived and breathed his wrath at the spineless, self-serving nature of humankind every single day, wielding it like a weapon to obliterate those who crossed him. It was magnificent and deeply unsettling, so Neville was very grateful not to be the target of his cousin's husband's ire. He would happily take all kinds of precautions to keep things that way, although it probably wouldn't be necessary: the things Xanxus was angry about were the same kinds of things that had always infuriated Neville growing up, so the Lord Longbottom had hopes of managing to get on with his recently introduced in-law.

The reasons for the unexpectedly young Lord Potter's presence in the Wizangamot were not exactly what Neville would have liked, but he recognised that Alexandro Zabini had every right to defend his wife's honour in any way he saw fit against the sustained slander of her peers. Watching was going to be unpleasant though.

Not that Neville sympathised with the people who had been slandering his cousin, but execution was always messy and for all that avenging the slander of a Lord's wife technically called for a duel, the Lord Longbottom had no illusions that the 'duel' would be anything but a slaughter. This was _Dorea's_ husband after all.

Lacing his fingers in his lap, Neville waited for the preliminary pleasantries to be over with.

* * *

Xanxus waited, seething silently through the formal folderol and waiting for the cue Socialite had told him about so he could act. Being able to do this legally and in public was rather satisfying, but if it turned out anybody _didn't_ learn their lesson then he'd solve things the Varia way. Wizards would probably react even more amusingly to impossible, untraceable murder than Mafiosi did.

"–any member of this body has a personal complaint against any other member then speak now, so that personal matters will not cloud the process of governance," the strong-minded elder lady at the lectern said briskly, pausing briefly for form's sake. Xanxus instantly stood:

"Chief Warlock, I have a complaint," he said clearly, projecting so that his voice would carry all around the oval chamber.

The Chief Warlock turned to glare disapprovingly at him. "Please state your name and grievance for the record."

Xanxus bared his teeth. "I am Alexandro Zabini, Lord Potter, Consort Black and Ruling Prince of Sabina and I demand that those who have wronged my wife face me in combat before this body." He let his fury expand to fill the room and felt the trash quail under the onslaught.

The Chief Warlock paled visibly but recovered remarkably swiftly for a Latent. "Please take the floor, Lord Potter."

Xanxus walked calmly along the row to the nearest steps down to the floor, relishing every twitch and whimper of those he passed along the way. He strolled around the curve of the room, stopping directly opposite the Chief Warlock in the appropriate position for a challenger or accuser. It was fucking _hilarious_ that these people had a procedure for challenging one another to single combat –which was mainly done with _wands_ of all things these days– but he wasn't complaining. Not when it gave him this kind of opportunity.

"Name the accused and the charges, Lord Potter, if you would."

Xanxus _smiled_; off to his left somebody whimpered. "Jason Dawlish, slander; Vespasian Prince, slander; Methuselah Smith, slander," he drawled confidently. "That should do to begin with."

The Chief Warlock glared at him over her spectacles. "To _begin_ with, Lord Potter?"

"A great many people have been slandering my wife of late, Chief Warlock," Xanxus said evenly, letting his anger spike higher. "I choose to start with the most determined offenders."

"Very well. Lord Dawlish to the floor." The man in question looked even older than the old fart, his face set in querulous lines as he stumped down to join Xanxus on the floor with surprising grace for one so elderly.

"I've been winning duels since before you were born, whippersnapper!" the old fool blustered. Xanxus ignored him; this man was close-minded, insular and utterly convinced of his own superiority. He wasn't going to waste his breath. From what he'd read he knew that modern magical duels were more about sport than honour, which made any experience this scum had all but worthless.

"Choose your seconds," the Chief Warlock said shortly, obviously displeased to have her schedule disrupted. Considering Xanxus was still drowning the room in his wrath she had recovered pretty damn well, better than half the Dons he'd met.

"Longbottom," Xanxus said flatly. In the seat behind the one Xanxus had been sitting in Neville the not-quite-Sun rose silently to his feet and moved deliberately down the steps and across the floor to stand behind and slightly to the Varia boss's right. Xanxus didn't like having somebody he barely knew in his blind-spot like that, but the guy with the odd Flames was a childhood friend and distant relative of his wife, as well as being Lord of a family traditionally allied to the Potters. The wizard had offered to stand as his second this morning before they set out from Potter Manor and Xanxus –seeing in his mind the arrangement of seats Socialite had included in a diagram and how his wife's allies were arrayed– had agreed.

"Macmillan," the scrawny old man standing across from Xanxus said querulously. Over to Xanxus' right a rather solidly built man with thick sideburns rose to his feet and descended the steps carefully to the floor, a cane grasped loosely in one hand. Xanxus suspected the walking stick hid a sword inside it and mentally upped his assessment of the man a little.

"Gentlemen, to your places," the Chief Warlock said tartly. "Wands." Xanxus' opponent drew his wand, a crooked stick worn down with age. Xanxus lifted his hands in front of his chest and flexed his fingers.

"No wand?" Dawlish spat. "What are you, a squib or a common Muggle?"

Xanxus breathed out, settling into the killing place in his mind. "I am _Zabini_," he heard himself say boredly, "we do not _need_ wands."

"Bow," the Chief Warlock said repressively before further insults could be thrown. Xanxus dipped his head the bare minimum Blaise had indicated was required; as a Prince with his own country he wasn't actually _supposed_ to bow to anybody and it was a very satisfying thought. His opponent bowed more deeply, the old fool's expression of extreme distaste indicating that he was well aware of appropriate royal protocol and loathing every second of it.

"And… begin!"

Xanxus tilted his head just far enough to the side to avoid the virulent violet spell that flew his way, launching a burst of Wrath Flames at his opponent. The moron tried to shield but the Flames ate through the bluish spell as though it wasn't even there, hitting him at much higher speed than the purple spell had been moving at and reducing him to floating ash before he could even draw breath to scream; hearing that would have annoyed Xanxus further.

The oval chamber filled to the brim with silence and terror as the ash settled. Xanxus opened his eyes properly for the first time all morning, which gave everyone on the half of the room he was facing a good look at his scarlet eyes. "Vespasian Prince," he repeated, conjuring a handful of Flames and letting them dance around his fingers.

The skinny, stooping man with the hooked nose and furious black eyes who stomped down the steps was obviously terrified, but he was too proud and Stupid to apologise.

"Macmillan, stand for me," the tall fool said gruffly before turning to glare at Xanxus again.

"Bow… and begin!"

The whip-shaped lash of light was actually interesting, but Wrath Flames consumed it instantly and Xanxus was alone on the floor again scarcely a second later. Turning to face the last of the three accused, the Varia Boss smirked evilly at the overweight scum's pallor and trembling hands.

"Methuselah Smith."

The fat old fool gasped and collapsed forwards; Xanxus felt the scum's Latent Flames snuff out and sighed irritably, letting his Wrath Flames fade for the time being.

"Coward."

"Lord Potter." Xanxus glanced over at the solid wizard with the cane, Macmillan, who had addressed him quietly as in the seats a fuss exploded around the dead body.

"Lord Macmillan." This trash he could maybe respect a little; Socialite's dossier on him had been conservative but enlightened.

"My apologies for not taking a stand against the behaviour of my colleagues on your wife's behalf," the old man said evenly, taking a few steps closer and doing a decent job of hiding his fear. "Lady Black-Potter has sacrificed much for our nation and received little in return."

Xanxus inclined his head sharply in acceptance as the outer doors vomited up a quartet of green-clad wizards bearing a stretcher, who quickly bundled the corpse from the room.

"Do any others present stand by their slander?" He asked once the doors had closed again, his voice cutting through the chatter like a guillotine blade.

A man on the back row slightly to Xanxus' left rose to his feet. "Lord Potter," the greying man said swiftly and a touch desperately, "I apologise unreservedly for any offense I may have given your wife when speaking either to this body or to the press. I will take more care in choosing my words in the future."

Order collapsed as others stood and tried to make similar declarations, voices blending in a cacophony that had the Chief Warlock setting off a crack like a firework. The explosion was loud enough that if Socialite hadn't explicitly warned him that it was a common method of calling the chamber to order he would have been levelling a gun at the Chief Warlock. Well, if he'd _had_ a gun on him he would have.

"The Wizengamot will adjourn for the day," she said firmly, "as clearly there are more urgent matters to be addressed by its members."

Xanxus was grateful for Neville Longbottom standing at his shoulder and Draco Malfoy cutting across the floor with half-a-dozen others he vaguely recognised from Socialite's notes –plus Veritas who was smiling vindictively– to keep a space around him clear and ensure the sycophantic trash didn't try to talk to him for too long. Examples had been made, so now the remainder were trying to get in his good graces so they could avoid suffering the same fate. Despite doubting any of the trash would have the spine to impede him they could still annoy him with their bleating, so it wasn't looking likely that he'd be able to get away as quickly as he wanted.

After this Xanxus was going to need a stiff drink and a few hours of peace and quiet designing his new guns while his disgust and disdain for the cowardly scum simmered down a bit.


	144. Chapter 144

Beta'd by the sharp Insane Scriptist.

Last update of the set as I've got nothing else prepped; the wonky time thing happened yesterday too, so make sure you didn't miss that chapter.

* * *

**Of mistakes and aftermath **

It was almost noon in Sicily when Xanxus stormed through the doorway in the basement and made a beeline for his private office, where the notes he'd been making on magic before he'd found out about all the other family shit had been moved to now he'd vacated the sickroom. He needed something _interesting_ to do so he was going to go through the generic books he had already, ask for some more specific books on runes and start sketching out his new guns.

But not _in_ the private office; that it had been specified as _being_ his 'private' office implied that he could claim one of the other rooms in the Main Hall of the house as a 'public' office and while his mood was utter shit right now, he wanted to be accessible if his wife or kids came looking. Lowering the security on his private suite did not appeal, so doing his reading somewhere else would be a decent compromise.

Picking out five different books –including one of the Zabini parenting ones, the one on having Siren kids that the shark had leafed through– along with the notebook he'd started, the fountain pen, a handful of pencils and the sketchpad somebody had put in the room, Xanxus stomped out again and went looking for somewhere with decent light and reasonable privacy.

Ironically, the first door he tried turned out to be his wife's office.

"Xanxus?" Dorea stopped writing and gave him her full attention as he hesitated on the threshold. "Can I help?"

Xanxus considered the layers in that innocuous-sounding question. She could _feel_ his mood –he could feel hers too, concern and mild frustration over complex, rippling focus– so she wanted to know if she could make him feel better, but also if he _wanted_ her to do anything to help.

"Is there somewhere nearby I can sit?" He asked instead. He didn't actually want to be in the same room as her right now –he was too angry and likely to snap at her over something stupid– but being close would be good and would make it easy for him to come back once he felt less shitty.

"That door there leads to an adjacent sitting room," his wife told him, pointing with her pen to a door in the wall on his left, "which can't be accessed from the corridor. The other door leads to my reference library; books from the main libraries that have been moved up here for easier access as they are relevant to my current and recent research." She clearly meant 'the other door in _that_ room' rather than 'the other door in _this_ room'.

"Anything on runes?" Xanxus asked. Runes were what wards were made of so if he was going to add a ward into his guns he needed to learn about runes first.

"A lot; Runes are one of my special interests," Dorea admitted. "I'm not sure there're any Rune primers though; it's been a while since I needed one. Flippy?"

An elf appeared wearing a length of dust sheet pinned and belted like a chiton. "Mistress calls?" it asked briskly, standing to attention with its head cocked to one side. Xanxus couldn't tell if this elf was male or female, if indeed gender was something elves had as anything other than a preferred pronoun. Considering their origins they might not, what with being something like magical house spirits.

"Flippy, this is my husband. I am assigning you to him permanently."

"Master Potter," the elf said, turning to look at Xanxus and bowing quickly.

"He'd like some Rune primers from the library," Dorea went on.

Flippy nodded. "Flippy started as a book elf. Flippy knows all the libraries. Does Master Potter want anything else?"

"Technical drawing tools," Xanxus said, "and a bottle of whiskey." He needed the alcohol or else he was just going to seethe for hours and get angrier. Alcohol prevented that for him, even though it seemed to do the opposite for every other moron who overindulged that he knew of or had even heard of. Admittedly some people _did_ get mellow, generally right before losing what little sense of good judgement they had.

"Flippy goes." The elf vanished. Xanxus half-expected his wife to comment on his having asked for alcohol when it was barely noon and he was underage by British standards, but she didn't say a word; she didn't even seem to disapprove, although she _had_ been surprised by the request.

"There're drinking glasses in various sizes in the cabinet under the landscape painting to the right of the library door," she said instead, "and feel free to use the writing desk; the top folds out large enough to be used as a drawing board."

"Thanks," Xanxus managed, closing the door behind him, crossing the office and pushing open the other door, which indeed led into a modestly-sized sitting room with a big bay window, a loveseat, two armchairs and an old, scarred and very sturdy coffee table. The writing desk was pushed up against the wall over to his left, there was a glass-fronted cabinet with a range of drinking glasses opposite him by the other door and a bookshelf on his right beside the window. Pushing the door to behind him, he dumped the books and papers on the table and went to have a poke about in his wife's personal library.

* * *

Two hours later Xanxus had drunk all of the first bottle of whiskey and got halfway through a second one –although this one he was nursing– filled an entire notebook with rune commentary, memorized a solid third of the primer that used the same symbols he'd seen in the Flame dissipation ward along with the modified Greek lettering and had a preliminary diagram of his next set of X-guns that he was happy with. Apparently these runes were 'Atlantean', which had implications Xanxus was ignoring in favour of learning to read them and how to put them together in wards. He could learn the implications and details of mythical destroyed island civilisations later.

He barely noticed his wife entering the room until she set the tray she was carrying on a side-table and waved a hand to move the right-hand armchair closer to the coffee table.

"It's lunchtime," she said as he looked up, his irritation and disgust having long since faded into determined focus and intellectual curiosity, "but I didn't think you were up for communal dining so I asked the elves to sort out some finger food."

There was no room on the coffee table to put anything; Xanxus had covered it with open books, diagrams, scribbled notes and had his feet propped up on it besides. His wife clearly followed his line of thought –and his reluctance to move anything– because she grinned and flicked her fingers, sending a large wooden platter and a cloth napkin soaring gently through the air to land next to him, on top of the books wedged between his hip and the other arm of the loveseat.

"Thanks," Xanxus said, catching his wife's eye to convey sincerity before looking down at the food. A selection of cured meats, a wide, shallow bowl of pickled vegetables including olives, artichokes and peppers, smoked fish, three different cheeses and a basket of fresh bread rolls, still slightly warn from the oven. Traditional antipasto food, but in greater quantities than was generally the case in the first course of a longer meal; also foods he genuinely _liked_.

Wait… he wasn't just 'Don Vongola's bastard son' anymore; he was the heir of a ridiculously ancient family with a lot of non-human blood that apparently bred very true indeed. Food preferences ran in families a bit and lots of species had far more specialised diets than humans did, so was _that_ why he couldn't stand cooked meat unless it was tender and barely seared and hated cooked fish, but really enjoyed just about anything of animal origins that was cured, smoked, pickled or just plain raw? It might also explain why both raw and cooked vegetables often tasted terrible to him but pickled, fermented or salted ones were a lot more pleasing to the palate and unlikely to make him gag. It might even explain why alcohol had never affected him in the same way it did others, although that was a bit of a stretch.

"Zabini cuisine is a little bit unusual compared to traditional Italian fare," Dorea said, making him look up at her again, "but has a lot in common with what the Romans and Greeks used to eat when they were the main powers in the Mediterranean." She smiled at him, gentle humour and warmth singing along the marriage bond. "The elves who do the cooking have all been rather strongly corrupted, as I've had Zabini living with me for years now and the twins both have strongly Zabini food preferences."

"So it's a Siren thing?" Xanxus asked, scooping up some of the pickles with a ripped-off bit of bread and folding them into his mouth.

His wife shrugged. "I'm not a particularly fussy eater, but I'm only prepared to eat pickles at every meal when I'm pregnant. Marius and Cassie however seem to think pickle sandwiches are far superior to jam and an enjoyable accompaniment to honey, so…" Her plate had barely any pickles on it, a mixed salad and the same meat and fish selection as his did, but different cheeses. Milder ones, Xanxus realised. The lunch she'd brought wasn't just what she usually had, shared, but something specifically tailored to appeal to him personally. Without her ever having _asked_ what kind of thing he liked eating while he was working.

It wasn't just him. It had never been 'just him' and was in fact _normal_ for a person of his background. Xanxus swallowed the pickles and tried the cured beef. Those siren parenting books had just moved up his reading priority list, because while some of the particulars were likely to be left out due to cultural bias and unchallenged assumptions, most of the 'strong siren heritage means/leads to this' should be there. Possibly including the metabolic quirks that could happen as part of being 'non-human' and what sort of substances should be avoided; Xanxus remembered being grateful that the Varia was very adept at healing with Flames because his Vongola medical file was _full_ of notes detailing all of the many pharmaceuticals which produced atypical side-effects in his system and the specifics of how those had been discovered. Nothing quite like a single dose of off-the-shelf painkillers after a training injury just happening to trigger one of the worst headaches he'd ever had to put a person off medication, which was a bad memory of his youth that he didn't want to revisit right now.

The meal went on in companionable silence until both of them had completely finished everything, at which point Flippy appeared to take the plates away and bring his wife a pot of tea.

"Would Master Potter like anything else?" The elf asked.

"Coffee," Xanxus decided; it would help him concentrate now he wasn't feeling so irritable.

* * *

"–and there are standard designs and layouts, of course, but a personalised one tailored to a specific wizard or bloodline will always be more effective than a generic design."

"Because magic is personal, so taking advantage of that in designing a ward makes it more effective," Xanxus concluded. Lunch had been nearly an hour ago now and after drinking his coffee he'd asked Dorea a few questions about runes, which had resulted in another notebook halfway filled with notes, almost two-dozen diagrams neatly sketched out in his wife's elegant hand and clearing a space on the loveseat so she could fit on it next to him and walk him through the mechanics. Runes turned out to be a very precise and powerful kind of language magic, with a generous dash of mathematics, physics and cultural history being required to turn them into wards. His wife was also completely fucking _brilliant_ at it; Xanxus barely knew shit about them yet but that he _did_ recognise, along with the fact that she had years of study on the subject which he was taking advantage of.

"Your _own_ magic is personal, so anything you are going to be using yourself should reflect that," Dorea corrected him, pushing a wayward curl behind her ear for what had to be the sixth time in under half an hour. "If you're warding, say, a building, your own magic won't be enough so the wards need to be able to draw on the environment too."

"So wards on a building have to be less… tightly defined, but personalising them is still good because that way the environmental magic takes on some of the properties of your personal magic, making it harder for other people to break them," Xanxus deduced. "So doing your own security is always better than paying somebody else to do it, so long as you actually _have_ the skills to do it without fucking up and razing everything to the ground or turning it into goo or whatever else might happen. Wards _stick_, so they don't just collapse or misfire when you do them wrong, but instead run _wrong_ until they rip themselves apart."

"Along with everything else," his wife agreed wryly. "It's about what the words _mean_, which is why it's best to stick to dead languages or at least static ones like Chinese. Most modern languages are too fluid to ward with."

Considering that Varia-speak was an ever-changing polyglot dialect all its own, Xanxus understood _perfectly._ How easy it was to twist words and meaning was a big part of why he hated talking to people; it was why he hated the old fart for _lying_ to him _to his face_ for fucking _years_. 'You are my son', his fucking _foot_.

"Not Japanese?"

Dorea made a face. "I have no idea; I don't know any Japanese. Considering it uses some of the same characters as Chinese but with slightly different meanings, _trying_ to use Japanese would probably go very badly for me. But if _you_ were to use Japanese and were fluent and confident in the characters and their meanings, then yes it would probably work."

Xanxus nodded, adding 'confidence and fluency is _vital _for warding' and 'my wife doesn't know Japanese' to his mental lists. Dorea probably didn't need to learn Japanese unless she was really keen to get stuck into Vongola politics, which he was mostly sure she didn't give a shit about. That she could speak three different Chinese dialects was damn impressive though.

"So who did the wards on the Potter mansion?" He asked, changing the subject slightly. Family ward-schemes were definitely a thing and he wanted to know if he could take advantage of that to make a Varia ward-scheme for Varia Headquarters. Sure, Mammon had a Territory over and around Headquarters, but the ward-scheme was just giving the Territory a 'fixed' framework to hang off so Mammon didn't have to constantly focus on holding all the Rules and powering it while doing other things. Being Bonded to Mammon, Xanxus could then take advantage of the Territory built on the framework and monitor who went where if he tried. Varia security wasn't nearly as refined as what Potter Manor had, but as he hadn't had direct access anyway it had been enough. Then.

"Lots of different people," his wife said, smiling. "This is where anchor points and ward stones become important: the stones hold up the wider ward framework, keeping the magic in place so that even if the maker of the ward dies, the structure remains and can be sustained continuously by later generations, as well as added to and expanded if necessary."

"How is that possible when wards are personalised?" Xanxus asked. He had half an idea –it definitely involved blood as he'd needed to bleed on the ward stone in Potter Manor– but he wanted the full, coherent explanation.

"In Family Wards" –Xanxus could _hear_ the capitalisation– "the Family Magic really helps, as it provides a common thread. So the original maker of the wards tailors them to respond preferentially to people with their Family Magic rather than just their personal magic. This can be done by having close relatives help build the wards in the first place, or by having your children and spouse donate blood to the ward stone so that the ward 'recognises' them as being family and the inheritance in common is then 'favoured' by the system. Do this over several generations and Family Wards can become near-impregnable unless you are a reasonably close relative."

"Why spouses?" Kids made sense –they were inheriting the wards after all– but spouses?

Dorea smiled. "Bloodlines shift over time," she said simply. "The Family Magic may persist, but that's a very small proportion of what is inherited from parent to child and is often only in the firstborn. Adding in spouses means that rather than children just having half the connection or less of the parent they are inheriting from, they get a _full_ connection because their parent's spouse had been fully admitted into the family and added to the wards as well. Not usually as a _modifying_ authority," she added conscientiously, "but a _recognised_ part of the family line nonetheless."

Okay, that hung together. "So adding me to the wards at Potter Manor wasn't just about me being Lord Potter and getting to be involved in security."

"No: Potter Manor now recognises you as family, so our children will all be considered wholly Potter and wholly welcome there, even though only Hector will actually be _inheriting_ Potter Manor as Lord Potter when the time comes, as he is the only one so far to have inherited the Potter Family Magic."

"So adding spouses mean _all_ the kids are included in strengthening the wards, not just the heirs," Xanxus deduced. "Although only heirs can inherit." It made sense when explained that way.

"Exactly." Dorea beamed at him.

"And this house?" Because Potter Manor was at _least_ four hundred years old but the building they were currently in was maybe three years old at _most_ if he was reading between the lines right.

"I designed the ward scheme for the house and built it from the ground up," his wife said proudly. "I did use a few Family designs for the framework and the security, since they're proven to be highly effective, but the overall pattern is unique and all my own design." She paused, "Although most of my Guardians did contribute to powering them when I drew them and raised them, for efficiency's sake and to make sure they'd be as strong as possible as quickly as possible."

So that meant he could probably get the same level of knowledge concerning the movement of people here as he had at Potter Manor and tangentially had at the Varia, so long as he was within Mammon's Territory around Headquarters that was.

"Can you add me to the wards here?" Xanxus asked.

_Panic. Revulsion. Terror._

Xanxus went rigid as the emotions hit him, realised a split-second later that they _weren't_ his and then his brain stalled because he had _no idea_ what to do next.

_Apologise_, his big sister's voice drawled at him from memory after a long, horrible moment of helplessness. _You upset a lady, you always apologise right away. Even if you didn't mean to; _especially_ if you didn't mean to._ Maria-Chiara had said 'lady' and not 'woman' and Xanxus had always appreciated the distinction there, but his wife was _definitely_ a lady and he had _really_ upset her.

"_I'm sorry! You don't have to if you don't want to! What's wrong?_" Xanxus blurted out in Sicilian, twisting on the loveseat and putting a few inches of distance between himself and Dorea so she would hopefully feel less crowded.

His wife reached out and gripped his knee tightly with one hand, breathing carefully and deliberately with her eyes tightly closed. The panic ebbed quickly; the brain-freezing terror melted gradually into dread and misery but the revulsion remained.

"I _don't_ want you to add me to the wards if you aren't happy doing so," Xanxus tried again, in English this time. He could deal with feeling less secure than he'd like for the foreseeable future, since he didn't know the people and rhythms here but could learn them if he had to. He also wanted to know why asking had upset her so badly, but that could wait. This was worse than finding out she'd been fifteen had been and he _hated_ that he'd frightened her so badly just by asking a stupid question.

"This is my house," Dorea said, voice quiet but words carefully enunciated.

"Yes?" Xanxus agreed warily. That didn't explain anything, but okay.

"This is _my_ house," she repeated, voice tight and thick with the potential for tears. "Not a family house; _my_ house. Not automatically inherited by my heirs, not open to anybody with whom I share blood, _my house_. Mine, _only_ mine and _nobody_ can force me out of it."

Oh. _Oh. _Oh _**shit**_. Xanxus summarily shoved the books and papers off his lap and pulled his wife into his arms. "Sorry," he murmured into her hair, holding her as tightly as he dared and painfully grateful that she was letting him touch her at all. "Sorry, I get it; your house. I _don't_ want your house; it's _your_ house, _not_ mine. I've already _got_ a house, I won it and _all_ the crazy assassins _in_ it and if anybody tried to take _any_ of it away from me I'd _slaughter_ them."

Fucking shitty abandonment issues he was damn sure she _hadn't_ had when he married her but did _now_ because her father dying had meant she got booted out of her home for not being a male heir. Shitty fucking magic _bullshit _making his wife miserable and _now_ he understood why she'd gone and _built_ herself a house rather than just settling in Potter Manor and maybe having a fortified outbuilding here in Sicily to put one of those long-distance doorways in. He had wanted his own space too; admittedly he hadn't had the means to go out and _build_ one, but Varia Headquarters suited him just fine.

Of all the things to have in common with Dorea, this was something he would have much preferred her to _never_ have experienced; not that he'd been kicked out of the Iron Fort, but he'd not _wanted_ to continue living there after learning everything he had was at the sufferance of that dishonest _fucker,_ which wasn't exactly bullshit magic but the results had clearly been much the same. Xanxus heard Dorea's breathing hitch as her shoulders shook and he relaxed back into the loveseat, pulling his wife closer and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I love you," he said gently, "and I never want to take anything away from you _ever_. I swear."

The revulsion was fading now and the dread had vanished altogether, but the misery lingered and mingled awkwardly with relief and the shaky aftermath of an unwanted adrenaline rush. Overwhelmedness; _that_ was the feeling. Not that 'overwhelmedness' was a word but it fucking _should_ be.

Holding his wife close as she cried, Xanxus really hoped she would feel better soon. He hadn't _meant_ to fuck up like this and he was damn well going to make sure not to put his foot in this particular issue ever again, but on the other hand he recognised that he didn't know her well enough to _not_ fuck up in a whole new way some _other_ time.

Well nobody had ever said being married was _easy_, had they? And the day had been going so well…


	145. Chapter 145

Beta'd by the disillusioned Insane Scriptist.

Considering current events, I feel like lots of people will need cheering up today. So have a chapter, ostensibly to celebrate the fact that where I am it is _snowing _and the snow is _staying _rather than just melting.

* * *

**Of new knowledge and coming to terms**

"Sorry."

Xanxus glanced down at his wife, who had stopped crying a little while back and been making a noticeable effort to settle her emotions since then. "For what?" He'd gone and trampled a sore spot and she'd reacted, so it was his fault; what was there for her to apologise for?

His wife reached up blindly and tapped his jaw with two fingers. "Don't think like that; it wasn't your fault. _I_ didn't know I felt like that about the house."

Xanxus couldn't help his inner wince at that admission; okay, so _actual_ emotional landmine rather than just a no-go area. Better because now Dorea knew about the issue she could face up to the implications and could work through them, but worse as well because she'd been as utterly blindsided as he had been. "So why are you apologising?" He asked again.

Dorea sighed. "I have no idea how to be married," she admitted frankly, "but being terrified of letting my husband have an equal say in domestic security is definitely _not_ good for our relationship."

Well, when she put it _that_ way… no, it wasn't. It implied a total absence of trust. That she was apologising for it was very promising, but Xanxus quickly buried that thought as deep as he could before it even surfaced properly; it wasn't appropriate right now and she did have reason not to trust him considering he'd left her on her own for so long, but it wouldn't benefit either of them to not figure out some kind of solution. "Could you put in an extra layer?" he asked, his brain picking at the problem and trying to find a solution that would work as a compromise and starting point. "So people you key in can see the security and activate certain parts, but not modify existing settings or affect people with greater security access." He'd settle for just partial authority if it came with awareness of the estate and a sense of security for himself.

His wife hummed thoughtfully, her fingers drumming lightly on his cheekbone as she rested her forehead against his shoulder. "Yes, that's possible; my Guardians can activate alarms already and adding in a secondary visualisation layer shouldn't be too challenging. It would be separate from the alarm system though, so you'd have to be keyed into both."

Xanxus shrugged; if it worked, it worked; separate systems were more secure anyway.

"Setting it up to be fully personalised will be the tricky bit though," his wife mumbled, her hand on his face sliding up behind his ear and toying idly with his hair. "Zabini are all very similar _indeed_, magically speaking, so I may have to use a Flame-ward rather than a regular one if I want to keep Blaise out."

"You can make wards with Flames?" That Mammon would be able to 'hang' a Territory on a ward if he wanted to had never been in doubt, but that you could _power_ wards with Flames wasn't something Dorea had mentioned before. Wards as she was using the word were magic, so this implied Flames _doing_ magic rather than Flames imitating magic.

Dorea huffed a not-quite-laugh against his neck, turning her head just far enough that he could see her smiling. "I have been researching what magical things can be powered by Flames rather than magic ever since leaving school," she told him wryly. "Rituals work very well, so long as you tailor them according to the Flame-type of the person performing the ritual as well as adding in a method for gathering ambient magic to power the desired results. Certain specific rituals don't _need_ magic adding so long as they're performed by a person with the right kind of Flames and others will work by pulling in Flames from the environment." She paused. "It's slow going when I have to work everything out from first principles though and I have a limited number of people able to help me check the theory before risking a practical test."

"You invented a whole field of study," Xanxus said flatly. He wasn't sure quite what she meant by 'ritual' –beyond that she'd found him using one– but it sounded like she was trying to create processes by which non-magical people could replicate magical effects. 'Follow the instructions and see the impossible happen' in essence. Flame-science could achieve similar things, but that was through microcircuitry, chemistry and metallurgy; 'ritual' sounded more like shaping reality directly to your will with a few props to smooth the process along.

Dorea grinned. "Expanded and refined an existing field of study," she corrected him mischievously; "some rituals don't actually _need_ magical people to work and technically run off Flames already. Wards are a bit trickier though."

"You've tried?" Xanxus was again forcibly reminded that his wife had learned Flames from a completely different base culture than him and had spent the past six years trying to do new things with them. Clearly she'd found a way to defrost Zero Point Breakthrough Flames in that period, but he hadn't considered what _other_ things she might have investigated along the way. He'd have to remember to ask about that sometime later, as he didn't want to shift topic right now.

"Oh yes," his wife admitted. "Flames are really tricky for Warding with due to being so _very_ personal; the type of Flame used also has an effect and in collaborative efforts how the people doing the warding feel about each-other also affects things. Two people who know and trust each-other can produce something solid and flexible where to people who dislike each-other will just fail to produce _anything_, even if each pair completes an identical procedure."

"But they _work_." His X-guns could be warded with Flames rather than him having to learn to use magic first.

"Yes, they work," Dorea agreed, tugging gently on his hair. "Provided you get the runes right, of course."

Xanxus wrapped a hand around the back of his wife's head and lifted her face so she was looking him in the eye. "Teach me," he demanded, glee and excitement roiling in his chest. This was something he _wanted_ and the possibilities were infinite.

"Learn the runes," Dorea said flatly, the fondness he could feel from her and the brightness of her smile countering the edge in her voice and the lingering redness around her eyes. "Once you know the characters I can give you my notes on how different Flames affect each rune individually and the vast, varied compendium the Constellation has put together on how differently-imbued runes interact."

"Constellation?" Socialite had referred to that too, but it hadn't seemed relevant to the Wizengamot reading so Xanxus had set the question aside.

"The people who signed the Flame-contract for the school study group call themselves that," Dorea told him. "Probably a pun based on the fact that I founded it and Blacks traditionally have star names. There's about three hundred of them in total; the youngest ones are turning seventeen this year."

That was a respectably-sized Mafia Family in its own right. "How many of them are Flame-Active?" Xanxus asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Dorea shrugged, moving his hand so it was no longer holding her head up. "About a third of them; the rest were unsuited for various reasons. We were learning the limits and perils as we went along, so if we'd known at the beginning what we know now, there'd be less people Active and fewer issues to deal with. Luna for instance would have been better off _not_ becoming Flame-Active until well after her majority and achieving stringent mental discipline, but we didn't know that then and we can't exactly take it back now. We found mitigation strategies and they work, so she's doing well enough and is already much better than she used to be, so…"

Xanxus knew there were some people who didn't respond well to Activation; a small but persistent percentage of ambitious Mafiosi got themselves killed every year by their own Flames. It wasn't a problem that affected the Varia –by the time an assassin got themselves Named they were either Flame-Active or had determined they were utterly incapable of becoming such– but it was something he'd read up about while he was still trying to be Decimo. The Vongola had never conclusively studied _why_ some people Activated young just fine when others just died, or why Activation could be easy and spontaneous for some people and near-impossible for others. It just was how it was and there was no other explanation than that.

"So you've got a system?" Was what he actually asked.

"For checking people's suitability?" Dorea checked. "Yes, we do; it's worked pretty well so far, but there're always people coming up with new and unexpected ways to maim themselves so we're all kept on our toes."

Xanxus chuckled; yep the Varia did that too. That was something for later though. "So when I know the runes, you'll give me the advanced material," he stated, changing the subject back to what he'd initially been interested in.

"Yes." Complete agreement through the marriage bond; that was a promise. Xanxus smiled. Memorising books with Mist-Flames might be cheating a bit, but it was an excellent way to pick up a new language quickly even though you would still have to learn appropriate pronunciation afterwards. It worked just fine for reading reports though and runes were a dead language so how he sounded out the symbols in his head didn't really matter.

He should probably imprint the siren-children parenting book into his mind as well; he'd have to watch out for the implicit bias, but having it all in his head would make going through his assumptions and attitudes and exorcising the unhelpful ones easier. He should probably take a closer look at the family tree as well, not to mention the sociology and history books on Sabina generally and how they integrated non-human attitudes into their culture. A few of the books were hopefully from an outsider perspective, as those had a different sort of bias to them.

"It's nearly four," Dorea sighed, getting to her feet; "I'll go wash my face."

Four o'clock meant children needing entertainment and three-and-a-half hours until his time was his own again as they went to bed before eight. "Can I leave everything here?" It was all laid out how he liked it and moving things would be a pain.

"Go for it," his wife said, waving a hand. "I'll be back here after dinner anyway; I've got letters to write."

Which reminded him: "I want to send a letter," Xanxus said. Getting in touch with Father Gregori directly for an in-depth talk on parenting and being a husband would be very challenging, but sending a letter would work provided he got somebody else to write it _for_ him so he didn't leave obvious Flame-traces for other Varia to pick up on. Because the Varia might be crazy but they were certainly Quality and would be suspicious of post going towards somebody in Housekeeping, because the Mists in Information went over delivered post for traps before it was transferred to Housekeeping to be given to whoever.

"To whom?" Dorea asked. "It makes a difference to how I send it," she added in response to his raised eyebrow. "If they're close by or magical I can send it by owl, but otherwise I'd have to send somebody down to the post office to buy stamps."

Messenger birds? Seriously? Magical people were strange. "Close by," Xanxus assured her, "and trustworthy." Sending a magical bird –which presumably meant a _smart _bird based on the snake and cat he'd met already since his wife had confirmed the snake could read– would at least ensure that _only_ Gregori got his hands on the letter, which in turn meant he could probably write it himself without giving the game away.

"Well if you write the letter this evening I can introduce you to the owls and have one of them take it over right away," Dorea said. "They can even wait for an answer and bring it back before bedtime."

That sounded workable. Maybe he'd even be able to see Father Gregori tomorrow; the sooner the better really.

* * *

Dinner was not private; Xanxus had worked out by now that Dorea usually _never_ ate alone and her Guardians and relatives were all deliberately backing off to give him more quality time to get to know his wife in, which he did appreciate. However even with her people making themselves scarce Xanxus still only got one meal a day in just his wife's company: breakfast was shared with the kids and two or three Guardians –which two or three changed on a daily basis– and either lunch or dinner would be in the large dining room his first meal with his family had been eaten with, surrounded by up to a dozen others. Xanxus was pretty sure there were rather more people in the house than were showing up at the shared meals, which was irritating: on the one hand it was considerate and he appreciated the space, but on the other he wanted –needed– to get to know his wife's people and he couldn't do that if he barely saw them. Yes their Flames were very expressive –far more so than any Mafia Flame-user Xanxus had ever met– but Flames weren't everything and conversation gave away a lot, even if Xanxus tended not to participate in chatter over meals. He still listened.

He was even less inclined to participate than usual this evening, having the contents of the book on parenting strongly siren children rattling around inside his head and attacking all the assumptions his childhood had been founded upon. It was as much as he could to do to put food in his mouth and keep up with everybody else's conversations.

This evening company around the dinner table was made up of Socialite –who was getting married on the coming Saturday– Executioner –who had mentioned that she would be visiting with the Varia Ladies later this week– Knight, Negotiator, Fool –who had the look of a Sun coming down off a combat high– his brother-in-law Blaise whose codename was Diplomat of all things, Troubleshooter –who was leaving for the Caribbean in the morning– Consul and Matron. Current conversations included a discussion on how people would be getting to the wedding, which was being held outside the magical enclaves due to the families of both bride and groom being non-magical, exactly _why_ Troubleshooter was running off to the other side of the Atlantic first thing in the morning –something to do with salamanders? – and Fool being teased by Executioner and Blaise for losing eight spars out of twelve to Matron. The young Sun was taking the jokes at his expense very well, joining in with the humour and making dreadful puns of his own.

"Dorea, I want to do a health check after dinner," Matron said in the lull when dessert was served. "It's been nearly a week since your spiritual equilibrium changed and I want to ensure there've been no damaging side-effects." She paused, "and I would prefer to check you as well, Xanxus, so I can track your recovery properly and ensure no complications will arise."

"Of course Tracy," Dorea said agreeably; "do you need us to come across to the labs?"

"Not at all; we can use your sitting room for privacy's sake," Matron said briskly before turning to look at Xanxus. "I also need to go over your medical file with you and make a few recommendations."

Xanxus nodded; he was actually pretty curious about his magical medical file, since it would account for his non-human physiology and would include details of his surgery and how they'd managed to put him back together so well that he was fully mobile and almost entirely pain-free less than a week after surgery was finished. He was also curious about how they'd managed to keep him unconscious throughout; regular anaesthetics did jack shit for him, something he'd learned during a childhood kidnapping attempt that had failed abysmally for the trash attempting to sedate him.

"Do you want to do that before or after I introduce you to the owls?" Dorea asked.

Xanxus considered it. "Before," he decided; it might affect what he wanted to talk to Gregori about after all. The siren childcare book had already raised a number of urgent points he desperately needed to talk about to somebody he trusted to be impartial and it was very likely his medical file was going to knock some more things loose.

* * *

There were times when Xanxus would really have liked to be proven wrong and this was one of them; he couldn't quite stop his hand shaking as he smoothed out the parchment –actual real parchment made from animal skin– of his birth certificate, with his full name –Alexandro Timoteo Vulcano Cesare Zabini– and birth date, his mother's full name –Mariella Eleonora Zabini– and profession, which was listed euphemistically as 'Fille de Joie', signed off by 'Guérisseuse DeMartin' on October fifteenth, nineteen-seventy-eight. Another hand had added in his father's full name –Timoteo Riccardo Adrano Terenzio Zabini– and profession –Principe di Sabina– and signed it off as 'Guaritore Lungo-Zabini' on the twelfth of February nineteen-ninety-six. Lungo-Zabini's handwriting only matched the handwriting his father's name and profession was written in, so while his actual father's name was down, it hadn't been written by Timoteo Zabini's hand; Xanxus' full name being ludicrous was entirely his mother's fault and that was _before_ she'd had her mind destroyed.

His name was fucking ridiculous, seriously, but having 'volcano' in it was possibly the funniest thing _ever_ despite it probably being a nod to Hephaestus, whom he was supposedly descended from, via the forge god's Roman counterpart. He could hear the shark snarking in his head about 'explosive temperament' and how his mother should have known better then to tempt fate.

His father's name being the same as the lying old fart's explained so _much_ though… but Xanxus still didn't want 'Timoteo' in _his_ name. He hadn't met his actual father, but the man being invested enough in his delusional fantasies to take drastic action –like a spell to destroy someone's memories– then dumping both his own child and the child's mother in a different country… the Timoteos could go hang and he wouldn't give a shit. He didn't like _either_ of them and would happily remain estranged from both for the rest of his life. He wanted nothing to do with them –right now at least– and he didn't want a connection as concrete as part of his _name_ tying him to either of the two men who had wrecked his life in different yet equally fundamental ways.

"Can I change my name?" he asked.

"How exactly?" Matron asked, turning from the papers she'd been writing on to look him in the eye. This was technically only the first thing in the file she'd wanted to go over with him after his check-up, but as soon as she'd seen his face she'd found something else to do for a few minutes.

"I want to cut a middle name."

"Remove or replace?" Matron asked. "Traditionally Zabini royalty have two extra middle names so they can pick their 'primary' name from them, but the first middle name of legitimate firstborn male children in all European magical societies is the name of their father."

Xanxus grimaced. "Can't I use my grandfather's name instead?" Admittedly he knew fuck-all about his paternal grandfather other than that the man had thrown crockery at people so much that everybody had bought him extra sets specifically for that purpose, but _anything_ was better than being named after the scum who had abandoned him or the old fart.

Matron looked thoughtful. "That sounds achievable; I'll write to Sabina's Records Office and see about getting you the paperwork. It helps that you're Principe," she added dryly, "as it means you _are_ the law, so nobody's going to stop you doing what you want, especially when it's this trivial." She shook her head. "The only issues would have been tied up in tradition and cultural expectations, but you are still honouring your paternal lineage so I doubt there will be any backlash, _especially_ considering the circumstances of your childhood."

Yes, bucking tradition was a hell of a lot harder than bending actual laws; Xanxus had personal experience there.

"Ready to move on?" Matron asked. Xanxus nodded, letting the Healer move his birth certificate to one side and shifted his attention to the next sheet of parchment in the stack.

"This is your childhood inoculation record, also from the files of Healer DeMartin," Matron said, "which was very reassuring to receive as it means I don't have to find Zabini-appropriate potions to protect you from the standard magical childhood illnesses. You will need the ones that adults are more vulnerable to and the usual boosters, but I can source those more easily."

Xanxus nodded, ignoring the list now he knew what it was. That there were magical illnesses and inoculations –which were not injections but orally administered– was useful information, although he wasn't sure how a magical illness would work. Did it feed off a person's innate magic, so you could only catch it in magical environs and even then only if you actually _had_ magic?

"Of course we don't have anything on you after your second birthday," Matron said, "so the next thing here is a breakdown of your heritage made right before your frostbite surgery. Knowing the details of the exact proportions of your non-human heritage and magical background was necessary to determine the best possible treatment procedure and to ensure you would not react adversely to any of the potions being administered." She pushed the sheet of parchment towards him, followed by half-a-dozen more closely-written sheets pinned together. "These are the references and medical recommendations based on the heritage results, which I will be making a more scientific copy of for whoever is responsible for your health in the Varia."

Xanxus nodded thanks, his attention held by the parchment in front of him with its colourful stripe across the top and bullet points in matching colours underneath, helpfully ordered by percentage.

Forty-nine percent Siren, with 'extinct Proto-Magical Being' in brackets after it; an extra marker proclaiming 'Heir' and an explanation that he could leech energy from his environment, captivate and hypnotise others with his voice if he so chose and therefore needed to live somewhere with decently high ambient magic levels or else he would start leeching off the people around him.

Twenty-one percent Veela, with 'Magical Being' in brackets; he apparently lacked the markers for pyrokinesis and shape-shifting, but had those for 'Allure', whatever _that_ was. The notes mentioned 'strongly fire-natured' and 'likely to be competitive, aggressive and inclined to emotional outbursts', which made him snort.

Nineteen percent human. _Nineteen_. That was negligible compared to the combined seventy percent 'magical being'. He was so far off human he was another species altogether and might actually have _less_ in common with regular human beings than said human beings had with monkeys. He wasn't even a _quarter_ human; no wonder he had trouble understanding how people felt about certain things and why they did things like pacifism.

Eight percent Titan; that was broken down into six percent 'Fire and Forge-Craft Personification' and two percent 'Lava Elemental', the notes only adding that he was likely entirely heatproof and that his flesh would resist burning even in extreme situations such as when faced with Cursed Fire. The 'Proto-Magical Being' bit in brackets was curious, but Xanxus guessed it had something to do with Titans predating the existence of recorded magical history like sirens did. He had 'Heir' markers in there too, but they seemed not to make a particular difference to the readings unlike earlier. Possibly because the percentage was lower?

Three percent Fae. The fuck?! In brackets was 'Magic Elemental', which suggested that Fae were formed entirely of magic and therefore not really physical beings at all, which _did_ fit in with the older and nastier fairytales he had read. The specifics were unclear: Fae heritage was apparently hard to pin down and inclined to change spontaneously according to the personal inclinations of the person inheriting it, so while he had markers associated with Álfar and Maere lineages they did not actually have any specific effect that could be documented… other than making him capable of wielding magic.

The pinned sheets looked a bit more complicated and unfamiliar technical phrasing cropped up in the very first sentence, so an in-depth read-through would probably need to wait until Matron had made a copy with translated medical and scientific terminology. Superficially however…

"Alcohol is a medically necessary supplement?" Xanxus couldn't quite believe it.

"Fermented foods are medically necessary for those of Siren bloodlines for specific metabolic processes," Matron corrected him, "especially when living a highly active lifestyle. However in the absence of such, alcohol is an acceptable substitute. It's also recommended in mitigating the effects of stress, particularly long-term stress. It is however _not_ suited for individuals suffering from deep depression, as it acts as a mood stabiliser and can make the condition chronic."

Well, fuck him. All those snide comments about him 'medicating with alcohol' were _right_ in the best possible way. He could cheerfully ignore the vitriol and drink as much as he wanted, whenever he wanted and not worry about his liver. Most of his metabolic processes likely weren't human, so human concerns about him being a functional alcoholic and its implications for his long-term health –and that of his subordinates and the Vongola generally– could piss off and die.

Oh, and apparently he was completely immune to all the many horrendous bacteria that gave normal people lethal food poisoning and just about every last chemical involved in the fermentation and putrefaction process, because he was about half siren and they were based on vultures, which as carrion eaters had really _effective_ digestive and immune systems so that their diet –and whatever had killed their latest meal such as infectious disease– didn't kill them. That did at least _explain_ why he'd had as many oddly innocuous reactions to poisons as unpleasant ones to medication.

"I'd like to be able to talk to your regular physician once you go back to work," Matron said as Xanxus gave up attempting to decipher the magical medical jargon in favour of trying to work out what he wanted to write in his letter to Father Gregori. "There's a _lot_ of medical literature concerning the effects of strong Siren heritage and this barely touches on the high points. You are my patient and my oaths mean I _cannot_ allow you to be treated by somebody unfamiliar with the intricacies of your biology."

"You want to share medical data," Xanxus clarified; he'd not actually been _in_ the Varia for long enough to have a specific member of Medical assigned to his health, but practically the only person he trusted that much was Luss. Matron meeting his Sun Officer would probably go very interestingly indeed, but this wasn't something he could avoid considering the oaths Healers had to take. Matron was _obliged_ to do everything in her power to ensure his health, which included making sure the other people involved in treating him were fully informed and properly trained.

"Data, introductions to Zabini Healers for question-and-answer sessions and contact details so I can be summoned at once should your condition require magical treatment of some kind," Matron said briskly. "Dorea's health is my responsibility as well and you suffering unnecessarily would have an adverse effect on her wellbeing."

_That_ was coercion, but it was for his wife's sake and Matron _had_ taken oaths which specified that the wellbeing of her patients was her highest priority, so Xanxus didn't mind going along with it. "Fine."

"Thank-you," Matron said. "Would you like copies of any of this, for your own records?"

"Just the birth certificate," Xanxus told her. The petite Healer twitched her fingers and then there were two birth certificates; she handed the top one to him, suggesting it was probably the copy. That was a neat bit of magic.

"You also need to learn to control your Allure, so one of your aunts will be coming over tomorrow to start you on the basics," Matron went on.

"Allure?" Did that mean what he thought it meant?

Matron side-eyed him. "I'm _sure_ you've noticed that regular women and a proportion of men stare, drool and can't seem to resist pawing at you," she said dryly. "That's Allure. It runs on magic, so you can learn to rein it in and moderate its strength according to the situation."

So all the trash panting after him would actually _stop_ without him having to scare them all shitless? "Tomorrow morning?" Xanxus asked hopefully. That it would be an aunt helping –he had aunts? – was slightly more daunting, but he did need to meet his relatives and it would give him a chance to find out what was actually normal for Zabini as opposed to the Mafia normal he had grown up with, and doing it in the morning meant he could talk matters over with Father Gregori in the afternoon.

"If that's what you'd prefer. I'll deal the name-changing personally tomorrow as well; you will probably have to sign it off but I doubt it will take very long to settle." With that she gathered up the rest of the paperwork and left the room.

Xanxus followed her out, heading in the opposite direction once he was in the hall; he needed to write that letter and get his wife to introduce him to her delivery birds.

* * *

When his wife had mentioned owls, Xanxus had expected barn owls; they had creepy cultural connotations and everything. He wouldn't have been surprised by tawny owls either. But this was _not_ a barn owl or a tawny owl.

The great grey owl perched on his wife's forearm glared at him, its inch-long claws not even grazing her arm through the fine wool of her sleeve. Xanxus glared back; he wasn't going to lose a staring contest with a _bird_, not even when his instincts insisted said bird was easily as dangerous as a fully grown leopard. A _hungry_ leopard.

"This is Moros; he's been my personal owl since I started school," Dorea told him, her body language indicating she did not consider the dangerous predator perched within easy reach of her face to be a threat. "He's a Black Owl, so I can't actually assign him or any of his relatives to you, but they'll deliver your mail if I ask them to and if one of them decides they like you then they'll be your personal owl for life."

Moros the killer owl chose this moment to turn to Dorea and hoot commandingly.

"Yes, he's my husband," Dorea said, meeting the owl's eyes and keeping her tone impeccably polite yet utterly firm, "my chicks' father and father-to-be of all future nestlings."

Another hoot, this time from one of the other owls perched up in the rafters of the stable building Dorea had led him down to.

"He's already killed three people for me personally," Dorea replied as she looked up, giving Xanxus the unnerving sensation that an actual _conversation_ was taking place and he was missing half of it, "and that's just in this last week."

There was a rustling and shuffling up in the rafters, along with the sound of sharp beaks clacking. Was that approval?

"Hold out your arm," Dorea said abruptly. Xanxus did so, deliberately not flinching when a massive but surprisingly light great grey owl landed on his own forearm, claws folding around his jacket sleeve but not digging into his skin.

"This is Momos," Dorea said; "he will deliver all your mail in future." The owl on his arm nodded at him, projecting a very firm feeling of intent and a general sense of profound intelligence.

"This letter's for Father Gregorius," Xanxus said after a moment to laugh at himself and his situation inside his head; an owl named for the personification of criticism and mockery, what was his life? "I'd like a reply."

The owl reached out a claw with a ring attached so he could tie the letter on, then took off in complete silence and vanished out the open door. Xanxus watched it leave –no, Momos was _definitely_ a 'he' not an 'it' with that clear a personality– then turned back to his wife, who was scratching her owl's head. Moros' eyes were almost closed and he looked extremely contented.

"How dangerous are these owls?" Xanxus asked, curious.

Dorea's lips twitched. "They're almost entirely spell-proof and I've seen them rip grown men apart in seconds," she told him frankly. "My ancestors bred them specially; communications' security is a serious business."

Xanxus couldn't help snickering; his wife's ancestors sounded like his sort of people.

* * *

Translations 

Guérisseuse = healer (female) (French)

Fille de joie = 'lady of the night', prostitute (French)

Guaritore = healer (male) (Italian)

Álfar = elves of Norse tradition, considered to be deities as much as the Aesir

Maere = evil spirit that brings bad dreams (hence 'nightmare'), sometimes associated with incubi and succubae.


	146. Chapter 146

Beta'd by the prosaic Insane Scriptist.

Yes, it's update week again! Six updates, one after another!

* * *

**Of processing the truth and growing pains**

Gregorius of the Varia was leaving the chapel for the evening –it was never closed but he kept regular hours since being there all the time was not humanly possible– when a most unexpected noise reached his ears.

"_Whooo._"

The white-haired priest turned towards the sound: standing in the hallway was Qaz, second-oldest Lightning in Lightning Division at the grand old age of twenty-six, with one of the Incongruous Owls perched on his forearm.

"Hello _Padre_," the Lightning said sweetly, walking closer. "It's for you."

The Incongruous Owls had initially been noticed the previous summer by Ghul, who was one the Mists who had a knack for the new 'Aura Sight' and a close friend of Raas, who was a keen bird watcher. Ghul had spotted an owl demonstrating a suspiciously complex and layered Aura while out camping in the nearby woods with Raas and the latter had noticed that the owl in question was a species _not_ native to Sicily, or indeed to anywhere southwest of Poland. This when coupled with the rings on the birds' legs had resulted in considerable paranoia among Mist Division generally and Information specifically, until Oversight had lost his temper and gone outside to shout at one of the birds when it perched near the building. At which point it had been discovered that yes, the Owls _did_ understand human speech and no, they did _not_ like being insulted. Oversight had managed to survive his faux pas without incurring life-threatening injuries and a quick conversation with the offended party –supervised by Tájna to ensure truthfulness– had revealed that yes, the Owls belonged to somebody but no, they weren't in the slightest bit interested in the Varia. And they wanted bacon as an apology.

Bacon had been provided, Oversight had been carted off to Medical and the Incongruous Owls had gradually slipped into the background. Yes, they were still there, but Mammon insisted they were only watching various Varia antics for the entertainment value and there was rarely more than one within the grounds at a time, so they were left alone.

Except that now one of those Incongruous Owls had been brought into the building, an owl with a letter tied to its ankle which it was offering to him. Gregorius accepted the letter, but paused as he recognised the handwriting on the envelope.

"Why did you bring the owl in, Qaz?"

The Lightning smiled. "I was in the garden and I saw him flying around the building, then land in the cherry tree by the side door. I wandered over to see what the problem was and noticed he had a letter, so I asked if he wanted to go inside. He agreed, so I opened the door for him and he decided he wanted me to carry him. I saw your name on the letter and here we are."

"Thank-you Qaz," the Somali-Italian priest said thoughtfully. "And thank-you, owl." Qaz clearly hadn't recognised the handwriting, but as he wasn't a Squad Leader he'd probably never seen Boss's writing before.

The owl nodded graciously, accepting his due.

"I think he wants an answer, _Padre_," Qaz said helpfully. The owl on his arm nodded again then briefly puffed up his feathers in a manner that suggested impatience. Not _actual_ impatience, but the promise of it if matters did not move along to his liking.

Well, in that case who was he to deny his Boss? Gregorius opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, which was written on actual parchment with a fountain pen; only a fountain pen left those sweeping smooth inked lines. Not at all Boss's usual style.

An order to maintain secrecy for the time being, a request for a meeting the following afternoon at the parish church in the nearby village and a mention of 'changed family circumstances'; the bottom of the letter held the familiar idiosyncratic signature of Boss's first name with no other names or titles attached. Interestingly however there was an ink spot after his name, suggesting that he had considered adding something on.

Changed family circumstances, was it? There were so _many_ nuances there…

"I will be there tomorrow," Gregorius said firmly, folding up the letter and sliding it into his sash. He glanced at the owl. "Should I write a reply?"

The owl turned on Qaz's arm and took off, winging his way down the hallway and around a corner; Gregorius tuned out the brief explosion of muffled profanity coming from around said corner as it wasn't worth scolding anyone over.

"Qaz, perhaps you should go and make sure our guest leaves unmolested?" Gregorius suggested, smiling fondly as the agreeable and easygoing Lightning jogged off after the owl that had just abandoned him. Once the younger man had vanished around the corner the priest's face fell into a thoughtful frown and he set off towards his private rooms at a respectable pace. This was a serious matter that required his full attention, so he would need to make arrangements for the following day, refresh his memory of what he had previously discussed with Xanxus before the Varia Boss had been detained indefinitely at Don Vongola's command and pray for guidance.

Also to thank God for the young man's release, it certainly _not_ being at Don Nono's behest and therefore an unexpected but very welcome turn of events regardless of the implications.

* * *

Tuesday started awkwardly for Xanxus, waking from a really _strange_ quasi-nightmare about everybody in the Vongola treating him like a woman in the most patronisingly sexist manner possible regardless of him being very obviously _not_. He'd had to make an effort not to burst out laughing almost as soon as his eyes opened, because thank-you brain for that ridiculously accurate metaphor for his entire _life_. He'd still woken Dorea with his rather bitter hysterics despite barely making a sound; a disadvantage of their marriage bond, he realised. His wife had stared at him with a startling _lack_ of emotion for several seconds before stumbling off to her bathroom.

That she hadn't returned right away had prompted Xanxus to get up as well, and upon joining her to walk to breakfast he'd quickly worked out what was wrong: the niggling low-level pain he could feel was not entirely his own and Dorea was grumpy about it being that time of the month for her. She was also mildly physically uncomfortable, as evidenced by the warmer and slightly less fitted dress, extra jacket and being a touch more distant than usual. This aspect of their bond would take some getting used to.

Being observant children, both the twins of course noticed this.

"Mama, is it a fragile day?" Cassie asked, frowning in concern at Dorea across the breakfast table.

"I'm afraid so," Dorea said ruefully, ignoring the toast on the table in favour of a very small bowl of porridge, which she added a spoonful of ginger jam to.

"Can we go and visit Uncle Vincenzo for tea instead then?" Marius asked. "Hector and Luca could play together and we could go 'sploring in the Palazzo with Angela."

"Please Mama? We haven't seen Angela in _ages_," Cassie said hopefully.

"She was here for your birthday three weeks ago," Dorea pointed out with a small smile.

"Three weeks _is_ ages, Mama!" Cassie contradicted hotly. "Please?"

"I will ask Aunt Rossella then," Dorea capitulated, "and if she agrees you can go and have tea in the Palazzo; Daphne will go with you."

"Why Dee?" Fool asked, looking up from the newspaper he was reading. Xanxus had caught a glimpse of the front page headline –Lord Potter Crushes Slander– but wasn't interested enough in the article to steal the paper and read further.

"Because there are some books she wants to borrow from the Royal Library," Dorea told the Sun, "and I don't feel like inflicting you on my in-laws this week."

Fool grinned. "You love me," he said confidently.

Dorea rolled her eyes. "Of course I do, idiot; you're family. That doesn't mean however that I don't know how utterly _awful_ you can be when it suits you."

"I haven't done _anything_ like that recently!" Fool protested, pouting.

"Really?"

Xanxus admired his wife's expression of slightly amused disbelief and oh-so-mild tone; there were layers of nuance and meaning there and _all_ of them spoke volumes.

The Sun shifted his approach. "You can't prove I did it."

"I don't need to prove anything Leo; I _know_," Dorea said flatly, eyes glinting. "So today you can double-check my arithmancy for those healing rituals Trish wants us to try out now she's crunched the numbers from the revival ritual we did on Beltane." Beltane was May first, so Xanxus guessed she was referring to however she'd managed to defrost him. He needed to ask about that at some point; later would be fine though. He had other things on his mind this morning.

"Fine, fine, I'll do maths for you," Fool capitulated, not looking even slightly repentant, "since it's you, Rhea-dear." The black-eyed, fair-skinned Sun glanced across at Xanxus and grinned toothily. "And what are you doing this morning, your Highness?"

"Manners," Dorea said flatly, not looking up from her breakfast.

"I was being polite!" The Sun exclaimed, putting on a wounded expression and holding a hand to his chest.

"No you weren't," Cassie said firmly, glaring down the table; "you were being mean to Papà."

Fool glanced from Xanxus to Cassie and on to Dorea before sighing in a put-upon manner. "Fine, ruin my fun."

"It wasn't funny," Marius said evenly, staring at the Sun with a faintly worrying expression on his face. Xanxus knew that look; that was 'plotting untraceable retribution' and he'd seen it in the mirror far more often than he cared to remember while growing up.

"Then I apologise for deliberately attempting to antagonise your Papa," Fool said with a sigh. "What do you want me to call you, oh husband of my cousin?"

Xanxus toyed briefly with saying 'nothing' –the Sun would take it as an invitation and run with it– before answering, "Xanxus."

"Then what are you doing today, Xanxus?" Fool asked, his tone shifting out of mockery completely and into genuine interest with his entire body language following suit. If it was a façade it was fucking creepy, but if it was sincere then the Sun was damn good at compartmentalising. Xanxus suspected it was the latter rather than the former.

"Reading," he said shortly; his aunt –whose name was Silvia– wouldn't be arriving until ten o'clock, so he had a few hours to get started on the Varia backlog. If the kids were going to be away until bedtime then he could potentially spend a few more hours with Father Gregori, which meant he wouldn't have to rush things.

"Barty's offered to help you," Dorea said absently. Xanxus paused; there were some interesting nuances and subtext there. Negotiator offering 'to help' implied either that he was volunteering as an Allure guinea pig or to provide extra security when Xanxus headed out to see Father Gregori. Possibly both. The Varia Boss glanced over at the man in question, who was ignoring the ongoing conversation in favour of coaxing Hector into eating his soft boiled egg and toast soldiers.

"_What is Negotiator to you exactly?_" Xanxus asked in Ancient Greek, wanting an answer but not wanting the kids to know what he was asking. He didn't care whether or not Fool and Negotiator understood him.

"_He is my slave_," Dorea said bluntly in the same language. "_It is magical slavery, binding his mind, heart, body and soul to my service. I inherited him from the enemy I wished you to slay on my behalf, whom Negotiator willingly enslaved himself to as a teenager_."

Xanxus blinked. Okay, _not_ what he'd been expecting her to say. He glanced over at Negotiator again. "_Can he be freed?_"

"_In theory_," his ruthless and very gratifyingly practical wife conceded, "_but his mind was broken and his Flames twisted while he was enslaved and I do not know that he would be capable of functioning without the framework slavery provides. Not yet, at least_." She paused. "_I believe he was a Rain before he was broken, based on what I have been told of his former character_."

If Negotiator had been so utterly spiritually shattered that his primary and secondary Flame Affinities had reversed then undoing the bindings holding him together _would_ probably render him catatonic; Xanxus was amazed the man was as functional as he was, considering.

"He can join me," the Varia Boss said in English. He hadn't noticed Negotiator's condition, which indicated he really needed to spend more time around the man so as to get a better reading of him. If Negotiator was as tightly bound as _that_ then it should be visible somehow, so if he could find a way to see it maybe Xanxus could work out which bits of the other man were restricted and how much.

"I'll be in my workroom in the basement this morning," Dorea added; "Barty can show you where exactly if you're interested. Will I see you for lunch?"

"Yes." Xanxus was rather hoping for another private lunch, so he could have a little time and privacy to find out how her boundaries had shifted with her current state of health.

* * *

By the time lunchtime came around Xanxus was reeling: his Varia reading had revealed exactly how _many_ of his subordinates had died or been maimed during his assault on the Iron Fort –far _too_ many– and his aunt showing up had made everything five times worse because fuck him, she looked _exactly_ like his mother. Except not, because _Zia_ Silvia was older than his mother had ever had a chance to become, healthier than Xanxus could remember his mother _ever_ being and had eyes filled with a clear, passionate brilliance that his mother had _never_ possessed in his memories.

Seeing who his mother might have been if his father hadn't wrecked her brain on a delusional whim _hurt_. It might have hurt less if Silvia hadn't brought a handbag full of moving photographs of her 'little sister Mariella' to show him and tell him stories about, but Xanxus could ignore and suppress pain if it meant learning more about his mother. His aunt interspersed the lesson in controlling Allure with anecdotes of childhood disasters, triumphs, discoveries and habits, which told Xanxus a lot about his maternal grandfather as well as about his mother. Domenico Zabini was still alive –and actually older than the old fart– but the picture his aunt was painting of the intolerant fool who'd kicked his spoiled youngest daughter out of the family for having the temerity to be incapable of using a wand didn't exactly fill Xanxus with enthusiasm. His maternal grandmother was long dead, which was a shame because she sounded like she'd been a worthwhile woman with her head screwed on straight. His Veela great-grandmother was still alive though and _she_ sounded like a character; he'd have to arrange a visit.

Silvia also told him stories of her own children and their trials and occasional mishaps in developing and learning to control their Allure, which was at least reassuring in that he had matching stories he could have told if he'd wanted to. It was nice to be normal for once.

He did manage to work out what Silvia wanted him to do and actually achieve it, so she left him a little before noon with an admonition to practice constantly. She also left the photos and promised to write with more stories about his mother, which Xanxus would never have requested but was pitifully grateful for. Barty led the way to lunch; Xanxus couldn't quite think of the manic greying blond as 'Negotiator' anymore after having seen him lower his mental defences so that Silvia could exercise her Allure on him… although what he had seen of the state of the man's Flames by surreptitiously Altering his vision in between tackling the Varia reading before his aunt arrived had not helped.

Barty the Negotiator was indeed being held together by the slave-binding on his soul and seeing it for himself had shaken the Varia Boss. It should _not_ be possible to do that to people, even if they _were_ consenting to it!

* * *

Xanxus ate lunch in silence, moving his chair around the table so he was next to his wife rather than opposite her and as close as he could be without their elbows colliding while they ate. Dorea didn't ask him any questions during the meal, but once her plate was cleared she moved close enough that their shoulders were touching.

"Would you like me to do anything?" She asked eventually, well after the remains of the meal had been cleared away and he'd drunk an entire bottle of port by himself.

Xanxus glanced from his empty wineglass to his wife's hand tucked in the crook of his elbow and back again. He did want her to do something. However he wasn't sure he could ask that of her when she was obviously under the weather.

"If I don't want to, I won't," Dorea said after a long pause, "but if you don't ask I can't make that choice."

Communication was one of the fundamental requirements for a functional marriage. Xanxus knew that. It didn't make asking any easier. "Kiss me?" It was a plea and his voice didn't quite make it above a whisper; he felt pathetic for asking but… but.

With a gentle rustle of skirts his wife got to her feet and moved his arm so she could sit sideways across his lap, leaning into his chest for balance. Then she cradled his right hand in her both of hers, lifting it to her mouth and pressing gentle, chaste kisses to every joint of each finger, first across the back then the palm. Xanxus couldn't untangle his fluctuating emotions well enough to work out what he wanted to do next, so he didn't do anything, letting his wife lavish gentle and unhurried care on each of his hands. Hands he had killed people with. Hands he had murdered people with. Hands he had signed off on murders for money with.

The feelings he was getting through the marriage bond were of curiosity, attraction and pure enjoyment, which fucking _broke_ him inside. His wife was just happy he was _here_ and didn't _care_ that she wasn't in love with him the way society said was necessary for a marriage to work, because why would anybody overlook your flaws unless they were smitten. She didn't care that he was sixteen, fucked in the head, an unrepentant murderer and nowhere _near_ as human as he should be. It might not be love, but she still _wanted_ him and not just in the 'I want to have sex with you' way either; she wanted Xanxus the _person_ in her life, despite being intimately aware that he was a total fucking _mess_.

Dorea shifted in his lap and tilted his head up, pressing more unhurried, gentle kisses to his face starting at his jawline. Xanxus blinked and abruptly realised he was crying. Again. Why was he crying this time?

"Stop thinking so hard," his wife admonished him softly. "Just be."

Okay. If that was what she wanted, he could do that.


	147. Chapter 147

Beta'd by the painstaking Insane Scriptist.

This chapter is probably going to bother some people due to its content, so I am taking it upon myself to remind readers that:  
-they do not have to _agree_ with the opinions, beliefs and religious attitudes of any fictional characters, just accept that said beliefs inform the characters' attitudes and decisions;  
-the beliefs and attitudes of the characters do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

That said, I have done my best to accurately represent the beliefs in question, so if anybody feels my portrayal is offensively innacurate do let me know; I did do my best to research thoroughly but I am not perfect.

All bible references are genuine.

* * *

**Of commitment and faith **

Heading out to _Il Santissimo Crocifisso_ in Belmonte Mezzagno –the closest parish church to the Varia, which was admittedly a good distance away– after lunch was both easy and rather challenging. Easy because one of the nominally-civilian members of Housekeeping was happy to give Gregori a lift there, challenging because by morning everybody in the building knew he had received a letter by Incongruous Owl and Varia assassins were all as curious as cats; an aspect of the Independent Assassination Division that time had _not_ changed. None of them _asked_ him who the letter had been from –they knew he wouldn't tell them– but Gregori did have to deflect a good number of Flame-tags and subtle espionage attempts even before leaving the building.

Curiously enough he was assisted in his getaway by the Storm Officer, who was in a truly excellent mood after testing CEDEF security the previous day and claimed it was his 'royal duty' to assist the priest in protecting the privacy of the individual he was going to see. That the teenager said this loudly in the hallway after burning off at _least_ eight different minor Enchantments from Gregori's cassock did thankfully cool everybody's enthusiasm, although the priest fully expected all kinds of curious 'casual' questions once he got back. Those he could deal with however and nobody would dare be _too_ pushy, or else Tyrant might decide to involve himself.

Arranging for privacy was relatively easy, even at short notice: Gregori simply spoke to the parish priest, mentioned that he had a parishioner who had requested to meet here and was experiencing 'family troubles' and had been offered the keys to one of the private upstairs rooms accessible only to the priesthood. The Varia priest then investigated the room, made a few adjustments to allow for improved security then headed out into the main nave. Mass had already taken place today, so the building was mostly empty and pleasantly quiet.

Glancing around the brightly-lit space, Gregori instantly noticed the two men sat quietly on the right-hand end of the first row of seats; a middle-aged-looking blond with fair, freckled skin and facial features typical of northern Europe wearing a smart navy suit, who was leaning back and looking around curiously, beside a much younger-looking individual with short, wild dark hair wearing black jeans and a silver-grey roll-neck pullover who was hunched over with his forearms resting on his thighs and his forehead leaning on his clasped hands.

The sturdy black boots and the spotted feathers the praying man sported in his hair were rather telling, although Gregori did not remember ever seeing Xanxus so… subdued. Usually his mood was clearly detectable from right across the room. The stranger beside him was a Lightning with the body language of an alert assassin, if a currently relaxed alert assassin. He also looked to have far more personality than the average Mafia Lightning, confirming Gregori's guess that the Varia Boss's release was due to the intervention of an unknown faction.

Walking up to the duo, Gregori gently placed a hand on his Boss's shoulder. The Sky shuddered, then glanced up at the priest through untidy hair, red eyes sharp and sorrowful.

"Gregorius." It was barely more than a whisper; he was so _young_ still and it filled the aging Sun with compassion. Don Vongola had done his Boss a terrible disservice and now he was dislocated from his peers.

"I have a private room arranged," Gregori said; traditionally a Catholic presbyter called his parishioners 'my son' or 'my daughter' and said parishioners called him 'father', but Xanxus had always had an instinctive aversion to such familial forms of address and Gregori himself felt it was unbiblical to call any man who was not a true biological parent 'father' –Matthew 23 verse 9, 'for you have one Father and he is in heaven'– so he preferred not to use it. 'Pastor' was acceptable, as was his Varia Name, and he tended to call those in his care 'brother' or 'sister' when not using their names.

The teenager –for his Boss was clearly no older than he had been when Gregori last saw him six years ago– rose to his feet, shoulders slumped, head bowed and hair obscuring his face, most obviously his red eyes. The wary shuffle as he followed the Varia priest into the private parts of the church was completely out of character, to the point that any who happened to glimpse him would instantly dismiss the possibility that it _was_ the Varia Boss they were seeing. Indeed, once the door was closed behind them Xanxus' back straightened and his stride lengthened, although his head remained bowed and his face obscured.

Upon reaching the private room Xanxus flopped onto one of the benches, legs stretched out in front of him as he leaned back to stare sightlessly at the ceiling, one hand pushing his hair back from his face as his presence expanded to fill the room in its usual manner before contracting down to almost nothing again. Gregori locked the door behind him and sat down next to his Boss.

"I am deeply grateful to see you in such good health," Gregori said in formal Italian after a not uncomfortable silence, "although it saddens me that your father has deprived you of your freedom for so long."

"_Not_ my father, Gregori," Xanxus said sharply in the same language, sitting upright and finally looking the Sun in the eye. "That's… that is part of the problem. He is not and was never my father, despite claiming that title for himself. I am not Vongola and I was not even legally adopted."

Gregori bowed his head. "He wronged you greatly then; by keeping that truth from you he assumed a right to your affection and obedience that was not his to claim." Children had a duty of respect and love towards their parents, just as parents had a duty of love and provision, but to claim parenthood when it did not exist and then withhold provision besides –provision Xanxus would have been entitled to had he been legally adopted– meant that Don Vongola had done very badly by Xanxus indeed. "In lying to you he sinned again, wilfully deceiving you without cause." Lying was one of the cardinal sins, but belonging to the Mafia meant that lying was an unfortunate part of life. However that did _not_ justify lying to one's family and dependents, even if lying to enemies could not always be avoided. Xanxus had always been a startlingly truthful young man, something Gregori strongly approved of.

"My real father destroyed my mother's mind and left us to die," Xanxus said quietly and bitterly, "because my mother was not his wife. Even though his wife had been dead for over a decade by the time I was conceived."

"He wronged you also," Gregori said firmly. "A parent's first duty is to love their children, be they legitimate or illegitimate, and their second duty is to provide for all their child's needs. Your father sinned against you and against God. A child is not the property of their parent to dispense as they wish: 'Sons are a gift from the Lord', as it says in Psalm 127. To dishonour that gift is a grievous sin." Children were a blessing and to treat them otherwise was acting counter to God's wisdom and sinful. It was also something a great many Varia had done pro-bono work to rectify on various occasions, but that was a slightly different matter.

"How can I be a good father when my father _and_ the man who called himself that set such shitty examples?" Xanxus asked, a faintly plaintive note in his voice as he slipped into more informal diction, which indicated this was more important than the Varia Boss was otherwise willing to admit.

Gregori considered the question and its implications. It _might_ have been a generic theoretical query, but it was not; he could read it in his Boss's body language. This was a genuine, serious question requiring a straightforward, practical, biblical answer so that Xanxus could set about applying it to his life right away.

When and how his Boss had managed to have a child or even children could be investigated _after_ Gregori had answered the question; general advice concerning children would be the best place to start.

"First and foremost, children are a gift and blessing from God," the Sun began. "They are not yours to shape in your image, but placed in your care by God to love, nurture and provide for until they are old enough to set out upon the path God created them to walk. Do not show favouritism, act cruelly or curse them; instead educate them, bless them, discipline them, set a good example and provide for them according to your means. As Christians we are called to follow the Will of God first and foremost, but our second calling is to any children we have. Children come before any career or calling, even a spiritual calling; if a father cannot raise his children well, how can he hope to lead others?"

Xanxus snorted; Gregori knew perfectly well his words were an implicit criticism of Don Nono and that had been intentional. The man had done very badly by his family and the entire Vongola had suffered for it.

"When disciplining your children keep your objectives in mind," Gregori continued. "What do you want for them? What kind of adult do you want them to become? Which qualities and virtues do you want to foster? Ask yourself these questions, then ask yourself how your behaviour towards your children will encourage them to accomplish those objectives. Foster an atmosphere of acceptance, openness, honesty, forgiveness and love, so that your children can learn who they are and grow as God intended. You will make mistakes; you are human and fallible. When you fail, apologise to your children and ask their forgiveness; when they disrespect you discipline them for it, but always forgive them and do not hold grudges against them. Listen to them, learn from them, model appropriate behaviour to them and explain to them honestly why you do things in certain ways." That would hopefully be enough to begin with. "There are many passages in the bible which provide guidance for proper Christian parenting, and if you have any specific queries later on, I will do my best to answer them."

"Thank-you, Pastor," Xanxus murmured, his expression indicating deep thought. That suggested that the best way to get a truly _honest_ answer out of the Sky would be to ask now and not pry too deeply; something Gregori knew from experience. This was far from the first time Xanxus had come to him for advice.

"How is it you have been blessed with children, Xanxus?"

His Boss glanced up at him distractedly. "I married a week before my assault on the Iron Fort."

"Congratulations," Gregori said warmly, not asking for further details. Xanxus would withhold or share them as he chose.

"I… I don't know how to be a husband either," Xanxus admitted. "I mean, I'm _trying_ but Grandma was a widow, the Don was a widower and the only married couple I saw a lot of growing up were Maria-Chiara and Silvio, and he died when I was eight."

The Sky looked so _very_ young in that moment that Gregori's heart went out to him; unsaid but very clear was that his wife and child had aged in his absence, leaving him to do his best to fit himself into their lives after nearly six years which the Varia Boss had likely not even been aware of passing; Don Vongola had _severely_ wronged him there.

"The bible speaks a great deal on marriage and the respective duties of wives and husbands," Gregori began, "so I shall try and touch on the main points for you. Firstly, that as husband and wife, you are one flesh before God: you are inseparable on a spiritual level." This _did_ explain the slight but fundamental change in the feel of Xanxus' Flames, which Gregori _had_ thought might simply have been a lapse his in recollection of the younger man or a consequence of him no longer projecting his emotions to the world, but now knew that for all it had been a secret marriage, his Boss's union was nonetheless a true one. "So be faithful to her in all things. Secondly, the ideal relationship between a husband and his wife is modelled upon and models in turn the relationship between Christ and the Church. Ephesians 5 verse 28 says that 'husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.' As a husband you do _not_ have the right to command your wife's obedience; she is called to submit to you as the Church submits to Christ, but that is _her_ duty as a daughter of Christ and you cannot compel her. To do so would be sinful." Gregori paused again. "As brothers and sisters in Christ, all are called to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ and this is still true within marriage. You are still equals before Christ, so a marriage involves mutual service even though as husband you are the head of your family."

Xanxus nodded, scowling slightly in intent concentration.

"Other bible verses are Colossians 3 verse 19, 'Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them' and 1 Peter 3 verse 7, 'Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect'. Will that do as a start?"

"Thank-you," Xanxus said, still frowning. Gregori waited patiently. The minutes dragged out.

"Were there any other matters you wished to discuss today?" The priest asked eventually.

Xanxus shuffled slightly on the pew. "I… I found out yesterday that I am not actually human," he said quietly. "I have human blood, but it is less than a fifth of my total inheritance. My parents were related and both were similarly non-human; I have learned I have a large family and many of the social inclinations and attitudes we share are very different to the human norm. Looking back on my own childhood, knowing what I do now, I can see that I misinterpreted _many_ things based on a fundamentally different perception of the world." The sixteen-year-old swallowed hard. "I am not who I thought I was, Gregori. I am not mentally ill, or broken by my early experiences." A brief pause for breath; "I am not a monster, or any of the other things that were whispered of when people thought I was out of hearing range. I am just different. Fundamentally different, and I… I need to forgive myself for believing otherwise, and for hating myself for my inability to understand and conform."

Gregori reached out and placed his hand gently on Xanxus' shoulder. "You are a precious child of God regardless of your heritage," he said firmly. "Even if you _had_ been broken by your experiences, self-hatred is nonetheless sinful; all are equally broken and fallen before the Lord, yet all are equally loved as his sons and daughters. Speak your repentance to the Lord and he will forgive you, so that this burden can be lifted from your shoulders." How it was that there were other intelligent human-like species out there was a matter for another day, although the bible _did_ hint at such things; the Nephilim in Genesis 6 for instance.

"Lord God, I repent of my self-hatred," Xanxus said obediently, closing his eyes and slipping into Latin; "I thank you for the revelation of my true nature, and that I am as you created me to be."

"Amen," Gregori murmured, remaining in silence thereafter until Xanxus opened his eyes again. "The biblical guidance on the appropriate behaviour of a husband and father does not change simply because you are not fully human," the priest said firmly. "All that changes are the methods you select to achieve your goals in parenting your children and how you express your commitment and devotion to your wife. Communication is key, so whenever something goes wrong take a moment to pause, apologise for your part in the mistake and clarify your actions and intentions."

"I will; thank-you, Pastor," Xanxus murmured, rising to his feet. "I will be returning to the Varia in Quiet Week; please keep your silence until then."

"Of course, Boss," Gregori said fondly. "Will I see you again before then?"

"Perhaps," Xanxus conceded, his lips twitching as he let himself out of the room. Gregori remained behind; he had his own prayers to say and needed to take the time to reflect on what he had learned. There was quite a number of matters to come to terms with, all of which required careful thought and thorough consideration; 'changed family circumstances' indeed.

* * *

Xanxus materialised back in the front hall of his wife's house at half-past three in the afternoon, took a single unsteady step forwards then spun around and glared at Barty the Negotiator.

"You are utter shit at transportation," he told the Lightning bluntly.

Barty raised an eyebrow. "Apparition is a standard magical transport method."

"Then you all suck balls," Xanxus retorted. "I could list ten Mists off the top of my head that can do better than that, and each of them does it differently." Ten Mists who had survived his fake coup, the Varia Boss amended inside his head; if they were all still alive _now_ was another matter entirely. He still had a lot of reading to wade through.

The raised eyebrow twitched. "How?"

Xanxus shrugged; he didn't know how, he wasn't a Mist and before now he'd never been interested enough in transportation techniques to badger one for details. _Now_ however it was something for the list, because he was _never_ going to put up with that horrible sucked-through-a-straw feeling _ever_ again.

Recognising that an answer was not forthcoming, the blond Lightning rolled his eyes and wandered off; hopefully to hunt down a Mist so they could re-invent the wheel between them and come up with a better way of doing things. Xanxus then remembered that he didn't know where his wife's basement laboratory was, so now Barty had buggered off he couldn't find her. Yes, the bond did give him a general direction, but that was not very helpful in a Magical building where there were multiple layers of each floor.

Eh, who gave a shit. He could wander around the basement for a bit; he knew which layers the laboratories were on so it was just a matter of finding which specific one Dorea was in. Xanxus ambled off in the direction of the nearest downward staircase.

His feet ended up taking him to the basement chapel instead. Pausing on the threshold, Xanxus glanced around the empty room with its plain plastering and the stunning painted panels of saints hanging on the side walls then wandered in. He should probably take a little more time to collect himself before speaking to his wife, and they did have the rest of the afternoon to talk in since the kids wouldn't be back until just before bedtime.

He felt much better for talking to Gregori; up until now he'd felt like he was floundering in the dark as he tried not to fuck up his relationships with his wife and kids. Nobody had ever actually discussed marriage or parenting with him before –there'd been _far_ too many lectures on 'appropriately respectful filial behaviour' though– so he'd not had much to go on. He'd been working off 'communicate clearly, show affection, apologise promptly and try not to fuck up', which wasn't exactly helpful in the long run. Now however he had clear guidelines, actual goals and a few places to start looking things up in his own time as and when he felt the need. It was like the lights had come on and Xanxus was much more confident in his choices and options. He could do this.

Confessing his self-hatred and letting it go was also a massive relief, although _keeping_ it gone would take effort; he'd have to stay on top of that and not slip back into bad habits. He should read some of the other Zabini books too, because there'd definitely be more revelations there and they'd probably be helpful. The parenting book had clarified a whole pile of inter-personal shit that had always baffled him before now. To be honest it _still_ baffled him, but at least he had a framework to hang it in and sensible ways to interpret and respond to it.

So, what to do in the six weeks leading up to Quiet Week?

Well there was Socialite's wedding on Saturday, which he would be attending with his wife since Socialite was her Guardian and a fairly close friend. That would also be an opportunity to meet people she'd grown up with and who were part of this Constellation of hers yet weren't Guardians, so he'd need to be in good form and prepared to make polite conversation.

He also needed to meet more of his relatives, his sister in particular; Dorea had mentioned that his family were waiting for him to _want_ to meet them before all coming to visit –his aunt Silvia excluded, since helping him control his Allure had been considered _that_ urgent– but now he knew a bit more about his heritage and had got some reliable advice on how to be a husband and father Xanxus felt up to getting to know people who were related to him. He also had a Principality to run, but he was going to continue putting that off for the time being; his cousin Graziano reportedly did a good job and had been doing so since his actual father's wife had died nearly forty years ago now, so that wasn't likely to change.

Xanxus' main current priorities were catching up with the Varia paperwork –all six years of it, fuck him– and spending time with his wife, whom he owed a lot more of his time than she'd had so far. He needed to talk to her Guardians about setting up dates away from the house; possibly dates in Sabina, as that way he could get to know the place and spend time with her as well. Of course he wanted to learn about runes and wards and build himself a new pair of guns, but that wasn't really _urgent_. Important yes, but he probably wasn't going to need them until he went back to work and that was weeks away.

He should probably look into other branches of magic too, but spreading his attention too thinly would just result in nothing getting done at all, so he was going to put that off until _after_ he'd got his head around warding.

* * *

"Xanxus?"

The Varia Boss turned towards his wife's voice in the doorway and got to his feet, walking the length of the chapel and carefully wrapping an arm around her waist. "Love you," he murmured in her ear, relishing the shiver his actions elicited, "my lovely wife." He tugged on a curl, smirking as he remembered the conversation where he'd learned that her curls were a blatant declaration of how good he made her feel just by being there.

"You are in a _very_ good mood now," Dorea noted wryly, leaning into him with a degree of care that indicated she was still in pain. Xanxus could actually feel an echo of her pain through the marriage bond now they were close; he hadn't been able to feel anything that clear from her while talking to Gregori, so pain was probably a short-range awareness. That was a relief; he didn't want any injuries he might get on missions hurting her.

"Sorted some things out," Xanxus admitted; "got a few questions answered." He grinned toothily, "and I want those ward notes."

"Wait, you've memorised the _entire_ Atlantean primer _already_?"

"Mm-hm," Xanxus hummed, nodding as he tugged on that loose curl again. "Gimme."

Dorea's amusement spiked and she huffed an almost-chuckle. "Well, if you're _that_ keen, come on then." She turned around, forcing Xanxus to either move with her or let go. He chose to keep moving; letting go did not appeal right now.

"You're wonderful," he told her in English, then repeated the sentiment in Italian, French, German, Ancient Greek, Latin and Russian, just because he could.

"What's got into you?" his wife asked, eyes crinkling with amusement as warmth and joy bubbled up through their bond, overlaying and muffling the pain. "Did you get some good news while you were out?"

Xanxus shook his head. "Just dealt with some shit," he said truthfully, "and since the kids are out until bedtime, I want to spend the time with you." Attempting physical seduction when she was feeling sore and uncomfortable would be a really Stupid idea, but there was more to seduction than _just_ the physical; he was feeling playful all of a sudden and liked the idea of flustering his wife. It would distract her from her pain, get her to lower her emotional defences a little and give him a chance to get a better feel for her boundaries.

"I thought you wanted the ward notes," Dorea bantered back.

"Those too," Xanxus agreed with a crooked smirk. "But I can read them with you there, can't I?"

"You're incorrigible," his wife said wonderingly, happiness and attraction swirling through her Flames strongly enough that he could feel them directly as well as through the bond. The silk scarf around her neck had come a little loose so he could see the edges of the hickies he'd given her on Friday, which were fading into green around the edges already.

"I love you," Xanxus said again, because it bore repeating. The faint flush that painted itself across his wife's cheekbones was _very_ gratifying.

"I was going to play the piano," Dorea said, leaning into him slightly as they headed up the stairs to the ground floor.

"I'd like to listen to you play," Xanxus told her, letting her steer him along the hallway and up the semi-hidden staircase to the first floor; apparently the collected warding notes were in her personal library. He'd have to ask if he could poke about there some more later. He'd had music lessons as a teenager, which he'd hated quite honestly, but most of that hatred had been due to his teacher being a total asshole rather than Xanxus disliking music. He actually really _liked_ music and wasn't too bad at playing the violin either. Not that anyone in the Varia knew that, as he'd left the instrument behind upon abandoning the Iron Fort and hadn't had time for that kind of thing while setting up his supposed coup.

"Okay, I'll get out the notes and we can take them down the hall to the lavender music room," his wife said, her left hand absently gripping the top of his right hand where it was wrapped around her left hip. Xanxus rewarded the casual intimacy by pressing a kiss to her temple.

"Has somebody been slipping you amygdalin?" Dorea asked as she opened the door that led directly into her library.

"Isn't that a poison?" Xanxus _knew_ it was a poison, but he also knew he'd had a few ah, _atypical_ reactions to poisons during his first month as Varia Boss and that might have been one of them. Amygdalin; that was a form of cyanide wasn't it?

"For normal human beings, yes," his wife agreed, gently untangling herself from him and slipping between the shelves, "but in Zabini it generally induces mild euphoria. Aconite's another poison that has different effects on Zabini: it works as a mild painkiller when taken in doses lethal to regular people, although apparently it tends to make the dosed person rather uninhibited too."

"Is there a Zabini-specific herbal reference text?" It sounded like there was one and if so, he should definitely read it. Not being human meant that different things would be poisonous to him than were to regular people and accidentally poisoning himself would be Dumb. He was certain he could probably classify a few of his odder past reactions as resulting from his consuming things that were poisonous to him, since the effects had been practically identical to the symptoms of poisoning, minus the 'seizures and death' bit.

"There is but I don't have it; do you want one?"

"Please."

"I'll get the staff to bring one over then," Dorea said, emerging from behind the shelves at the far end of the room with a thick hardback book with lots of mis-sized sheets of paper peeking out of it at odd angles. "This is the Constellation's notes so far," she added, handing the volume over as soon as she got close enough; "as you can see, we've been updating it as we go along and somebody needs to add in the latest discoveries." She sighed. "I should probably get Leo to do it since he's been making a point of being _awkward_ lately."

Xanxus had an inkling of why Fool was being difficult but decided not to share; Suns got strange about things sometimes and it was probably to do with him somehow. He could always corner the flighty assassin-minded man later and see if being direct helped at all.

"Music room?" He asked instead.

"Yes, let's," Dorea said with a smile. Xanxus tucked the book under one arm, caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

"Lead on then."

Dorea fanned herself dramatically with her free hand, eyelids fluttering, before leading him out of the library, still holding his hand. Xanxus quickly moved up so he could walk beside her instead of trailing behind, easily falling into step with her. It was nice having a wife not that much shorter than he was; walking together was comfortable and kissing her was easy.

Which reminded him: he needed to sneak kisses more often.


	148. Chapter 148

Beta'd by the entertaining Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of moving forwards and close relatives **

Angelique, in her usual exuberant and deeply committed fashion, joined them for breakfast the very next morning; Dorea realised _now_ that she should probably have specified a time when writing to her sort-of aunt to let her know that her brother wanted to see her, but it was too late for that by this point. Thankfully Angelique was currently monopolising her niece and nephews' attention rather than attempting to draw any of the adults at the table into conversation, which was a relief because the Guardians keeping her company today were Padma, Hermione, Odile and Millie, not one of whom was by any stretch of the imagination a morning person. Padma and Hermione could fake it best though.

As this was Odile and Hermione's first appearance at the breakfast table in over a month, Dorea was more than a little suspicious of their motives. Generally speaking, Odile would join Dorea for tea once a week, to discuss the twins' ongoing education so Dorea could make suggestions or agree to outings; breakfast was usually reserved for abrupt changes of plan or to nip impending misbehaviour in the bud.

As Odile was eyeing Xanxus over her morning hot chocolate rather than one of the children, Dorea suspected this was a Cloud-thing. Which might also explain Hermione, but then again it really did _not_ because so far as Dorea had managed to work out, Hermione's Territory encompassed Justice, Social Equality and Moral Rectitude, which was why they'd never managed to form a substantial Guardian bond. Oh they respected each-other and valued each-other's skills and perspective –Dorea was always very verbally effusive about Hermione's achievements because the other woman was _brilliant_– but they didn't 'click', as Leo had so aptly put it. They weren't _invested_ in each-other's successes, because they didn't actually have enough in common for that to happen, which was why they were ever so slowly drifting apart and had been since they'd completed the restructuring of Magical Britain. Hermione only lived in the Sicily Estate because it was convenient and that it was where her husband and Padma preferred to be, but if she'd had a house of her own with George the driven young lawyer would have been just as happy there.

Hermione was currently dividing her attention between a letter and the top few pages of a short stack of files while spooning cereal into her mouth, apparently oblivious to her fellow diners. Being able to concentrate while eating despite the shrill enthusiasm of small people was a skill Hogwarts instilled in its more studious alumni, as otherwise it was impossible to do _anything_ at all except eat during mealtimes.

Millie was slowly eating a shredded brioche and keeping half an eye on Hector, which involved poking spoons-full of porridge into his mouth at regular intervals and confiscating the bowl whenever he tried to stick his hand in it, which was happening regularly because there was only one of Angelique and the twins were far more verbal than Hector, meaning they were more successful in keeping her attention on them. Her youngest had not yet decided this was grounds for a tantrum, but Dorea knew that might change at any moment.

Padma was utterly absorbed in her own meal, although she too had a stack of unopened letters by her place, indicating that a whole lot of people had all decided to write at once. Dorea suspected her husband's recent introduction to Magical Society to be the cause of the flurry of correspondence, but there were likely other forces at work as well. She herself had a thick stack of letters waiting by her place for once the children had left for lessons.

Xanxus was cradling his coffee and staring intensely at his half-sister, his generous breakfast of yogurt, honeycomb, kippers, poached eggs and freshly baked rye bread long since demolished; he appeared to have moved past yesterday's emotional storm, but Dorea felt that was more a matter of her husband's ability to focus than a sign of complete recovery. Her own breakfast this morning involved fresh muffins and marmite, but she was eating much more slowly than usual so she hadn't finished yet, despite having far less on her plate than usual. Today was another 'fragile day', as she had dubbed them to her children, and Thursday probably would be too. Hopefully by Friday she would be feeling better again.

* * *

The happy babble of children talking over and to each-other while being doted on was a more-or-less comfortable accompaniment as she carefully waded through what was left of her breakfast. That the babble was not in English was just one more thing Dorea had got used to since being folded into the Zabini royal family; it was expected that her children would speak Italian and Sabine, although it was preferable that they also learn the ancient Atlantean dialect that most of the country's original and proprietary magic was written in. Dorea was herself in the process of learning the language, which used Greek script despite not being even slightly similar in grammar or lexicon. Indeed it had absolutely nothing in common with _any_ spoken language Dorea had ever learned before, although it did of course have a lot in common with Atlantean runic script, since they were both created by the same people. How the runes were pronounced verbally did not however have _anything_ in common with the names Dorea had learned them under, which didn't help, although she had managed to confirm that the large number of runes connected to 'spirituality' or 'temperament' were indeed Flame-specific, which tallied with what the Constellation had learned through trial and error.

Generally the various Zabini who visited used Sabine when talking to the children and discussing Sabina-specific things, but slipped into Standard Italian for things pertaining to wider magical and mundane society. Indeed, only the higher echelons of Sabina's political hierarchy and those who traded outside the Principality bothered with Standard Italian at all; none of the domestic staff she had been provided with spoke it, although they understood it since Sabine and Italian were mutually intelligible… mostly. Dorea had picked up a lot of Sabine off Blaise while growing up, thinking it was regular Italian –which now punctuated her speech in amusing and unpredictable ways– and her children were growing up bilingual because Nanny Sofia spoke it exclusively.

Xanxus' intense stillness and deceptively relaxed posture as he observed his children interacting with his sister were what Dorea was coming to recognise as his 'listening face', a sign he was paying close attention and taking in everything he could see, hear and sense to then pick apart, categorise and ask questions about. He really _had_ memorised the entire Altantean Primer in less than a day; he'd been able to read all the runes in the compendium the Constellation had put together and had even singled out the combinations which _shouldn't_ have worked, yet did because Flames changed the rules a bit. He'd also commented on how various combinations changed with the addition of Flames, and speculated how other combinations might function differently based on what was known.

She'd got so caught up discussing things that she hadn't actually sat at the piano for very long, instead trying out a few of his suggestions –with her husband supplying the Flames since he could separate out most of the different elements that made up his own Sky Harmony– and taking notes of the various effects with such enthusiasm that she hadn't realised how late it was getting until Marius and Cassie showed up at the door of her office in their pyjamas, wanting bedtime stories from their Papa and looking all disapproving that they'd had to come _find_ him to ask. Xanxus had thrown her under the hippogriff without a qualm and told the twins that 'Mama was distracting me', but he'd done so with a knowing smirk and a dark note in his voice that said he'd been enjoying every single second of that distraction. That had made her think back and remember every moment she'd leaned into him to point out a section or diagram in the compendium, all the times she'd stolen the pen and had him curl his hand over hers to channel Flames into the ink, each time he'd asked a provocative question and watched intently as she got caught up in answering, delight and interest sparkling with mischief through the marriage bond…

… She'd blushed, not that he'd been in the room to see it. He'd _known_ though, and he'd made sure she knew he knew over the early dinner they'd shared with Blaise, Barty, Leo and Trish by watching her with warm, fond eyes, occasionally brushing his arm against hers as they sat next to each-other and somehow slipping off one of his boots to play footsie under the table. Dorea knew very well that her awareness of –and interest in– anything remotely sexual evaporated completely when she was on her period, but she'd still enjoyed the attention and the distraction. Xanxus had brushed up against the limits of her comfort a few times, but he'd instantly backed off each time and not pushed.

Leo had spent most of the meal in uncharacteristic silence, watching her sideways from under his lashes with a faintly amused smirk on his face as Blaise, Trish and Barty discussed how 'recent events' had disrupted the sparring schedule and how they needed to get everybody back on track, which had led into explaining said schedule to Xanxus when he asked about it and from there into a discussion of small-group tactics and battle pairings that had dragged in both her and Leo, stretched out well past the end of the meal and probably would have continued well into the night had Dorea not been feeling tired and begged off shortly before ten to go to bed. Xanxus had accompanied her, not making any excuses at all and had offered to carry her the moment they were out of sight of her Guardians. Being tired, sore and moderately uncomfortable, Dorea had accepted and been very gently and considerately swept off her feet and carted off to bed in a bridal carry, which had been completely wonderful. She'd even managed to give her husband a thank-you kiss when he set her down in her dressing room and called for one of the ladies-in-waiting to help her change for bed.

He _had_ been willing to make himself scarce overnight, but Dorea had made it _very_ clear that she was _not_ going to exile her very warm and comforting husband from her bed at the time of the month when she felt the cold most acutely –which had made him laugh– so he'd just wrapped himself around her with a little more care than usual before falling asleep. It had taken Dorea a little longer than usual to follow Xanxus into dreamland, but she'd been comfortable as she drifted off and that was what mattered.

* * *

Xanxus had a sister. Another sister; Maria-Chiara was still his sister after all, blood be damned. _This_ sister however was very _obviously_ his sister because she looked just like him; not _exactly_ like him of course, but their skin was the same shade of pale olive and they had the same cheekbones, eyelashes, eyebrows, forehead, mouth and ears. The differences in the nose, hands, neck and chin were probably purely gender-related, as they were subtle but likely to become more prominent as Xanxus finished growing into himself. The most obvious differences were in eye-colour –Angelique Zabini had hazel eyes, shimmering green and gold mingling with bronze– and hair; his sister's hair was dark brown rather than true black and all ringlets bouncing around her neck, although Xanxus wasn't entirely sure those were natural. His own hair had a bit of lift to it, but it didn't curl at all and his mother's hair hadn't either. Blaise had curls, but he'd learned yesterday that Blaise's paternal grandfather was Sudanese so his brother-in-law had probably inherited them from that side of the family, along with his slightly darker skin.

Watching her dote on his children in the dialect the staff all spoke and seeing them chatter back was… interesting. Especially since Xanxus was becoming ever more certain that body language played an actual formal part of speech, based on the way his sister tilted her head at certain moments, certain finger twitches and how both the twins had their hands up above the edge of the table and gesturing rather than in their laps, as tended to be the case when they spoke English. They were copying their mother there; Dorea tended to keep her hands still when speaking and be very sedate and controlled, unless he managed to goad her out of her well-trained aristocratic calm. Then she became all waving hands and breathtaking vibrancy.

His wife had a beautiful, unconventional mind and Xanxus wanted to find out more about how she thought, which would mean more verbal poking; he was looking forward to it and not just because of the unconscious snuggling she did with her Flames when trying to explain something. Xanxus suspected that his wife had found a way to use Harmony to teach people things, getting others to see things _her_ way rather than adjusting her own perspective to find a shared viewpoint. It was subtle and gentle, but it still held the potential for manipulation. Actually, Dorea probably _had_ weaponised persuasiveness what with being a political figure and having run a country for several years; what he was sensing was just the friendly version, which was admittedly very enjoyable and not just because if he let himself follow the nudge he could 'see' her angle, then pushing back a little let him 'show' her his. He very much wanted to discuss every possible subject under the sun with her, just to get a feel for her mind and the way she saw the world.

His sister on the other hand… she was very much the killer he had always been accused of being, except unlike him she very clearly considered the opinions of others to not be worthy of her time and consideration. This was who she was and what she did; people could suck it up and deal with it, or go elsewhere. She wasn't going to change. That she wore peacock feathers and wore them _right_, a little fan of them clipped to the small bun at her crown to frame her face like an array of watchful, judging eyes, said a lot.

He wondered who had wronged his sister, to have her wear her accusation and implicitly acknowledge how deeply it had affected her. He also wondered what kind of connections she had, because anybody wearing peacock feathers had to know all kinds of interesting people.

That she was a Latent but strongly Misty Storm was in itself grounds for respect and caution, but Xanxus was Varia Boss and knew all about dangerous people. He was more interested in finding out how much they might have in common and what exactly his sister considered 'normal' behaviour to be. Normal was cultural, and the Zabini reading he'd memorised so far suggested that Zabini normal was well out on the fringe of regular human normal, if significantly less divorced from European Wizard normal.

* * *

"_Such clever little vulturelings!_" Angelique exclaimed, reaching out to ruffle Cassie's fringe. "_Will I get to see your work?_"

Marius nodded eagerly, his own fringe flopping along to his movements. "_Mama has our pictures on the wall of her office and in her sitting room,_" the five-year-old said earnestly. "_I did one of the bull that killed Mr von Lichnowsky in March._"

Angelique laughed. "_I will definitely have to look at that then! Show me?_"

"_Mama, may we?_" Marius asked, turning beseeching eyes to Dorea.

"_Have you finished eating, my little prince?_" Dorea asked, green eyes meeting her son's grey.

"_Yes, Mama._"

"_So have I, Mama,_" Cassie agreed, quickly straightening her plate and bowl in front of her.

"_Then yes, you may show your aunt your pictures before lessons,_" Dorea agreed, a small smile playing around her mouth and slightly incredulous amusement shimmering along the marriage bond. Xanxus wondered who Mr von Lichnowsky had been exactly that there being a picture of him being killed by a bull was something Marius thought his aunt should see; clearly there was some family subtext here.

The twins were out of their chairs in an instant, dashing around the table to hover impatiently by their aunt and grabbing her by the hand and leading the way out of the breakfast room as soon as she was on her feet, Cassie babbling all the while about the pictures _she_ had drawn for Mama recently.

"Explain the bull?" He asked as soon as his older kids and sister were out of the room.

"Mr von Lichnowsky was your sister's ninth husband," Lawyer said briskly without looking up from her papers. "Like his predecessors, he met with a fatal accident within a few years of marrying her; in this specific case gored to death while participating in a running of the bulls on holiday in Spain this spring."

"Most of Magical Europe calls Angelique 'the Black Widow'," Dorea added wryly, "not that it has in any way reduced the number of men willing to marry her."

"Sabina takes tremendous pride in her accomplishments," Governess went on idly. "There's even an operetta and a play both called 'the Black Widow' in her honour, telling the story of her first husband's death and how she avenged him by marrying, murdering and bankrupting his killers."

"Blaise really _hates_ that play," Executioner added pensively; "too many bad memories."

"So this Mr von Lichnowsky..?" Xanxus inquired carefully.

"No, no; she ran out of conspirators four husbands back," Lawyer said, gesturing with her empty teacup. "She does it for fun these days." The curly-haired woman's tone was somewhat disapproving but mostly resigned. "Of course there's never any _proof_ of foul play, but nine dead husbands in less than twenty years is rather suggestive, especially since she never seems to care about them dying on her."

Well, yes that _was_ very suggestive; that Sabina thought it made her a national hero rather than just a serial killer was the interesting bit, even if she _was_ royalty. "Sabina considers that socially acceptable?"

"It's not like she's hiding what happened to her previous husbands," Dorea said dryly, eyeballing him over her mint tea. "It is felt that anybody marrying her knows _exactly_ what they are letting themselves in for, so while the deaths are always properly investigated the lack of evidence of Angelique's culpability in any of them means she is free to continue accepting marriage proposals. Some people may well think she is simply very, very unlucky, many believe her to be Cursed but nobody who suspects her of murder has ever been able to prove anything." She sipped her drink. "That all her previous husbands have left her the entirety of their liquid assets as well as everything not otherwise entailed was simply them looking out for her welfare, after all. I'm sure their families understood."

Xanxus was a Varia assassin, so he could appreciate a good murder. Untraceable murder, financial ruin _and_ blatant, shameless freedom to continue twisting the social order to your advantage was good if you could get it; apparently it even ran in the family. "A play?" He asked instead.

"We could go see it," Dorea suggested, eyebrows arching playfully. "There's a royal box kept open at all the performances at the Sabina Royal Theatre _and_ at the Royal Opera House, so you just have to decide whether you want to see it sung or acted first. The songs in the operetta are very good," she added judiciously.

"You've seen it?"

"No; Gaetano –one of the body-doubles– is a violinist, so he played and sang them for me one time," Dorea explained. "They're very catchy and the lyrics are quite interesting."

Xanxus nodded; it sounded like it might be a fun evening out. "Are there more historical plays?" He did need to learn more about Sabina after all.

"There's a massive repertoire," Secretary said softly, glancing up at him. "I think Blaise once said it would take four years to get through the entire collection of plays that have been guaranteed as historically accurate, even if you put on a different play every evening, six days a week non-stop each year."

That was well over a thousand plays; closer to one and a quarter thousand, even. "Are the scripts available to read?"

Governess made a dismissive sound. "Of course they are; they're educational. Schools all have the full collection; they are studied by poets, historians and dramatists alike and are very popular reading material for people of all ages." She smiled thinly. "I intend to start the twins on them soon, to improve their diction and elocution."

Xanxus couldn't keep himself from bristling at the Cloud's tone and glared across the table at her. "What language?" He gritted out.

Governess watched him seethe. "Sabine, mainly," she said lightly. "From plays like 'the Black Widow' in modern Sabine, to ones like 'the City Walls' which was written in the fifth century AD in middle Sabine, which is closer to Greek and Latin."

Okay, so he would probably be able to read them without too much trouble. That Cloud was _really_ rubbing him the wrong way though; Xanxus really, _seriously_ wanted to chuck a fireball at her, just to see what would happen.

"Crocodile." Dorea's voice cut the building tension with deceptive sweetness.

"Yes Rhea?" Governess replied mildly; another nickname for the governess? If so if definitely fit, better than 'Governess' did, although the angular blonde _did_ remind Xanxus of a couple of his more annoying childhood tutors. That 'Rhea' was a nickname for his wife was new, but it did fit in with the other informal nicknames like 'Dee' and 'Zee'.

"Please save the vitriol until Tracy clears my husband for sparring."

The change was immediate; all the wordless scorn and dismissiveness evaporated. "How long will that take?" Crocodile asked, fluttering her eyelashes hopefully at Dorea.

"Monday," Xanxus growled; he was already cleared for training and so on, but Matron had wanted to give him time to stretch his scars and reacquaint himself with his body's limits before letting him fight other people.

"I'll arrange for the children to have lessons from somebody else on Monday then," Crocodile said comfortably. "Have Blaise take them to see a matinee performance of a historical play perhaps."

"If you think Blaise is going to agree to be elsewhere when Xanxus gives his first combat showing then you have another think coming," Lawyer said coolly. "You'd be better off strong-arming Bastiano into doing it; Cassie likes him and would be delighted for an opportunity to tell a new audience all about how wonderful her Papa is."

Xanxus was pretty sure Lawyer was being completely straightforward and not at all sarcastic there, so he very firmly stomped on the urge to snarl at her over her word choice.

"I wouldn't mind going to the theatre with them," Secretary interceded with a small smile. "One of the smaller amateur theatre groups does modern translations of the older plays and there's the Thirty Minute History Project, which have a royal grant to summarise the action and makes it more accessible to under-elevens."

The atmosphere around the table settled as both Clouds seemed to remember where they were and who else was present. Lawyer poured herself another cup of tea, Governess produced a notebook and leaned towards Secretary to discuss timing and Executioner asked Xanxus which weapons he was best with, Hector now in her lap and grabbing at her necklace.

"Guns," the Varia Boss said shortly.

"Oh, like Hermione then," Executioner said, nodding at Lawyer who was ignoring everybody else again in favour of her notes. "Is that a personal preference?"

Lawyer used guns? Executioner seemed to be implying she was the _only_ one who used guns, which was interesting. "Yes," Xanxus said, then added, "I do well enough with knives as well."

"Oh, Daphne will like that," Executioner said with a grin; "she's our only knife-fighter, as Leo doesn't really count since he uses everything he can get his hands on. Sparring with you is going to be fun."

Xanxus was saved having to answer by his sister reappearing with the kids, who both wanted hugs before heading off to their lessons. When Governess had left with Marius and Cassie Xanxus expected the others to vanish too, but they did not. In fact Lawyer pushed her plate decisively to one side and moved the largely untouched stack of letters in front of her. To her right Secretary did likewise and Executioner got to her feet, toddler balanced easily on her hip.

"Right then little man, it's time to give your Mama and Papa a kiss so we can go exploring in the gardens!" The Lightning said cheerily.

Hector cheered. "We fine ivi'bul horsie, Mama!"

"Well, when you find them ask at the kitchen door and they'll give you food for them," Dorea said, catching her youngest child's hand as he leaned into her and exchanging kisses. Xanxus wondered if there _were_ actual invisible horses in the grounds –fucking magic meant it wasn't impossible– kissed his son and then tried to work out what the hell was going on today that needed a Cloud, a Rain, his wife and his sister to hang around at the breakfast table together.

"_Good morning, little brother!_" Angelique said in Sabine as soon as Executioner and Hector were out of the door, slouching forwards in her seat with her elbows on the table and smiling dazzlingly at him.

"_Hello, sister,_" Xanxus replied in Sicilian, pretty much for the hell of it. His sister laughed; it was loud, unladylike and a disturbingly familiar sound coming from somebody he'd never even seen before.

"_You're a treasure, little brother,_" she finally managed, still grinning widely, "_and I look forward to getting to know you._" She switched to English. "Now tell me all about your little jaunt to England; why did nobody tell me my baby brother was off to conquer his lovely wife's home country on her behalf?"

"I don't think it counts as conquest, Angelique," Secretary said brightly, "as he wasn't doing it as Prince of Sabina. He was there as Lord Potter after all; if he'd been in the Black seat things would have been different."

Xanxus frowned; that was new information. "Different how?"

"You are not and cannot be Lord Black," Lawyer said bluntly, looking up from her papers, "so in the Black seat you would either be present as the Black Proxy, with no more or less authority than any other proxy, or using it as a platform from which to declare your own personal rank; which in this case would be that of Prince of Sabina, so you would be acting as the leader of another nation while addressing the highest legal body of Magical Britain. The implications would have been very different."

"Like I want to rule that circus," Xanxus growled. The Varia was his to rule by choice and conquest, Sabina was his by blood and right but Britain was Dorea's headache to put up with unless the morons there got it into their heads that he'd let them upset his wife again.

"Taste too," Angelique teased. "About time we had a real man running the country."

"Graziano doesn't count?" Dorea asked with a half-smile.

"Beh," Angelique waved a hand dismissively, "he doesn't _run_ Sabina; he just manages it. You've been running it in my dear brother's absence –very well may I add– but it's not your passion, _cara_. I have hopes it could become _yours_ though," she added, looking Xanxus in the eye again, "so please give your family a chance, hm? We're not all as completely useless as Father and your maternal grandfather, I promise."

Xanxus snorted, realising bemusedly that he _liked_ his sister. She was dangerous and unapologetic and utterly magnificent; the Varia would get a kick out of meeting her too, Luss in particular. And the idea of _that_ meeting made him want to snigger, because they'd probably go clothes shopping and traumatise everybody who got within hearing range.

"Sure," was what he actually said, unable to smother the grin.

"Wonderful!" Angelique sang, throwing her arms out like an opera singer. "Now, what is it you are loitering for, dear?" She asked, turning to Lawyer.

"It's about the letters, Dorea," Lawyer said, looking past Angelique to catch her Sky's eye. "One of them is a bit odd so I wanted to ask you about it."

"Odd how?" Dorea asked, looking up properly from one of her own letters and setting it aside.

"Well, I _think_ it's from Emma and Romilda's mother, you know, the Vane girls?" Lawyer said fiddling with her quill. "She's asking for legal assistance."

"Ah, yes," Dorea smiled; it was the unholy smile of somebody really _enjoying_ somebody else's embarrassment. "Madam Carmen; I was wondering when she'd cash in her favour."

Lawyer went pink. "Rhea, why do you owe a favour to the owner of a _bondage club?_"

Angelique _cackled_. "The owner of 'Carmen's'? _Cara_ you've been holding out on me!"

"She is a business acquaintance," Dorea said innocently, placing a hand on her chest. "I'm quite sure I don't know _what_ you're implying, either of you."

"Madan Carmen runs Magical Britain's most infamous sex club," Secretary said blandly, "and has a sideline in, er, leather accessories. I didn't know the Potter family invested in leather goods." Xanxus thought he could see a blush creeping up under her darker complexion.

"Wrong family," Dorea said with a glint in her eye. Xanxus settled back in his chair to better enjoy the spectacle; Lawyer was very red now, his sister looked like Christmas had come early and Secretary had just very deliberately covered her eyes with one hand.

"Why did I ask?" Secretary sighed. "Of _course_ the Blacks put money into encouraging the vices of their peers; how else do you blackmail them?"

"How indeed?" his wife said brightly, that incredibly evil and very sexy grin still all over her face. "Madam Carmen originally approached my great-aunt, you understand, who ensured the relevant permits were provided speedily and supplied a suitable property. The Blacks still own the building of course; Madam Carmen pays rent on a quarterly basis. She very agreeably allowed Great-Aunt Cassiopeia to set up surveillance charms in the various suites in exchange for lower rates."

Lawyer closed her eyes; Secretary's jaw dropped along with the hand on her face, revealing a considerable blush.

"You never wondered how my father managed to shame, ruin and bankrupt so many of Riddle's supporters?" Dorea asked mildly. "Yes, Narcissa helped with the logistics and timing but the really juicy secrets were all supplied by my aunt."

"The aunt you named our daughter after," Xanxus clarified, because this old lady sounded like somebody _Nonna_ would have got a kick out of meeting. But he wouldn't even be able to _tell_ her about his daughter or said daughter's namesake; ow.

"Yes, that aunt; she raised me," Dorea clarified. "Anyway, Madam Carmen was also very forthcoming during the war, but she lost a lot of her customers in the aftermath and the man she was mistress to was a Death Eater so she isn't getting any money from him anymore either, so in return for her generosity I agreed to a favour."

"She was a mistress?" Lawyer repeated slowly. "That… explains things. Lots of things."

"About Emma and Romilda, you mean?" Secretary asked. "It certainly explains a _lot_ about Romilda…"

"Oh, it gets better," Dorea said wickedly. "You see, she was mistress to _Lord Parkinson._"

Lawyer's quill dropped from nerveless fingers.

"Wait, Emma and Romilda are Pansy's _half-siblings?_" Secretary said faintly. Dorea nodded.

"This explains a _lot_ about Pansy," Lawyer muttered, apparently to herself, "including why she really _hated_ people like me; I didn't consider it might be personal."

"Millie told me Pansy was aware right from her first year that her father was paying for his mistress's children to go to Hogwarts," Dorea explained, "but she thought her father's mistress was a Muggle based on what Lady Parkinson let drop in her hearing."

"Except that Madam Carmen is Muggleborn, so Emma and Romilda count as halfbloods," Secretary continued. "So she missed them."

"Which is why Madam Carmen Vane is writing to ask me to petition the new Lord Parkinson for 'appropriate magical training'," Lawyer finished. "I'm guessing one or other of them has developed a Family aptitude." Xanxus could hear the capital letter there.

"Probably Romilda," Secretary said. "She was always remarkably good at wearing down people's better judgement."

"Ha! Yes, that _does_ sound like the Parkinsons," Dorea muttered, shaking her head. "She was one of Blaise's Hellions, wasn't she?"

"Romilda? No, she was a year older than the Hellions; one of Neville's Headaches," Secretary said, smiling a little. "Far, far too good at getting herself into places she shouldn't be, putting other people in compromising positions and getting out scot-free. She graduated last summer."

"And I shudder to think what she's been getting up to since then," Lawyer added under her breath.

"In the Constellation then?" Xanxus asked, just to double-check.

"Mm-hm," Secretary agreed, Lawyer now completely focused on her correspondence once more; "not Flame-Active, thankfully, although she certainly had the Will for it. Just very small reserves, so she decided she couldn't be bothered with the effort it would take and focused on Mind-magic instead."

"Which was also illegal back then," Dorea said amusedly, "but slightly less horrifically illegal than soul-related magic, which Flames were considered to be." She paused. "Need anything else, Hermione?"

"No, I'll take it from here," Lawyer said absently. "I don't mind taking this on _pro bono_."

"I'll see you later then; Xanxus, _Zia_, want to join me in my office? I've got some letters finish reading and reply to, but you could discuss which places in Sabina we should visit now I can't make excuses anymore."

"That sounds lovely, _Cara_," Angelique said warmly. "Shall we, little brother?"

Xanxus shrugged and got to his feet. If Dorea was going to write letters for a bit he could maybe ask his sister what kind of places he could take Dorea to on a date; he hadn't forgotten his promise to woo her properly and he needed to get started. This way he could at least talk to someone who knew the area and having his wife nearby meant he could get her opinion of various potential locations and events.

* * *

Translations 

Cara = dear, darling (f)(Italian)

Nonna = grandmother (Italian)

Zia = aunt (Italian)

pro bono = 'for [the public] good' (Latin); legal terminology for a case taken on without charging a fee


	149. Chapter 149

Beta'd by the resilient Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of discovery and responsibility **

Dorea did not actually have _that_ many letters today; she'd dealt with far more of them on Tuesday while her husband was out, committing herself along the way to taking tea socially with various fellow Ladies and Constellation members of the female persuasion more than just twice a month. She was probably going to have to take up her Aunt's Thursday tea tradition, which would require negotiation with both her children and her husband since such a thing would start around three and continue until nearly seven, local time. She should probably take the opportunity to start the twins on dance lessons; they were old enough for the starter classes and it would be a suitably structured environment for them to meet their future Hogwarts peers at instead of just their Zabini cousins.

She needed to get the twins started on other languages too, so maybe Monday, Tuesday or Friday afternoons could be spent on Russian or Atlantean, since as Zabini they had the right to learn it. Maybe do both; she'd have to schedule a morning a week to take over their lessons in Astronomy and the basics of Black Family magic to make up for the alteration, but she needed to do that anyway now they were five so it wouldn't be a problem. The problem would be Hector, although maybe not: it _was_ acceptable to have a small child crawling round underfoot during tea, so long as they entertained themselves, and now he was toddling Hector could entertain himself for hours so long as there were a few adults he liked in the room. It would also enable her guests to bring their own small children, so Hector could get used to having peers around as well. Hector had already proven quite attached to certain people, so hopefully having friends of his own would make him more independent and less fussy.

Setting things up with Xanxus would probably be trickier, as he had already made it clear he wanted to spend as much time with her possible despite his other responsibilities and Thursday afternoons would become a time where they would definitely _not_ be together. Arranging matters so they had at least one day a week –preferably two– where they could go out and do things together without the children would help, and since she _was_ planning to fill a couple of her children's afternoons with language lessons…

She should probably get Aunt Lucretia to teach the twins more Chinese as well since they weren't hearing and speaking it on a weekly basis with Fēng and his ward at the moment, even though said Aunt was very old and frail now. Andromeda had taken her aside for a private word last Christmas to confide that she didn't think the Lady Prewett had much more than another year in her, which made Dorea want to cry when she thought about it so she was trying not to, partly because Uncle Iggy was likely to follow soon after. Great-Aunt Callidora had died shortly after Hector was born, Great-Aunt Cedrella was still hanging on and constantly inviting Ginny to visit –which suggested she didn't think she had much time left either– and Uncle Marius had slowed down noticeably, although he was still in excellent health and keeping as active as he could.

She still had all her cousins though, so that was something. In fact today's longest letter was even _from_ a cousin: Leo and Trish's brother Gregory, who had decided against applying to be History Professor at Hogwarts after finishing his Mastery in favour of doing extensive historical research on Dorea's behalf in both the Magical and Muggle world. The results so far had been enlightening.

* * *

Blaise had laughed long and hard when Dorea had asked his opinion on the first use of Death's ring that had sprung to her mind; he hadn't explained _why_, but he'd assured her he agreed it was an excellent idea and promised to be both informative and entertaining. Dorea _still_ didn't know why he'd laughed when she told him she wanted to summon the shades of her ancestors and see what they could learn of history from them, corroborating their stories with existing evidence and using it to put other sources together and possibly find lost Wizarding Estates and caches; it would _work_! It _was_ working! Gregory and his team of fellow enthusiasts –a Muggleborn Wizard and three squibs, two of whom were archaeologists and one that had studied History at Muggle University– had in the past two years managed to trace her mother's bloodline all the way back to the Founding of Hogwarts and Salazar Slytherin himself!

The quartet weren't interested in her paternal bloodlines yet, as the Potter and Black Families both had very clear and easily accessible Family trees all the way back to Roman times and the Black one actually went back _further_, but they had been curious about how exactly she'd managed to be Lady Slytherin so they'd started with her mother's shade and worked their way backwards, usually having her summon three or four shades at a time for efficiency's sake then following up the information in the Archives and Muggle historical records for corroboration. It wasn't like you could cite the shade of the dead person in a history treatise after all.

Gregory had wanted to start by summoning Slytherin and work their way _forwards_, but it turned out that Dorea could only summon people by name and 'Salazar Slytherin' was not actually said Founder of Hogwarts' actual name. A quick test had proved that Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff were also not proper names, so backwards had been their only option. They were probably learning more this way, at least.

Her grandmother's maiden name was Iris Gaunt, which had already been a very clear sign of where Dorea's Slytherin heritage could have come from, but Gregory had insisted on doing things _properly_ since some of the old British lineages had female primogeniture as well as male, so they had traced her grandmother's maternal line as well as her paternal one. It had been a hunch that paid off: where Dorea's maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather had turned out to be an illegitimate squib older sibling of Marvolo Gaunt –making her mother Riddle's second cousin once removed– there was an unbroken line of firstborn daughters going back to seventeen thirty, when Eschiva Gaunt was born a squib and firstborn daughter to Foelke Gaunt.

Eschiva had fled her family upon discovering she couldn't wield a wand, so survived when her cousin Corvinus later murdered all their respective parents and married her younger sister in order to claim the Slytherin inheritance as his own, assuming that a 'mere squib' couldn't inherit the Family magic. That had also been the beginning of the Gaunt tendency to marry close relatives, as before then the inheriting firstborn daughter had simply bonded with her oldest brother as a blood-sibling, so that the eldest daughter born to either would inherit the Family Magic and could in turn bond in blood-siblinghood with the next Lord Gaunt, thus keeping the magic firmly in the family without resorting to incest. Oh, there'd been the occasional marriage between second- or third-cousins if the Lady-line and Lord-line drifted that far apart, but that wasn't so unusual a distance between spouses at the time.

Following the line back further had revealed that the Gaunts had been a Muggle line before Drahomíra Kyne had married into them in the eleventh century to preserve her Family's hold on their traditional lands following the Norman invasion, so from there they had followed the Kyne Family back another two hundred years to 'Salahazar of Kyne', who had been married to his third cousin Amalasuntha the Lady of Kyne; the Lord of Kyne had been Amalasuntha's brother, in the Celtic tradition of women inheriting the land and the brother of the heiress being the war leader. That did explain how the Gaunts could claim to be 'descended from Salazar Slytherin' despite the Family Magic being handed down through female primogeniture; the marriage produced two daughters and three sons before Salazar so much as met the other founders, and two of his sons later went on to attend the school using their father's nickname in the place of their Family name.

That was as far as Gregory's team had got last time they'd visited to talk to ghosts and they had all been looking forward to looking up Amalasuntha and her ancestresses in the hope of finding out where the Kyne Family lands were exactly –other than 'somewhere in the former fens of Lincolnshire'– so Dorea could access them.

Except it seemed they'd got a little side-tracked.

* * *

… _progress and successes have been noticed by a number of colleagues, some of whom have been asking about our sources. I deflected them with mentions of private Family libraries, but the Founders' Era is a very popular research subject and we have noticeably expanded the number of sources considered relevant to Salazar's background simply by being seen consulting them and comparing to our own data. The Historians' Association approached me the morning after your husband's intervention at the Wizengamot to offer membership to myself and my chosen associates, regardless of magical prowess, in return for 'comparable data on the other three Founders, if such exists, so that others may verify or discard their hypotheses and to expand our understanding of the time period'. My colleagues would very much like this to happen, as it would set a precedent for squibs to become members of the Association, but they recognise that the decision lies with you._

Dorea set the letter she'd been re-reading down again and pondered the implications. Expanding the social opportunities for squibs in Britain was vitally necessary –it wasn't like being unable to wield a wand made a person incapable of using their brain– and going into Herbology, Potions, Creature care and Runes was still perfectly possible, if not easy due to a dearth of educational facilities prepared to take them on. The Hufflepuff Plotters _were_ addressing that, but it was difficult and slow-going. Going by Sally-Anne's latest letter, it was starting to look like combining the orphanage project with the squib schooling one was going to be the most effective use of resources, since abandoned squibs were considerably more numerous than any other group of orphans of magical heritage.

Then again, if Justin's plans for pre-magical schooling went ahead then early socialisation could easily reduce the ingrained bias against squibs from really developing in the next generation, since it was harder to blindly accept prejudice when it didn't match up with your own personal experiences. It would take time, but everything worthwhile did.

Dorea was just glad she wasn't the person organising it; it sounded like an exercise in frustration. Still, she recognised she'd probably be hosting fundraisers and events to improve awareness and promote the projects once Justin and Sally-Anne got them started, which she was happy to do. The new and improved government setup she'd been party to approving _did_ actually allow for the employment of squibs in all office positions so long as they had the appropriate qualifications and experience… which included Muggle education certificates and comparable positions in non-magical workplaces. Which coincidentally made it harder for Hogwarts educated Purebloods to get into a lot of those positions, because Hogwarts didn't actually _teach_ personnel management, filing, accounting, delegation and so on. Of course the various Magical Trade Schools _did_, because they were for the working wizard, but the upper crust had no need for such things. In theory.

Being an Heiress from birth and a Lady from toddlerhood, Dorea had learned all those things at home under the eagle eyes of elderly relatives. A surprising number of Pureblood Heirs did _not_, relying instead on Estate Managers who often benefitted from the arrangement far more than was immediately apparent. The Blacks however did not share such business information with mere employees as freely as other purebloods tended to, due to not always having the most respectable or legal business practices and not wanting to be open to blackmail; that the Blacks occasionally spied on their customers was the least of it really. Dorea _did_ delegate quite a bit of her workload to Daphne, but Dee had been pledged to her since they were both eleven and had sworn more stringent oaths upon becoming Black Steward, so there were no risks there. Her upbringing with her Black cousins had taught her that squibs were an untapped resource for most of the British Magical Community, one which would prove its worth if they ever got the chance. Not all squibs were as fortunate as her Great-Uncle in being given a good start in the Muggle community, so they were often outcasts there as well.

Anything that improved the image –and from there the employability– of squibs was a thing that she should be doing, because she had power and influence and this was a worthy cause to put it to use in. However… summoning shades was Necromancy. It was no longer automatically illegal with a life-sentence in Azkaban, but still massively stigmatised since Necromancy involved everything to do with the dead, which included the summoning of spirits to animate Inferi. Yes, she could write it off as 'Family Magic' and be able to withhold the specifics, but people were going to work it out eventually and probably sooner rather than later if she went along with this.

Did she care?

Actually no: it was _Peverell_ Family Magic and that name already had a history of fairly innocuous Death-associations. She could note that the change in laws had made it safe for her to 're-examine previous Family traditions' –as Sue Bones was doing– and take things from there, letting people's assumptions that all she could do was talk to the shades of the departed calm their sensibilities. Nobody needed to know about the semi-accidental yet terrifyingly successful zombie-raisings Barty had been sworn to silence on. That had been several boundaries too far and the only reason Barty remembered it happening was that she had ordered him not to tell and as her Thrall he was bound to obedience. As her father had said once, 'trust is good; control is better.'

Her mind made up, Dorea inked her quill and set about writing a reply.

* * *

Xanxus' discussion with his sister on the city-state he now ruled had taken a turn for the surreal within minutes and did not seem to be emerging any time soon.

"So there's a gladiators' school?"

"Of course," his sister said in what he was coming to recognise as Sabine, hands opening and moving briefly outward, "they have to be properly trained, after all: it's about public spectacle, so it has to look good as well as showcase skill. Gladiatorial combat is Sabina's most popular spectator sport."

"Followed by chariot racing." Xanxus _still_ couldn't quite believe it. Chariot racing? Seriously? In this day and age?

"Winged horses, little brother;" Angelique said slyly, her smile briefly flashing teeth. "The circus races are a test of the charioteer's skill: can he keep his team in the required height bracket and still make the fastest time? There are different weight-classes too, all the way up to Abraxans pulling loads of several tons, and that's without getting into the hippogriff races. Those get _messy_." She clearly relished the bloodshed. "Then there're the regular riding races, the steeplechases, the jousts, mounted archery contests, war games… lots of fun to be had all year round."

"Would Dorea be interested?" Which was the critical question so far as Xanxus was concerned; yes he was curious and fully intended to go watch _all_ of those things at least once, but there was no point making a date of it with his wife if she'd be bored. He knew she owned flying horses, but there was a difference between enjoying an activity and watching it as a sport.

Angelique grinned; one of his own facial expressions on her slightly softer face. "Your wife owns a _racing stable_, little brother," she told him gleefully. "It was the talk of European Magical Society when Abraxas Malfoy –that's Draco's late grandfather– left her his racing Granians; terribly inappropriate you know, what with them being only very distantly related and her just thirteen when he passed. That he left her all his wife's jewellery as well really did _not_ help." She sighed. "Resign yourself to the racing, little brother; you'll be sitting through a lot of it. I really do recommend the gladiator fights though; Dorea's a fighter so she'll appreciate them and the different styles keep things exciting, especially the mounted mêlées. Sabina still trains hippogriffs as battle mounts, you know."

Xanxus had not yet seen a real live hippogriff, but he'd seen statues and classical art and the idea of riding into a fight on one of _those_ sounded fairly perilous. The racing stable thing just hammered home that his wife was filthy rich landed gentry, which he was still getting used to. Maybe he'd get used to being 'Lord Potter' eventually; maybe before he ended up forgetting that he had been Lord Potter since he married, so it wasn't really 'new' at all.

"So that's sports covered," he determined, adding a few more notes to his list. "What else?"

"There're the Arts of course: plays, pantomimes, musical theatre and operas, concerts, choral performances, dance recitals… the list goes on," his sister said, waving a casual hand. "Then there're the art galleries and exhibition spaces, the museums, the royal menagerie, the various parks and public gardens, the baths… no shortage of things to see and do in public and plenty of places to eat." She paused, glancing at him sideways under her lashes. "Of course, what with being Prince, you have many more options open to you: a tour of the city's glassworks or potters, visiting the gladiatorial school during regular hours, military parades –we _do_ have a proper military– touring the city walls, patronising the various guild basilicas, universities and foundations, seeing the churches… they'd all be _delighted_ to show you around, or even just let you wander. You're _their_ Prince after all and Sabina has always been proud of its royals, the more headstrong and commanding the better."

That sounded like entire months'-worth of dates; he'd have to work out a schedule and maybe fit in some history and economics around the edges so he could reassure people that yes, he did actually give a shit. His wife had been doing his work in Sabina for him for years now; even if he never came to enjoy doing it himself, he'd still do it and do it _well_.

"Walls first," Xanxus decided; checking security was a good place to start and there'd be good views of both the city and the surrounding countryside. Also a good way to spot landmarks so getting lost was harder, since he hadn't ever visited the place before. "Then dinner and a show." The way his sister had listed the walls as something _not_ accessible to the public and in the same breath as the military indicated they were staffed, which would give him a chance to meet a few of the people he was now responsible for, but in a strongly structured manner. Having military forces under his command would be different to being Varia Boss, despite the premise being very similar. The military was strict about discipline and the fitness of the unit compared to the personal discipline required of a Varia Quality assassin; assassins were more prone to independent action and individuality by the nature of the profession.

As for the show… "Then a concert." As it wouldn't matter if they weren't watching throughout, and could talk through it if they so chose. Magic meant muffling sound was easy, Xanxus had learned, so you could talk through a concert without ruining it for other people.

"A private or at least semi-private dinner, I assume," Angelique murmured, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "In the Palazzo? Hm, perhaps not; _lots_ of relatives living there. One of the Garden Villas would be better; small, secluded and private, with lovely views. You could order in a few musicians or acrobats for mealtime entertainment without feeling like there were people lurking around every corner trying to catch a glimpse of you."

Xanxus filed the 'acrobats as mealtime entertainment' idea for later; clearly being royalty was going to be an education. "Her Guardians are musical enough." Music had come up repeatedly at mealtimes and it sounded like at least half his wife's Guardians sung or played an instrument. Thing One apparently even incorporated music into his fighting style, which was probably considerably more dangerous than it sounded. Mists, they'd weaponise anything…

"True, true," his sister conceded, confirming his guess. "You can bring your own musicians then. Would you like me to have Graziano send over some information on the history of Sabina's fortifications and details of the Royal Guard, who are responsible for defending the City of Sabina?"

"Thanks," Xanxus agreed; there was probably a civil police force responsible for keeping order, separate from the Royal Guard that was responsible for defending the city. There were in fact likely to be several different branches and specialties within both, although Sabina at least didn't seem to bother with bodyguards for their royals. Thank-you God for that; he'd go mad within weeks if he didn't slaughter them first due to lack of privacy.

"I'll have it sent over this afternoon," Angelique said equably. "Now that's sorted out, do you have any more questions you'd like to ask today?"

Did he ever. Which first though?


	150. Chapter 150

Beta'd by the virtuous Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of revelations and decisions **

Ange –as his sister had asked him to call her– was expounding on Sabina's concert season, what would be playing where and on which days, with asides into the personal histories of performers, conductors and their families, when Dorea slipped into the room with Knight ambling along behind her. Why the Lightning was shadowing his Sky so closely today Xanxus wasn't entirely sure; was this the usual state of affairs being reasserted now he'd had a chance to settle in a little, or something to do with whatever Knight's duties were?

Dorea slipped in next to him on the loveseat, leaning carefully into his side as Knight settled in to lean against the wall just inside Xanxus' field of vision, fading into the background with startling skill for someone so green in a blue room. The Varia Boss had a feeling Knight was using Flames to do so, which if so was an application of Lightning Hardening he'd never seen before.

Wrapping an arm around his wife, who right now seemed perfectly happy just to snuggle and listen to his sister chatter, Xanxus kept most of his mind on the matter of dates.

"When will you next be free to spend a day away from the children?" He asked Dorea in Italian when Ange paused to sip her drink. He was starting to take on some of the words and turns of phrase used in Sabine, but he wasn't there yet. It was going to take a while to become properly fluent. Some of the idioms he could work out, but others weren't so easy: some of the words were more Greek than Italian and a few were utterly alien.

His wife tilted her head into his shoulder. "I'm going to adjust their schedule so they have two or three fewer afternoons free, but will have all of Saturday afternoon free of lessons rather than just after four," she stated in her own rather strongly Sabine-influenced Italian. "They need to keep up their Chinese until their Shīfu returns, so I'm arranging for them to spend part of Thursday afternoon doing that, along with dance lessons. Dance lessons in England," she specified; "they need to start meeting some of the people they'll be going to school with and socialising with them out of the house."

"I suspect a few of our cousins will follow suit once they find out," Ange said amusedly. "I certainly got a good scolding from the wider family for letting Blaise go to school 'all alone', so once they realise you're sending the twins back to England a few others are probably going to arrange for their children to attend Hogwarts as well. Most likely Pietro will send Caterina and Giovanna will send Matteo, although they may well decide to send some of the older ones too, just to make sure." She swirled her drink idly. "Hector will be attending there eventually as well, _n'est-ce pas_? Dear Vincenzo may well send both his little girls to Hogwarts, as they are much the same age as your children."

"Vincenzo is Graziano's eldest," Dorea explained, clearly in response to Xanxus' confusion over all those unfamiliar names. "Pietro and Giovanna are more of your cousins, two of your father's youngest brother's children. Caterina is six months older than the twins and Matteo is a month younger."

Xanxus nodded his understanding; keeping track of all these relatives was going to be a job and a half, considering the implications of 'father's youngest brother' and 'two of his children'. Clearly there were more brothers _and_ more children out there. He still had that family tree lying around, so he should memorise it so he'd have a better idea of how various relatives were actually related to him.

"I'm also planning on having them start another two languages," his wife went on, "which will take up another two afternoons once I've moved the scheduling around a bit, since I'm going to be taking them for lessons in Family Magic one morning a week as well. I'm not entirely sure which languages to pick though; they already know English and Sabine and are reasonably fluent in spoken Cantonese, so I was considering Russian or Greek. Oh and Altantean as well, since that's something of a royal Zabini requirement."

"I can arrange for a tutor to come over one day a week for that," Ange smiled, "and arrange a few educational visits to Sabina as well, to compliment the lessons."

Rather than just agreeing Dorea glanced at Xanxus, making him realise with a jolt that yes, he _did_ get a say in his kids' education. "Do you have any preferences, language-wise?" she asked him.

Xanxus pondered the question. Japanese was the first language that sprung to mind, except that he still hadn't decided if he even wanted his kids anywhere near the Vongola considering the way it was clearly all going to shit. Yes, there were people in the Family he cared about and his subordinates were technically Vongola, but the Varia was the _Independent _Assassination Division so contact was very limited. He could feasibly keep the old fart from even realising he was married, let alone had reproduced.

But did he _want_ to do that? He _did_ want his sister and niece to meet his kids after all, and swearing them to secrecy would be awkward. Something to consider more fully once the Vongola noticed he wasn't where they thought he was.

"German," he decided instead; it was one of what the Mafia called 'the Vongola Six', the languages most used by the Family, but it wasn't the Vongola's signature foreign language.

"I'll have to ask around for a native German-speaker," Dorea mused, fiddling with a curl. "I'm fluent and so is Barty, but I'm a little hesitant to put _him_ in charge of any part of my children's education, all things considered. I know a good number of Germans though, so I'm sure I can pick up a properly vouched-for new graduate looking to improve their English and make advantageous connections if I write a few letters." She paused. "If that's okay with you, Xanxus?"

"Sounds reasonable," he conceded, reaching up to tug gently on her hair, "but I want to meet the candidates." He still needed to meet this 'Shīfu' of theirs, whom Dorea was yet to actually name in his hearing.

"I can probably get the necessary arrangements for dance classes set up on Saturday," Dorea continued, absently leaning into his hand on her head, "Chinese lessons can start next week and so can Atlantean –since I'm sure Auntie already has somebody appropriate in mind– but German will likely take a bit longer. Still, that's one day next week we'd be entirely free to do anything we liked together."

"Not two days?" Xanxus checked. She _had_ said 'two or three' at the start of the conversation…

"Starting next week I'm going to be taking tea on Thursday afternoons with various friends and acquaintances, to discuss current affairs," Dorea said, glancing across at him, "which is why I wanted to change things around so we could have two full days a week to ourselves. You're going to be working more as well now you're better, so I wanted to set specific days aside to spend together, even if what we're doing together is reading or working."

Okay, so he'd definitely have Thursday afternoons exclusively for Varia reading from next week onwards, since that was something he really didn't want to leave lying around where other people might get their hands on it. He liked the idea of spending two full days a week with just Dorea though; yes, still he needed to spend more time with the kids, but it was his wife to whom he owed more of his time at the moment.

"Which days?" Xanxus asked.

"I was thinking Tuesdays and Fridays," Dorea said shyly; "leaving Wednesday midweek to catch up with the children, Saturdays to spend the entire afternoon with them and maybe take them out somewhere as a family, Sunday for resting and having family visit us and Mondays to ease back into the week again."

Along with Thursdays where she'd be socialising and running her not-quite-Mafia-Family from the comfort of one of the palatial living rooms on the ground floor, or more likely from Potter Manor, since most of her social circle were in England and that would be more convenient than having her guests trek across Europe.

"There's a performance of Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto at Sabina's Old Theatre on Tuesday evening," Ange said slyly.

"Well?"Xanxus asked his wife, pulling out a hairpin so he could have a few more curls to play with.

Dorea shifted on the loveseat and sighed. "Sounds fun; I like Rachmaninoff, even though my hands aren't quite big enough for me to play it comfortably."

That his wife could play Rachmaninoff at _all_ said she was a genuinely magnificent pianist who could have gone professional if she'd wanted to. Xanxus pulled out another hairpin and pressed gently into his wife's scalp with his knuckles. "I'd like to listen to you play some sometime."

"Hm," Dorea mumbled, relaxing into him; Xanxus could feel a few notes of discomfort and pain through the marriage bond, but they were muffled by comfort, warmth and contentment. She definitely liked him playing with her hair, even while she was feeling fragile. He should take advantage.

* * *

"Goodness me Dorea, I never took you for an _exhibitionist_," Ange said wickedly, fanning herself with a hand, "I definitely approve, but do have mercy on your poor Knight."

Xanxus paused, several hairpins gripped between his fingers and both hands threaded through his wife's half-demolished hairstyle. They were both fully dressed and the only part of her he was touching was her head; he hadn't even _kissed_ her yet. How was this exhibitionist?

"S'not in public," Dorea grumbled, leaning into Xanxus' hands, "We're at home. He's my _husband_."

"And you're letting him undress you in front of an audience," Ange said gleefully, eyes alight. "I'm so _proud_."

"Undress," Xanxus repeated sceptically. This _had_ to be cultural, which meant he needed to know about it even if he ended up disregarding it, because culture shaped people's thoughts and attitudes. He tapped his wife on the temple, "Explain."

Dorea turned her face into his shoulder and huffed. "It's a Magical high-society thing," she grouched; "Traditionally-raised witches of the upper classes put their hair up when they're ready to start courting and never wear it down in public thereafter; a grown woman with long hair only lets it flow loose to bed, so a woman letting her hair loose implies intimacy." His wife snorted. "I could entertain guests –_male_ guests even– in my private sitting room wearing a nightdress and dressing-gown and so long as my hair was properly coiffed nobody would say a word. But if my hair was down I could be wearing my most conservative dress and be surrounded by my children, but people would _still_ talk. _S'annoying_. I like it when you play with my hair."

Ah. So for someone with long hair who usually wore it up, hairstyle was an indicator of being 'dressed'. That… actually that put a _very_ interesting spin on Dorea being perfectly willing to have him take her hair _down_, considering this was the culture she was raised in. Xanxus would never _actually_ undress his wife in public –she was _his_ and he didn't share– but if him taking her updo apart had explicit erotic implications for her, well why not? Especially if it got her in the mood for more…

Not that more would be happening today, but it was something to consider for another time. He tugged on a curl. "I won't stop then," he murmured.

Dorea tilted her head sideways so he could see her smile.

"I'll go on enjoying the show then," Ange said cheerfully, settling herself more comfortably in her seat. Xanxus glared over at his sister, who smiled smugly back. Which was something _he_ would have done in her place, damn it.

"Tuesday," he said firmly, wanting to move the conversation on even as he set the pins he'd removed aside and dug his fingertips into his wife's scalp, making her breath hitch.

"Tuesday for a date in Sabina with your charming exhibitionist wife," Ange agreed, voice steady and laughter in every line of her face. "I'll arrange matters as we discussed and send you the details." She paused. "On the matter of language lessons, would you like a tutor as well?"

Xanxus pondered the question, his wife's gorgeous curls sliding across his skin as he ran his hands through her hair. "Later," he decided eventually; a quick glance around his Varia office had already proved that he was going to have to learn at _least_ six languages before Quiet Week, so adding _more_ would be unwise. He'd get the languages he _needed_ to learn to read the various reports out of the way first, then add interesting heritage-relevant ones afterwards. Which reminded him…

"On the combat range there was a Ward that dissipated my Flames," he said, briefly calling up a handful of Wrath for his sister to see. "I'd like the specifics."

"Well you _will_ have to learn a bit of Atlantean for that, little brother," Ange teased, "since all Sabine ward-work is written in Old Sabine, which is essentially Atlantean written with Greek script. I think I know the ward you mean; it's a classic, gets used a lot in nurseries to keep the little ones from burning the place down by accident."

"I want to modify it," Xanxus specified; the ward being 'a classic' meant somebody might have done the work for him already.

"There're entire university courses dedicated to modifying wards," his sister said easily, "so I'm sure if I set one of the cousins on it they can get you a bunch of papers on what's been done already and how well it worked. Or failed to work, in some cases. Keep track of your own notes and you could earn yourself a Mastery in a few years."

That _really_ appealed; Omertá being what it was nobody could get any kind of formal qualification in Flame Technology, but if they'd been available Xanxus would have earned one by now with his modifications to Settimo's handgun designs. Getting some kind of Warding qualification –as his wife clearly had already– would open doors and earn him respect of a different kind to what his being royal already demanded. People respecting him because they recognised he was _competent_ sat much better with him than being deferred to purely because of who he was related to.

Damn. He'd been a bratty little shit as a younger teen, hadn't he? If this was growing up then there'd probably be more of this kind of uncomfortable realisation.

Dorea, possibly sensing his discomfort, made an inquiring noise and reached up to run her thumb across the inside of his wrist. Xanxus couldn't help the fond smile that twitched in the corner of his mouth; his wife was _wonderful_, seriously.

They sat in silence for a while, Xanxus playing with his wife's hair and ignoring his sister's amused eyes on them. Knight had wandered around the room and was now standing by the window, examining a few flowers he'd removed from the vase on the side-table as though they hid the secrets of the universe, bending the petals this way and that.

"Well, it's been lovely, but I should probably get going," Ange said finally. Don't worry; Knight will see me out." She got to her feet. "Do try to keep your hands away from your wife's hairpins when outside Sabina, little brother; gossips can be so tiresome and they'd be questioning her virtue, not yours."

Xanxus growled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest as he tried to breathe through the hot fury her words elicited. Her phrasing though… "And in Sabina?" He enunciated carefully, stilling his hands so he didn't pull too hard on Dorea's curls while he was angry.

Ange smiled, the expression caught between cruelty and amusement. "_We_ all know our royals are irresistible, little brother; having the less informed believe your wife to be weak-willed for abandoning propriety would however be disrespectful towards her."

Xanxus paused. His sister sounded wholly in earnest there; utterly arrogant, but completely serious. "Irresistible?" He repeated sceptically.

His sister paused, face abruptly turning serious. "Little brother," she said softly, "we are descended from _sirens_. Sirens, who effortlessly captivated others with word and will without ever resorting to the crass sexual methods of the Veela. You could talk a man into slitting his own throat, were you so inclined, and your victim would die smiling." She shook her head. "As royals and heirs to the original few, we have inherited _all_ of that and you as Prince have most of all, especially now you are nearing your magical maturity. Be mindful of it, little brother, lest you do something you later regret."

She left, Knight opening the door for her and following her from the room. Xanxus spent a long time pondering her words afterwards as he toyed with his wife's curls; Dorea seemed perfectly content to lean into him and do nothing, so there was no need to rush.

* * *

Lunch was eaten with half-a-dozen Guardians, but afterwards Dorea confessed to feeling tired and was gently talked into taking a nap by Knight, who somehow managed to combine profound concern for and deep attachment to his Sky in a way that managed to _almost_ miss setting off Xanxus' possessive instincts. Oh, the Varia Boss still wasn't sure he _liked_ this Lightning, but the man's commitment and his visible determination to not overstep the boundaries of his position –whatever those were actually defined as– were noticeable and it was amusingly blatant quite how nonsexual Knight's interest in Dorea was.

It was not however convincingly unromantic, which was why it still got his hackles up at points. He was going to have to ask about that; maybe ask Blaise, since his wife's take on her relationship with her Lightning would definitely be biased.

With Dorea napping and several hours to go before he'd have to entertain his children, Xanxus decided to spend some time stretching and exploring his physical limits, then pick up his Varia reading again. He'd got past his fake coup –which has been a really Dumb thing to do in retrospect and _why_ had nobody tried to point that out to him– so now it was on to mission reports and personnel files.

Over five years of them.

Joy.

* * *

There was more than enough space in his private sitting room to do a full run-through of the Varia's 'mission downtime' exercise routine, which had been designed to use every single voluntary muscle in the human body but could be completed when killing time in a small hotel room. It was something Xanxus had run through so many times after joining the Varia that he knew exactly how many of each exercise he could do and how fast when in peak fitness, and what he needed to watch out for depending on which parts gave him trouble.

Today the routine told him he had lost some flexibility to the now-invisible scarring and some muscle tone to convalescence, but his stamina was up; way up, in fact . He hadn't broken a sweat but the strain should have had him breathing heavier much earlier; weird. Maybe it was the change in diet? Matron's medical paperwork with its recommendations of fermented foods at every meal suggested it might be that; it could just as easily be the rest and lack of stress though, so he'd have to keep an eye on that and see how things went.

In the meantime however he had his catching-up to start on. The sheer volume of mission reports and the irritating likelihood of over half of them being incomprehensible –Varia might nominally write their reports in known languages but the use of specialised slang and idiomatic turns of phrase was rampant– meant he could not realistically begin with those written right after he got put on ice and work his way forwards; not in the six weeks he had before Quiet Week. He'd have to do that later. He would probably manage to get a start on it, but he needed to be familiar with the Varia as they were _now_, not the Varia as they had been half a decade ago.

Instead he was going to work from the Squad files Squalo had so helpfully put together, only reading the mission reports referenced in those files, to hopefully give himself a quick and dirty overview of current Varia membership. Then he'd go back over the Squad Leaders' mission histories chronologically, since they were the people he really needed to know properly as Varia Boss. Squalo seemed to have put together a decent overview of the language migrations as well –there was an entire new _shelf_ of books, folders and so on– so hopefully Xanxus could reference that as he worked through and pick up enough to get by.

That was a lot of hypotheticals though, so he should probably get stuck in. Squalo had arranged the personnel files in Squad groupings, alphabetised by Squad Name and according to the Division of the Squad Leader, so Xanxus just had to pick a starting point.

Start with Rain Division; that way he could ask the shark questions next time he showed up and Rain Division had lost the least people after his Dumb fake coup, so he probably knew most of them already at least in passing. Grabbing the first file –for Aurora Borealis, one of the Immortal Squads, now led by somebody other than Magharibi since it was in the Rain section rather than the Sun section– Xanxus sat down at his chair in the alternate reality of his Varia office and begun. Thirty seconds later he got up again and headed back to his sitting room; he was going to need alcohol for this.

Probably quite a lot of alcohol; this was the _Varia's_ paperwork he was wading through.


	151. Chapter 151

Beta'd by the precious Insane Scriptist.

Last chapter of the week; check out the end-note for details though.

* * *

**Of preparation and practice **

On Thursday morning Xanxus woke before dawn, his hands itching and mind whirling with the urge to _create; _not heeding it would leave to nag and distract him all day, shortening his temper and destroying his focus. Sliding carefully out of bed so as not to disturb his wife, he ghosted out of her bedroom into his own, grabbed the short Varia jacket and a pair of leather trousers out of his wardrobe and had a quick stand-up wash by the bathroom sink before putting them on and slipping into his boots. He didn't bother with a shirt; he wouldn't want one in the workshop anyway.

Crossing his still-unfurnished sitting room and pausing in front of the variable door, Xanxus considered what he was going to need for the project he had in mind. Metals he had plenty of, in suitably durable alloys, as well as powdered silica and various mineral powders that he had most recently used to upgrade and improve the X-guns his wife hopefully still had.

Speaking of, he needed to make her more bullets for those and make himself some too once he'd finalised the larger design. Later though; he had something much more interesting he wanted to make now. But to do it _right_ he needed more than just the materials; he needed references, so Dorea would be able to recognise his gift immediately.

"Flippy," Xanxus said carefully. House-elves being a kind of construct implied they didn't really need to sleep much –or at all– so this should work.

The elf appeared with a subdued cracking sound, which on reflection sounded a lot like a small sonic boom. "What does Master Potter require?" the chiton-clad elf asked, looking up at him inquiringly.

"Does the library have a florilegium, or at least an illustrated herbal? Something with life-size pictures of various flowers?" Xanxus asked. "Ah, and do Magical people use flower language?" He hadn't considered that limitation and it was equally possible that wizards used slightly different meanings for different flowers. They had magical potions so a magical plant variant could have a vastly different meaning depending on what it got used for, right?

"Master Potter means a non-magical florilegium, Flippy assumes?" the elf inquired. "The library has several different kinds; would Master Potter like an illustrated floriography guide?"

"Yes please," that would ensure he was getting the meanings right.

"Would Master Potter like anything else?" The elf asked solicitously. "A drink or something to eat?"

Xanxus paused. He probably _should_ eat something before starting; he couldn't eat in the workshop due to the pigments and not wanting to contaminate his work, but he needed to do some designing first so he could eat while he sketched. "Coffee and a quick breakfast, please," he decided, "and I need to check my workshop supplies, as I may need some more materials before getting started." He could do that while waiting for breakfast.

"Flippy will fetch Master Potter the book, then bring breakfast," the elf said seriously before vanishing. Xanxus then turned the dial on his office door so that red was showing and walked through it.

As promised, it led to his workshop in the Varia basement. Well, an iteration of his workshop anyway; everything was where he'd left it but somebody –probably Tyrant– had likely been in to clean and top up all the pigment jars and other standard supplies since he left it last. There were a few specialised things he was going to need, but he could send Flippy to buy things out of his Zabini money for that and he always could put off the things that would need those specific ingredients until last if necessary.

His hand tools were all in their drawers exactly as he had left them, the larger power tools like the lathe, the press and the cutter unplugged and covered to prevent dust getting into them. Good; now onto checking supplies.

He had copper, silver and gold in small bars, zinc, tin, osmium, palladium, ruthenium and platinum as granules and long bars of steel stacked up in the metal cupboard, a lidded bucket full of pure silica sand, bottles of hydrofluoric and other weaker acids in another locked cupboard –which he checked to ensure they had been replaced recently– and a rainbow of pigment powders in their own little cupboard well away from his workstation, from cadmium selenide to cobalt phosphate. The only greens he had were chromium and cobalt though; he should probably get some malachite in case he couldn't get a shade he liked from mixing the viridian with the cadmium yellow.

Flippy might know if there were other, more realistically plant-like mineral greens available on the wizarding market. Other than that he needed antimony for plain white, but he had everything else except possibly a better blue. Cobalt was all very well for technical things but there was nothing quite as good as natural ultramarine in terms of glaze colour even though it messed with Flames in a completely baffling manner, Cloud Flames in particular.

Setting the both furnaces to start heating –and deliberately not thinking about how that worked in what was essentially a Territory– Xanxus headed back out for breakfast and to ask questions about mineral pigments. Hopefully he'd be able to physically create some of the ideas buzzing around his head without too much delay, because it was too damn long since he'd made something with his hands and there was no way he'd be good for _anything_ until he'd satisfied the urge.

* * *

He'd promised Dorea flowers on his first day out of bed, but Xanxus had never been a fan of bouquets; what was the point in giving somebody you liked something that was already dead and would soon be rotting? Live flowers were only good if the person getting the gift liked that kind of thing, which his wife _might_ but going by her massive garden giving her a plant would be pointless, as it would vanish among the others already growing there. Fake flowers made of silk or paper were just tacky and cheap, so Xanxus refused to contemplate them; they had implications he wanted to avoid.

Xanxus was therefore doing something a bit different. It took a wide range of specialist skills to be able to create Flame-tech like his X-guns; skills which included etching, enamelling and metal sculpting. He'd made Maria-Chiara a pair of enamelled earrings when he was thirteen, while he was working his way up to being allowed to experiment with actual Flame Technology, and had later managed a fairly complicated bracelet of white and yellow gold daisies which he had given to Ottava for her birthday the year before making his X-guns.

His plan was to make enamelled flower hairpins for his wife, and hopefully a few larger, more intricate hair decorations she could wear over that braided knot she always had most of her hair up in. He already had the flowers in mind –the illustrated floriography book had thankfully confirmed most of the meanings– so Xanxus sketched as he ate the smoked eel, Gorgonzola and pickle toasted sandwiches Flippy had brought along with his coffee. Flippy had also brought a jug of what they had called 'shrub', which turned out to be a slightly vinegary raspberry drink that was actually very nice.

Some of the flowers he had in mind were very small, so they would be fiddly, and others were very large so would have to be miniaturised in order to work as jewellery. The ones he wanted to put together would need to have coherent meanings as well, otherwise what was the point? The leaves would have to be as close in shape to those of the actual plants as possible too; identifying some of the flowers otherwise would be near-impossible.

So, start with the flowering quince, as the blossoms were fairly simple and decently sized, followed by the slightly more complicated lemon blossom. Then move onto the tiny and very fiddly sweet alyssum, followed by the larger piece with peach blossoms and grapevine, possibly with some garden chervil in there too if he wasn't too frustrated after the sweet alyssum. Next white iris, arum lilies and honeysuckle, possibly with some spindle tree –he hadn't known that one before– to give it some colour and add nuance. Then heliotrope, everlasting pea and some bluebells, provided he could get the colours right, followed by honesty and white clematis –although distinguishing those two would be challenging– and then jasmine and dittany of Crete, which would be individual pieces. Possibly multiple individual pieces, but still. He was still in two minds about the mallow bindweed, as those flower trumpets and fine, spiked leaves would be complicated and the meaning was one he wasn't sure about yet, so he was leaving that until last.

Xanxus was mostly sure that he would at _least_ be able to get Dorea to blush when he gave them to her, even if she never actually wore them. He did _really_ want her to wear them though… which would mean making sure they were completely perfect and easily recognisable yet tasteful. So he really should start.

Grabbing the sketches and the floriography book as an additional reference, Xanxus headed back to the workshop. Flippy had fetched him a little jar of Verona green from who-knew-where along with a respectable quality of real ultramarine, a pot of actual genuine orpiment, another of natural vermillion and the antimony he'd originally asked for. The most challenging bit was probably going to be mixing up suitable shades of pink for the peach blossom and the everlasting pea, but it wasn't going to be impossible.

In fact the entire project was probably going to be a lot of fun.

* * *

Dorea would have been more concerned about waking up to a disappointing absence of husband in her bed had it not been for the contented hum she could feel through their marriage bond. She didn't know what he was doing, but something about that complex focused feeling was steadying and reassuring; a hobby maybe? She hadn't really had a chance to ask Xanxus about what he did for fun, which was definitely a glaring oversight that desperately needed to be rectified. But it could wait until breakfast.

Half an hour later she amended that to 'after breakfast'; according to the house-elves her husband had already eaten several hours ago and had been working ever since.

"Mama, where's Papà?" Cassie asked accusingly after finishing her eggs.

Dorea smiled. "You know how sometimes you're enjoying drawing so much you don't want to come to tea? Well, your Papa got up very early and is enjoying what he's doing so much he's forgotten to come to breakfast."

"Won't he get hungry?" Marius asked worriedly.

"I'm sure the house-elves brought him something to eat, owlet," Dorea assured her oldest son. "He's still getting better after all, so they won't let him not take care of himself."

"That's true," Marius agreed, his faith in the reliability and domestic authority of house-elves making Dorea feel warm inside.

"Is he going to miss tea as well?" Cassie asked suspiciously.

Dorea frowned. "I hope not, snakeling," she said honestly. "I would miss him too and I wanted to ask him what he likes doing for fun."

Cassie's expression changed abruptly from wariness to shock. "Mama! You don't know?"

"I've so busy been answering all his questions about me and you three that I forgot," Dorea admitted candidly to her children. "We will have to ask him today, won't we?"

"Yes," said Cassie firmly, nodding decisively. "I want to find out what Papà likes so we can do it with him."

"What if Papa has a grownup hobby like Governess?" Marius pointed out. "We won't be able to join in then."

"Then we will ask him out it, listen and be admiring when he brings things to show us," Dorea said calmly, interrupting the impending argument before Cassie could retaliate, "like we do with Governess."

"Just because you can't join in with your Papa's hobby doesn't mean you can't still do fun things together," Leo pointed out cheerfully. "Like riding the hippogriffs or meeting the thestrals. You haven't shown him those yet, have you Rhea?"

"May we ride the thestrals _please_ Mama?" Cassie asked eagerly.

"No, you may not," Dorea said firmly, "but Chione will let you ride her, provided you are respectful." Boreas was very old now and somewhat touchy in his old age, but Chione was the most agreeable of his hippogriff offspring and fairly permissive of childish enthusiasm.

"I like Chione," Marius said. "She's pretty."

"She preens my hair," Cassie said, her tone and expression ambiguous on whether or not this was a good thing.

"Boreas used to preen my hair when I was a little girl," Dorea shared.

"Really Mama?" Cassie asked.

"Yes, really. I probably have photographs somewhere; your Grandpa was always taking them of me," Dorea said. She still missed her Papa, but it was a wistful ache rather than an open wound these days. It helped that she could always call on his shade for a conversation if she wanted, even though she couldn't take him for walks as Padfoot like she had as a child.

"Can you show us at lunchtime, Mama?" Marius asked daringly.

"Well, since your Papa has missed breakfast that seems fair," Dorea conceded. "I will see you at one o'clock then."

"Love you, Mama!" both twins chorused, rushing around the table to hug her simultaneously.

"I love you too, my darlings," Dorea told them, hugging them back. "Enjoy yourselves!"

* * *

"So what _is_ he doing?" Blaise asked as Dorea lifted a fussy Hector into her lap and let him bury his face in the shoulder of her jacket now that she too had finished eating.

"I have no idea," Dorea admitted frankly, rocking her youngest gently. "I just know that he's really enjoying the challenge and is actually relaxing properly for maybe the first time since we got him out."

"So you're going to leave him to it," her brother deduced.

"I'm going to write a note for Flippy to deliver to his rooms, telling him that I'll be eating lunch in the nursery and he's welcome to join me," Dorea told him equably. "I don't think Hector is going to let me work in the office today, so instead I'm going to inspect the Perimeter Wards on horseback to tire him out a bit, then spend some time at the piano and maybe talk to Narcissa when she and Millie get back from visiting the Varia Ladies later this morning."

"There is a bit of a lull on the business side what with how many influential people are attending Fay and Justin's wedding," Dee agreed, "and the amount of press it's getting despite being technically a Muggle event is rather astounding. I'm looking forward to seeing how this will affect fashion and society in the upcoming months."

"It is going to be interesting, isn't it?" Blaise agreed. "Which reminds me; sister dear, your Poet would be very grateful if you could spare him a few hours on Sunday afternoon. He gets off at noon and needs to see you in the flesh rather urgently."

"Is he okay?" Which was stupid question really, because Theo very definitely was _not_ okay and hadn't been since Daniela Vongola died, but her Poet had been coping, mostly. If he wasn't coping anymore then she definitely needed to prioritise his wellbeing.

"He handed in his notice at the end of April as discussed and everything's set up with the real Stefano so he can share memories and tie off the loose ends in June, but now the end's in sight he's falling apart a bit," Blaise explained, tapping his fingertips on the table worriedly. "It doesn't help that the Vongola's a powder keg right now, what with Federico being dead and the next heir being a mystery. Lots of the civilian staff are struggling to cope."

"That sounds appalling," Dorea muttered. She had less than zero sympathy for Timoteo Vongola and his Dumbledore-esque lifestyle choices, but she could empathise with the unfortunate underlings caught in the blast range of his terrible decisions.

Sundays were still family days though, so what to do that wouldn't leave her children –and husband, can't forget him– feeling excluded while she helped her War Mist keep himself together?

"I'll call Aunt Nellie and see if we can visit for the day," Dorea decided. "She adores the twins and they adore her right back, Uncle Nick knows Xanxus –he told Rence so– and their house is secure and private enough that Theo will be able to relax a little and the rest of the Zabini won't worry about security."

"Great plan; who'll be going with you?" Daphne asked prosaically, twirling her quill.

"Not you," Dorea said drolly; "your sister wrote me a letter _explicitly_ asking for me to give you the day off on Sunday so you could stay in England after the wedding and spend time with her. Your mother _also_ wrote me a letter requesting you be granted time to visit your little brother Arcas, who has expressed a desire to see his 'biggest sister' for his eighth birthday, which was technically last week."

"It's a conspiracy," Dee said flatly, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "I'm doomed."

"Why didn't you tell me your family wanted you to visit? It wasn't like I would have said no," Dorea asked. Dee was a dear friend, but the quiet rift the beautiful blonde had deliberately cultivated within her own family was upsetting.

"I wanted to be here while you were settling in with Alexandro."

Dorea pinched the bridge of her nose. "Dee, _one day_ would not have made a difference. You know this. Just… they're your _family_. Please? At least visit Astoria and take Arcas out for the day, even if you don't see your parents so much as once. It's not your baby brother's fault he was born and he _adores_ you."

Daphne Greengrass sighed, ducking her head so her bobbed hair obscured her features. "I suppose it _isn't_ his fault," she agreed quietly. "Very well Rhea; since you put it like that, I'll visit."

"You can talk to him about heir things and give him advice," Blaise suggested lightly. "You have an unparalleled opportunity to corrupt your baby brother and should be taking it; that's what older siblings are supposed to do!"

Daphne smiled ruefully. "As you say, Zee. I suppose I'd better get things settled so nobody expects me to be here at the weekend." She got to her feet. "I'll see you for dinner, Rhea, if perhaps not before then."

Dorea got to her feet, toddler son still cradled in her arms, and walked around the table to give her friend a half-hug and kiss on the cheek. "I just want you to be happy Dee," she told her pretty friend sincerely, "and avoiding them isn't making you happy."

Hector twisted in Dorea's grip and pressed his own sloppy kiss to the Storm Guardian's cheek, making the shorter woman smile at him.

"I'll visit Astoria," Daphne promised before slipping out of the room.

"I just wish she'd have a proper shouting match with her parents so they could all get past things," Leo said sadly, speaking up for the first time since the twins had left. "Bottling it all up like that can't be healthy."

"She's been dealing with this problem since we were both twelve, Leo," Dorea said wryly; "I really doubt one fight would be enough, although I do agree with you that they need to clear the air. I _like_ Lord and Lady Greengrass, I really do, but I just don't _understand_ how they can fail to see how badly she was affected by their change of attitude after their son's conception."

It wasn't that Dee's parents didn't love her, but how they chose to show that love had been rather… utilitarian… during the Storm's last few years at Hogwarts. In that they'd been trying to get her to pick a prospective husband for them to arrange a match with so she was 'provided for'. Considering that Dorea was mostly sure that Daphne, while not _objecting_ to male attention, actually preferred female attention, and liked to get to know people properly _before_ committing herself to a long-term agreement of any kind… it hadn't done her relationship with her parents any good to be pushed like that.

"You've done what you can," Blaise said firmly. "Leave the rest to her, Rhea; it's her life after all."

"I know, I know," Dorea agreed, shaking her head and hefting Hector into a more comfortable carrying position. "Barty, come riding with me?"

"Will do," the Lightning said, getting up and falling into step beside her.

* * *

Getting interrupted by a knock on the workshop door came as a complete surprise to Xanxus –that had never happened before– but annoyance swiftly changed to embarrassment and dismay when the intruder turned out to be Flippy bearing more shrub, a large wedge of olive focaccia and a note from his wife inviting him to lunch in the nursery, since he'd missed breakfast.

"What time _is_ it, Flippy?" Fuck, he needed to think about furnishing his rooms so there was a clock or three in his private space. He didn't have a watch –Flames tended to kill digital watches and if you wanted an analogue one you had to build it from scratch with suitably inert components and keep it wound– and his workshop only had timers for monitoring how long things had been annealing for.

"It is half-past ten and time for elevensies, Master Potter," the elf said mildly. "Master Potter needs to eat properly in order to make a full recovery."

Xanxus rolled his eyes. "I'll take a break; I need to set down in the workshop first though."

"Flippy will wait." That elf was _fussing_ like Luss always did, but in a much less obnoxious manner; Xanxus could ignore the presumption since the little being's entire _existence_ was tied up in looking after the people in its house. Well, _this_ elf had _his_ wellbeing as its entire _raison d'être_, which was deeply strange and very new but Xanxus could deal if it stayed this polite and respectful of his personal space. Maybe he'd get used to being addressed as 'Master Potter' in time, but he wasn't there yet and it was awkward to remember that meant him.

It took minutes to tidy up, ensure everything that needed to come out of the annealing furnace had been removed and take off the protective gear, so Xanxus washed his hands and let himself out of the workshop to see the elf had laid everything out on the low table in his sitting room for him and was indeed waiting. Cheeky.

The focaccia was still warm and tasted fresh, which was very pleasant indeed. The shrub was okay, but Xanxus rather fancied some alcohol now it wasn't early anymore. "I'd like some red wine," he stated.

"Flippy will fetch Master Potter some Zabini wine," the elf said quietly before vanishing and reappearing again less than a minute later with a bottle, empty decanter and wineglass. Xanxus watched curiously as the elf opened the bottle with magic and poured it into the decanter, then set down the wineglass. "Does Master Potter require anything else?"

Xanxus opened his mouth to say no, then paused as he remembered that this wasn't the Iron Fort where the old fart could make the servants tell him everything or Varia HQ where gossip was endemic; he could actually ask questions and get answers without anybody else hearing about it and needling him later.

"How do I get my rooms furnished?"

Flippy smiled. "Master Potter chooses how he wants the walls decorated and Flippy will see to it," the elf said steadily, "and Master Potter can either choose furniture and furnishings from the range in storage, buy new items ready-made or commission pieces specially."

Okay, so _really_ nobody else was going to be allowed into his rooms, not even to do the decorating. Although he still had to find out how Investigator had gotten in. Weren't the wards supposedly keeping everybody out? Then again, Mists were good at circumventing anything they put their minds to.

"I'll let you know when I've picked out a colour scheme," Xanxus decided, "and I'd like to see what's in storage before making any decisions about furniture. But not today." He had more than enough to be getting on with for the time being. "Could you come and knock on the door a bit before lunchtime, so I can clean up in time?"

"Flippy will do so," the elf said with a firm nod, taking his empty plate and vanishing again, as ever with that cracking sound.

Xanxus sniffed the wine decanter, judged it to smell pretty decent and to have aired enough, so poured himself a glass full. Then another glass full, because hey, this was _good_ wine. After his fourth glass Xanxus deliberately left the rest, put the stopper in the top of the decanter and went back to his workshop; he only had two more hours until lunch and he wanted to get some more pieces done. It was the metalwork and sculpting that was taking up most of his time, but what was the point of enamelling something that didn't _look_ right to begin with?

* * *

"You missed breakfast, Papà," Cassie said the moment he stepped into the room, her high voice all hurt and accusation.

Xanxus paused on the threshold, not in response to his daughter's words but because the moment his wife set eyes on him he'd got the most _interesting_ emotional avalanche through their marriage bond, which had made him very conscious of the fact that he'd showed up to the meal wearing his jacket unbuttoned and no shirt. Good to know that his wife liked him in leather; he'd have to experiment with that once she was no longer feeling too uncomfortable to want to do anything about it…

"Sorry," he said easily, marvelling internally at how easy it actually _was_ to say that here and now. It helped that his wife and two older children were the only people present at the table. "I was making things and lost track of time."

"Making what, Papa?" Marius asked curiously, trying to get a look at the hand Xanxus was hiding behind his back. The Varia Boss hadn't managed to do _everything_ yet, but he had finished enough for a decent bouquet and he wanted to see his wife's reaction.

"A present for your Mama," he told his eldest son, stepping into the room properly and walking up to the table to sit by his wife without letting any of them see what he was hiding.

"What kind of present?" Cassie demanded.

"Cassie," Dorea said gently. Xanxus smirked happily at his wife.

"Here," he said, bringing his hand around, pushing her not-yet-filled plate to one side and laying the loosely wrapped bundle on the place mat in front of her. Dorea paused, glanced at him dubiously –probably a fair reaction to his anticipatory glee– then folded back the cloth.

And promptly blushed a glorious shade of dark pink. _Success!_

"Are those flowers, Mama?" Marius asked, kneeling up on his chair to get a better look.

"Are they flowers that mean things, Mama?" Cassie guessed, looking shrewdly from her mother's wide-eyed flusterment to her father's toothy grin. "Mean _adult_ things?" Oh, his daughter was too damn sharp for her own good sometimes.

"Some of them do," Dorea admitted, her voice trembling only very slightly as she blinked hard against tears; Xanxus could feel the breathtaking sharpness of her emotions, joy and delight all tangled up in surprise and pain. The pain was fading quickly though, at least, while the bubbling delight and mild embarrassment lingered. "But most of them just mean happy things."

"Like what?" Marius asked, eyes flicking from his mother's face to the array of enamelled flowers in front of her.

"Well this one," Dorea carefully picked up the spray of lemon blossom and leaves no longer than her middle finger by the three pins intended to secure it to her hair, "means 'faithful love', and this one," she carefully set the lemon blossom aside in favour of one of the set of six pins tipped with sweet alyssum flowers that had very nearly driven him insane in how fiddly they had been to make, "means 'worth beyond beauty'. So what your Papa is saying by giving them to me is that he promises to always love me and that he doesn't just appreciate me because I'm pretty to look at."

"What about the others?" Cassie asked, dropping out of her chair and skittering around the table to get a better look from beside her mother's elbow.

"Cassie."

The five-year-old's expression turned faintly mulish as she pouted up at Dorea. "I wanted to see!"

"And now you have, so go and sit down again."

Cassie went. Xanxus was again impressed by how apparently effortlessly his wife maintained discipline. Once their daughter was back in her chair Dorea picked up the pin with the bluebell sprig; Italian bluebells, because those were the kind he knew and liked best.

"This one means 'constancy', so it's another promise to always love me as much as he does now and these two" –the intertwined honesty and white clematis pins which were mirror images of each-other– "mean together that he thinks my being intelligent and cunning is fascinating and attractive." She carefully put them down again and moved the cloth parcel carefully to the side of her place setting.

"The others all have grownup meanings, don't they Mama," Marius stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes wyrmling, they do," Dorea admitted with admirable aplomb. "All things a good husband will say to his wife and _mean_, because he loves her very much."

"Good," the twins chorused, Marius more firmly and Cassie with a faintly vicious edge.

"Are you going to make Mama more flowers?" Cassie asked Xanxus as lunch arrived on the table, its abrupt appearance not startling him like it had the first time.

"Yes."

"Good," Cassie repeated, nodding and looking fiercely pleased for a moment. Then her expression changed to something more tentative. "Will you make me flowers?"

Xanxus considered it. "Maybe one or two," he conceded; his daughter should get flowers, if very different flowers to the ones he was giving to her mother. "You have less hair."

"But I could wear pins to keep my bangs out of my face!" His daughter suggested, smiling hopefully.

"Primroses perhaps?" Dorea suggested mildly; her blush had faded to the faintest hints of pink but her eyes still shone darkly.

"Perhaps," Xanxus agreed. "Or maybe barberry." Which meant sharpness; his daughter should probably come with a warning after all, what with being _his_ with all that implied.

"Could I wear hairpins?" Marius asked, glancing from his mother's hairdo with the dangling feathers and gem-tipped pins glinting here and there to the feathers brushing his father's shoulders.

"With ebony leaves maybe?" Dorea suggested with a twitch of the lips. Xanxus coughed, the pun catching him by surprise. 'Blackness', seriously?

"I'd like leaf pins," Marius decided, smiling hopefully at his father.

"Maybe," Xanxus repeated amusedly, "once I've finished the ones for your mother."

"You're doing _more_?" Cassie asked. Xanxus nodded.

"Well in that case, I should probably wear some," Dorea said, setting down her fork and reaching for the array of hair decorations Xanxus had just finished.

"Let me," he said quickly, tugging the carrying cloth closer with one hand and reaching for his wife's hair with the other. Dorea smiled shyly at him and turned sideways on her chair to give him better access to her head.

He couldn't put them _all_ in –that would look tacky– but the multi-tone purple dress she was wearing meant he could put the long spray of everlasting pea with heliotrope accents –with the meaning 'devotion to lasting pleasure'– and replace half her other pins with the sweet alyssum ones.

"I may have to wear orange to dinner," his wife murmured, glancing back at him under her lashes as he secured her hairstyle. Xanxus twitched at the thought of his wife wearing orange; if she did he could put the flowering quince in her hair along with the larger iris, arum, honeysuckle and spindle-tree piece. Which meant 'temptation' and 'I burn with ardour at your generously devoted affection; your charms are engraved on my heart'.

Fuck, he _wanted_ to see that; even though they were his words to her, not hers to him. That she would be _wearing_ them meant she _accepted_ them and, just. _Fuck_. _Fuck! _

He _really_ wanted to hustle her off and find a handy settee to seduce her on –fuck, a _wall_ would do so long as it was somewhere they wouldn't have an audience– but she wasn't up for that today and right now the chances of him dying of thwarted lust felt very high indeed. _Fuck _his_ life_.

His wife giggled. _Giggled_. At him.

"You're blushing."

Xanxus blinked. What, he was? Seriously? He hadn't known he _could_ blush.

"I'm feeling better already," she added obliquely, turning back to her meal with a sly smile.

Xanxus automatically turned his own attention back to his food as well, his mind in disarray. Yes, she fucking _had_ meant to insinuate that and his wife was a bloody _tease_.

Well if all he had to do was get through lunch without the kids feeling like they were being short-changed…

"Promises, promises," he sassed back under his breath, shifting slightly in his seat in an attempt to get more comfortable. It didn't really help.

"Maybe you should have put the vine, chervil and peach blossom in my hair instead," his wife retorted.

'I am your sincerely intoxicated captive' was _definitely_ how he was feeling right now. "Maybe I should have," Xanxus agreed.

"After lunch then," Dorea said mischievously, glee and sensual heat dancing across the marriage bond and making him want to groan aloud. Fuck, she really _was_ going to kill him today.

But hey; _what_ a way to go.

* * *

...

...

So... I _do_ have a another few chapters, but If I leave this here I could probably update _properly_ around Christmas. Hm, decisions decisions...

EDIT: Okay, I've decided on a Christmastime update. Watch this space!


	152. Chapter 152

Beta'd by the reassuring Insane Scriptist.

Here it is, the promised Christmas update week! However I must warn readers that **this chapter** is **M rated **for **sexual situations**! so if that's not your jam, don't read it. No plot here, just lots of fluffy smut. Regular service will resume tomorrow.

* * *

**Of passion and discovery **

Dorea had not expected her husband to show up at lunch wearing leather. At least, not wearing _just_ leather, seeing as he was without a shirt. Her reaction had been a complete surprise; then again, she'd have probably been _less_ surprised at herself any other time of the month.

It was still a bit confusing though. She knew what her husband looked like naked from her wedding night –and more recently Sunday morning– and he wore leather trousers on a daily basis, so what _was_ it about the jacket hanging open to frame his bare chest that made such a big difference?

Then there were the flowers. Flowers which were jewellery as exquisite as anything in her jewel box and in fact more realistic and beautiful than half of the enamelled necklaces and bracelets she'd inherited, even without going into the meanings. What that dainty array of pins and hairpieces _said_ was enough to make any woman blush! Promises of sincerity and constancy were all very well and that he considered her to be inherently tempting was very flattering –especially when she didn't feel very attractive at this particular moment, being instead unsettlingly aware of her own awkwardness– but declaring himself captivated and intoxicated was a bit… much, maybe?

Except it very clearly _wasn't_ because he _meant_ it; he meant _all_ of it, including that he was attracted to her intelligence and ingenuity. What had hurt though had been the largest hairpiece, which stated that he considered her affection for him –which she privately believed to be fairly lukewarm– not just sufficient, but innately worthy of admiration and even outright _lust_. The everlasting pea and heliotrope was _blatantly_ cheeky though; that it was _that_ one he chose to put in her hair had however consolidated her determination to do something daring and sincere right back. Like actually wear the incredibly gorgeous and delicate yet slightly risqué piece with the irises and arum lilies to dinner along with the quince blossoms. She'd have to wear an orange dress for those colours to work though.

"I may have to wear orange to dinner," she suggested, glancing at Xanxus to see if he caught the implications and how he felt about the idea.

The blatant physical want that exploded across the marriage bond took her by surprise; she'd _definitely_ touched something important there. Did her wearing his workmanship really mean _that_ much to her husband? If so then she was going to make a point of doing so; her feelings for him were nowhere near as powerful and consuming as his for her, but that didn't mean she didn't care. It would be no hardship at all to wear the beautiful, delicate works of art he'd made for her, although several of them were definitely going to make her Guardians –and a good many other educated witches and wizards– raise their eyebrows at her.

Watching his body react to her superficially innocuous statement was utterly fascinating; the way his breathing changed, his muscled stomach tightened, his neck corded for a split-second and his irises contracted, the bright scarlet briefly thinning to half its usual width around dark, gleaming pupils. Then parts of his skin started reddening and Dorea couldn't hold back a giggle; his _scars_ were _blushing_. It looked incredible and intimidating and far too alluring for comfort; she knew where _all_ her husband's scars were –had kissed and run her tongue over every last one– and her mind was giddily envisioning how they'd all look right now with blood blooming under them.

"You're blushing," she explained in response to her husband's baffled expression; his confused reaction to _that_ was somehow even more adorable than the blush, which was fading quickly but still painted his injuries across his exposed skin like ghostly blood splatter.

"I'm feeling better already," she added slyly before turning back to her meal; yes, she was still experiencing occasional low-level pain but finding out whether getting her husband hot and bothered enough to blush _again_ when he was wearing a whole lot less would look as amazing as she thought it would was more important.

* * *

Getting through lunch without tipping off his very smart twin children took a lot more effort than Xanxus had thought it would; then again he was distracted by his wife's sudden decision to take the initiative and his own body's reaction to that, so that he'd managed it at _all_ when Cassie and Marius were still looking at him askance for missing breakfast was probably achievement enough. That Dorea had produced moving photographs of herself as a child being fussed over by an actual living hippogriff –fuck they were _massive_– had definitely helped.

Dorea really was killing him with her behaviour though; the only time she'd ever taken the initiative entirely unprompted had been on Sunday morning, which had been _amazing_ and the only time in his entire _life_ he'd ever enjoyed losing a challenge. Yes, his wife was generally very responsive when _he_ initiated –although he hadn't done much of that these past few days due to the time of the month it was– but there was a very big difference between her being willing to reciprocate and her actually _starting_ something. That she'd apparently decided his reaction to her wearing the flowers he'd made was worth initiating sex over… well, he was _definitely_ going to be making more. Lots more. He should find other things to do for her too, so as to ring the changes.

If he made bullets and got his guns done they could do some shooting together and he could see how good she was at actually hitting a target. See how things went then on both their ends. Maybe follow it up with a few other things or have food beforehand and it could be a solid date in a week or so, after the Tuesday date.

"Xanxus?"

Xanxus looked up; Dorea was standing by the open door, head tilted sideways, a small smile on her face and the bundle of other pins held against her chest. The twins were nowhere in sight. "Shall we?" His wife asked lightly before turning to leave the room.

The Varia Boss was on his feet and after her in a flash; she dodged his first attempt to catch hold of her, but his longer legs meant he caught up with her a few quick strides later and a conveniently placed side table let him corner her and kiss her hungrily, pulling her flush against him so she could feel how _very_ much he wanted her to follow through on her earlier promise. The hitch in her breath was _very_ promising, but the accompanying flinch really was _not_; not entirely sure he was interpreting the mixed signals right, Xanxus pulled back.

"_Stai bene?_" There was a world of difference between wanting to do something and being physically capable of achieving it.

His wife nodded decisively, but Xanxus was still leery of pushing too hard in case he hurt her by accident. Dorea clearly noticed his hesitation and leaned into him for a kiss; Xanxus kissed back, but more carefully this time. After a few more minutes his wife pulled away, catching his hand and leading him off along the hallway. Falling in step beside her, Xanxus tried to convince himself that it wouldn't kill him if it turned out she wasn't quite as in the mood as she'd thought she was before lunch. _Logically_, the worst-case scenario here was he took a shower and got himself off and it wasn't like there wouldn't be other times…

Unfortunately it wasn't that easy; _fuck_ logic, seriously. If this didn't work out he was going to be feeling pathetic for the rest of the day and if that meant he _was_ pathetic and stupidly smitten, well, he could own that. He'd be pissed off about it but he could own it. Yes, he loved his wife to distraction but that didn't mean he couldn't feel insecure about _her_ feelings for _him_, especially when he _knew_ she wasn't head-over-heels for him like he was for her.

"You're thinking too hard again," Dorea told him, pausing by a door and turning to look him in the eye. The mischievous zing along the marriage bond killed a few of his concerns –if she was feeling well enough to be playful they were probably going to get somewhere– so he leaned in for another kiss. He was a bit more careful about where he put his weight this time and was rewarded for his efforts; the way her nails dug into his shoulder was perceptible even through his leather jacket and the pulse in her neck hitched and fluttered faster with every passing minute.

Then the door he had her trapped against moved and he had to take several quick steps and let go so as to avoid falling on top of her. The room wasn't anything special really –yet another private sitting room– but it was painted in shades of orange and peach and reminded him viscerally of his wife's promise to wear orange for dinner. It also had a very generously proportioned couch, more than large enough even for him to lie on.

Wait… that wasn't just a couch; that was fainting couch not so different to the one his wife had taken a nap on Friday afternoon. Xanxus had heard _stories_ about what those were _really_ for. Mainly from what Federico had used them for.

"Not really in the mood to be 'taken care of' right now," his wife admitted frankly, leaning into him as she pushed the door closed behind them, "but I do rather fancy taking care of _you_."

Oh _fuck_. Now _that_ was an image to conjure with. Xanxus swayed slightly on his feet as his trousers abruptly felt too tight again.

"Where d'you want me?" He asked huskily, turning and glancing down to meet her eyes.

Dorea smirked. "On the couch," she enunciated clearly, pushing two fingers into the middle of his chest, "with your back against the high end, please."

Xanxus stepped backwards; keeping his eyes fixed on his wife's as he retreated until the edge of the seat touched his calves and then let himself collapse backwards onto the couch, arms reaching out to sprawl across the rests to either side of the high section. He kept up that fierce, unwavering stare as she crossed the room towards him, hips and skirts swaying in a way that suggested a straight-backed stalk better suited to the battlefield or a duel; that was the posture of someone who _really_ knew what to do with a sword.

He was _definitely_ looking forward to seeing his wife fight.

Arriving at the couch, his wife settled herself near the far end, taking several moments to fussily smooth her skirts and adjust her bodice. Xanxus watched, taking a certain satisfaction in how he'd managed to muss her clothing between here and lunch despite her now having undone all his efforts.

Then she carefully set the bundle of hairpins on the small table off to one side, reached down and lifted his right boot into her lap, forcing Xanxus to shift himself around a bit until he was sat along the couch rather than across it. Dorea waited patiently until he was settled again then looked him dead in the eye and started untying the laces.

Xanxus' brain hiccupped.

No, that was _actually happening_. His wife had his _boot_ in her _lap_ and was _unlacing_ it.

Almost unwillingly his eyes drifted down to her hands, long, pale-skinned fingers he'd seen dance across a piano keyboard and deftly wield a quill easily unknotting the bow and sliding down his shin to loosen the laces at every. Single. Fucking. Eyelet.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_; he was _screwed_.

Xanxus was vaguely aware of his blood pounding in his ears and his breathing having sped up, but mostly he was hypnotised by the thorough, careful attention his wife was giving his booted foot and that she was doing it entirely by touch.

He stared as her left hand curled over his shin just above the top of the boot and her right gripped the back of his heel as she gently, smoothly pulled the loosened boot off his foot and lowered it to the floor, letting it slide through her fingers so it was standing upright at the far end of the couch.

Xanxus knew very well he had a bit of a Thing about boots, his Varia boots in particular. However he'd never previously considered that this might be something that could translate into the bedroom, which had clearly been a _very serious_ _oversight_. He tried to take a breath, failed to control the hitch and shudder when Dorea ran the ball of her thumb up the sole of his bare foot and resigned himself to getting _wrecked_ when she moved said foot out of her lap and trapped it gently between her lower back and the backrest of the couch. Because _now_ she was going to unlace his _other_ boot and this time he knew it was coming.

Glancing up to meet his wife's eyes again, Xanxus realised that she'd kept her attention on his face throughout; the sheer _heat_ he could see in her eyes was… fuck, words eluded him. He could feel her enjoyment of his reactions and her anticipation of how he would react to what she was going to do next.

She reached over for his left foot and Xanxus couldn't help watching her hands again; his wife had gorgeous hands, fighter's hands. Hands she was stripping him naked with, boots first.

_Fuuuuuuck_.

* * *

Unlacing a boot by touch was by no means easy; it took care, thoroughness and focus otherwise you risked not loosening it enough and having it catch on your foot. Dorea could do it though –her husband's boots were considerably simpler to remove than her own duelling boots– and it was _more _than worth the time and effort. Watching her husband _react_ and feeling his emotions heighten and burn was completely intoxicating; it even made her own stomach clench in a way that was more pleasure than pain.

Her husband was probably inscrutable to people who weren't familiar with the Zabini, but Dorea was aware of how different the visual cues could be and was picking them up and engraving them on her heart. Pupil dilation was more strongly connected to light levels and visual distance than emotional extremes, so you had to watch for the little twitches. The movement in the skin around the eyes meant more than mouth movement; smiling was human, social and an acquired skill rather than an instinctive one. Conversely, a loose jaw and general facial expression that to most people suggested boredom –slightly open mouth, half-closed eyes and lowered brows– actually signalled interest and focus.

That was the look she was getting now. Dorea savoured it, along with the shivers in his neck. If she could see his arms she would probably see more cues there –the avian ancestry meant that neck and arms were far more expressive in royal Zabini than faces– but he still had the jacket on so she couldn't.

She should do something about that once she'd taken this boot off.

Keeping her eyes on her husband's face and imprinting on her mind all the little cues that gave away his thoughts and feelings, Dorea tugged the boot off her husband's foot and set it down with its twin beside the couch, her other hand tracing an idle circle around his ankle. Xanxus wasn't wearing socks today, which had surprised her and led her to wonder if he really was _only_ wearing leather. If that _was_ the case…

She ran her thumb across the arch of her husband's foot, the change in his breathing audible in the quiet of the room, then lifted her left foot off the floor and slid her knee across the couch seat so her husband's right leg was caught between her own leg and the couch back. Her husband watching her avidly, Dorea carefully shifted herself closer to him along the couch until she was half-kneeling right in front of him, his right thigh propped up over her left knee and his left foot having slid off the seat entirely.

Her husband didn't make a sound; Dorea hadn't been expecting him to. Blaise was actually towards the chatty end for a Zabini: most of them were very short indeed on small-talk and only got wordy when explaining something, reading or reciting poetry and literature, singing songs or verbally eviscerating a political opponent. That was among adults, of course: talking to children was different and over half the Zabini visitors Dorea had hosted over the years had spoken at least three times as many words to her children than to her. Words were _deliberate_.

Placing her hands over her husband's, Dorea pushed slightly; Xanxus went along with her urging and moved his hands backwards along the armrests until his elbows were brushing his waist. Dorea then leaned in for a kiss which her husband reciprocated ferociously, nipping at her lips and scraping at the roof of her mouth with his tongue.

He would have grabbed her head to hold her still and tugged on her hair, but Dorea had his wrists pinned with her hands and he clearly still had enough presence of mind to remember that she'd wanted to be the one in charge today.

"Love you," Xanxus rumbled, pulling out of the kiss and sliding the bridge of his nose along her cheekbone all the way to her ear; Dorea's breath hitched as he nibbled on her earlobe. "Lovely wife."

Dorea let go of his wrists to grab at the collar of his jacket, pushing it back off his shoulders and down his arms to his elbows. It didn't quite restrict movement, but it was a check and the way her husband leant back to glance down, then back up at her face indicated he was more than a little curious about what she had in mind.

She took a moment to admire the view: Xanxus naked to the waist, the ends of the jacket brushing around his hips and his leather trousers tight and strained across his groin. Passion and exertion had brought the faintest hint of colour to his scars, so they chased across his skin like ragged pinkish shadows.

"Gorgeous, sexy husband," she murmured back, meeting his eyes again. "All mine."

The tiny, self-satisfied smirk she got in reply just _killed_ her in all the best ways. "So now what?" He asked, a hint of lustful rasp underlying the teasing words.

"Now you stay still," Dorea replied, eyes on her husband's face even as her hands slid from his elbows down his stomach to the waistline of his trousers around his hips, "and let me touch you."

The way his breath caught as her fingertips slipped under the close-fitting leather –and no, he _wasn't_ wearing anything underneath– was just as satisfying as the way his eyes widened and the muscles at his temples fluttered.

Actually, there was something she'd overlooked. "Want me to take my rings off?" She had the Black and Slytherin rings on her right hand and the Potter ring –her wedding ring– and Death's ring on her left, three of them carved metal and the fourth persistently cool stone. Considering where she was intending to put her hands next, her husband might prefer her to remove them. Or at least try; she'd never attempted to take Death's ring off before.

Xanxus trembled under her, an incoherent tangle of emotions briefly surfacing from the lust that was all she could feel from him right now as his scars bloomed redder. "I… try with, first?" He eventually managed, voice deep and rough.

Dorea smiled, remembering a very silly movie she'd seen with Leo once. "As you wish," she agreed, reaching for the button fly keeping his trousers closed.

* * *

Xanxus could not have kept his eyes on his wife's face even if his life had depended on it, not when she was unfastening his trousers and had just prompted his brain to wonder what it would feel like to have her rings pressing into him when she palmed him, on top of the roughness of the calluses years of swordsmanship had left her with. Fuck, just the _thought_ of it had made his cock twitch and his trousers had _already_ been just slightly on the side of too tight.

But then the buttons were unbuttoned and the pressure was gone, leaving nothing behind to help him hang onto his control with as Dorea tugged the leather down and out from under his ass, leaving his trousers bunched up about a third of the way down his thighs.

"Your scars are blushing again," His wife murmured, running a finger up his bared thigh and across his hip and now Xanxus could see what she meant: the tissue grafts which had faded into invisibility three days ago were painted across his skin like fresh scalding.

Then her hand was sliding down his stomach, palm flat against his skin, the hardness of her rings pressing against his muscles and the backs of her knuckles just _barely_ brushing against his cock. Xanxus gritted his teeth against a whine, then gasped as she wrapped her _other _hand around the base of his cock and stroked upwards.

The wooden rests along the top of the couch did not creak or bend under his fingers, but that was entirely down to good workmanship and possibly magical bullshit. _Fuck_.

What his brain had come up with in response to her question about rings had fallen a _long_ way short of reality, the odd purple-black stone ring that reminded him of Mammon's Arcobaleno pacifier in _particular_.

Then she did it _again_ and he swore out loud at length.

"Was that 'yes, more' or 'no, stop'?" His wife asked teasingly. "Whatever languages those were I only recognised half of it."

"More," Xanxus managed in Russian, which he was mostly sure he remembered his wife mentioning she spoke. She did; unfortunately for his dignity making an effort _not_ to swear the air blue meant he moaned loudly instead.

Fuck, what did he need dignity for right now anyway? "Harder," he gasped, head rolling back as he moaned again at the storm of sensations taking him over. Knowing how she was feeling through their marriage bond made it worse, as his brain was still capable of eagerly anticipating what she might do based on her emotions.

"That sounded like 'harder'," Dorea murmured in German, "so like this?"

What language had he–

* * *

The hoarse, ragged torrent of polyglot encouragement pouring from her husband's lips as he hung onto the couch's armrests, his entire body shuddering under her ministrations, was utterly entrancing. Dorea understood maybe half the words, but as everything she recognised was a variation on 'more', 'god', 'please' with a generous lashing of compliments and endearments, she took it was encouragement. And possibly a sign she needed to learn some more languages; she had the time now after all.

She hadn't expected the words –her husband hadn't previously reacted like this during sex– but really, their relationship was still very new and they were only just starting to get to know each-other; she certainly hadn't done this particular thing before after all. Xanxus looked beautiful right now though, skin twitching under a gleaming veil of sweat, muscles quivering in time with his racing heartbeat and scars bright like fresh blood. He was utterly arresting, completely captivating and Dorea _wanted_ even though doing so was actually physically painful. She _wanted_ and she couldn't _have_ except she _did_ have and that she had reduced him to this was _satisfying_ in a way she couldn't really articulate.

This was her husband; her husband who _loved her_. Her husband who was genuinely, sincerely devoted to her _and_ completely besotted with her; who had promised he would always be here for her.

Somehow she found it easier to believe the words now. And the swearing earlier had been slightly hilarious.

As there was now fluid seeping out her husband's cock that was getting smeared all over her busy hands he probably wasn't going to be hanging on much longer, so Dorea gave in to the imp of mischief, leaned forwards and bit down on Xanxus' collarbone.

It had _exactly_ the desired effect: her husband cried out incoherently, convulsing as seed splattered all over his chest and stomach, running down his abdomen and over her hands. There was probably quite a bit on the front of her dress too, but that didn't matter. Sitting up again, Dorea admired the impression left by her teeth right over the bone just below where neck met shoulder; maybe it would bruise.

Xanxus' head rolled forwards, his forehead almost colliding with hers as he panted. "Witch," he managed eventually.

"Yes," Dorea agreed smugly, "but I didn't use magic." 'This time' hung in the air like a promise; there was really no shortage of tantric magic out there and most of the varieties she'd read about looked like a lot of fun.

"There's sex magic? Of course there's sex magic," Xanxus muttered, his voice deliciously low and rough. He relinquished his grip on the couch, flexing his fingers briefly then catching one of her wrists. "Made a mess of you."

Dorea glanced down; there was indeed quite a lot of sticky whiteness all over her hands and staining her sleeve cuffs, along with a spray of droplets across the front of her dress. "It'll come off," she said with a shrug, basking in the warm smug feeling of her own accomplishment and the slight second-hand orgasmic high she could feel from her husband. "In fact," she reached for her magic and the shape of the appropriate spell for cleaning bodily fluids off skin and delicate fabrics, "there, see?"

"That easy?" Xanxus examined both her now completely clean hands, turning them this way and that.

"Want me to use it on you too?" Dorea asked, smirking coyly at him.

Her husband nodded, not letting go of her wrists, which made targeting the spell slightly more difficult; it still worked though.

"Hn," Xanxus grunted, shifting slightly on the couch before looking her in the eye and smirking toothily. "Thank-you," he rumbled, tugging her close for a relatively chase kiss. "I feel _very_ well looked after," he added after pulling away again.

Dorea felt her face heating; why was it her husband always knew _exactly_ what to say to make her blush?!

* * *

Translations 

Stai bene? = are you well? (Italian)


	153. Chapter 153

Beta'd by the poised Insane Scriptist.

Back to the T-rated family fluff... and reviews aren't showing on the site, but I'm still getting them! Thank-you to everybody who reviewed the last chapter!

* * *

**Of promises and adjustments **

Xanxus stalked languidly along the hallway, boots tucked under one arm and bare feet silent on the surprisingly warm marble as he made his way back to his rooms at a leisurely pace. Dorea had loved the flowers, was _wearing_ the flowers and was going to go _on_ wearing the flowers; was going to wear orange to dinner so she could wear _more_ flowers, even. Xanxus would have liked to have spent the rest of the time left until four o'clock kissing his wife, playing with her hair and telling her how incredibly precious she was to him –a subject he was never going to run out of words on– but the urge to make and forge had seeped back into his brain barely twenty minutes into his attempt at reciprocation and Dorea had _noticed_. Which was just a little bit mortifying, because he was _not_ that transparent; he'd never have managed to lead the Varia if he'd been that transparent! More marriage bond quirks to get used to.

His wife had teased him just a little bit –asked if they were 'good thoughts' with a raised eyebrow and a smile– and hadn't let him apologise; she apparently was just as bad when she was in a 'music mood' or engrossed in her research. Then she'd tempted him with the prospect of getting to see her wear the pieces he was designing in his mind and he'd let himself be seduced into returning to work. So back to the workshop he went, to finish the pieces he'd already started and do a few more sketches of the new ideas he'd had over lunch and while basking in afterglow. Globe amaranth for unfading love, wax plant flowers for susceptibility, purple columbine for 'resolve to win'… he really had no shortage of ideas. There was no way he'd get them all done before four, but hopefully by then the drive would have faded a bit so he could spend time with his kids without short-changing them of attention; he couldn't properly spend time with them if his head was still focusing on how best to get enamel colours right.

First though he had to go put some socks and maybe a shirt on; his wife was currently wearing his jacket and looking very sexy in it, and while he hadn't noticed it while engrossed in his work, wearing his boots without socks had rubbed against his feet a bit. Hence his currently being barefoot.

Xanxus' cheerful smirk widened into a smug toothy smile as his mind wandered back to how completely fucking _amazing_ it had felt to have his wife's hands on him, his free hand drifting up to the bruised bite-mark on his collarbone. He'd been a bit worried Dorea had lost some of the fire and energy he remembered from their wedding night, but his fears were clearly unfounded; she was still a wicked minx who delighted in marking him up. The long years of his absence had just made her very controlled and self-contained.

He would have to fix that.

* * *

Xanxus was carefully dusting a glass and pigment powder mix over a tiny metal flower when there was a knock on the workshop door and he remembered that he'd asked Flippy to warn him at ten to four so he could avoid disappointing his kids. However he couldn't just _stop_ now; that meant being late was inevitable, fuck and _shit_. Taking a deep, calm breath, Xanxus reminded himself that perfection was not a requirement for parenting and that neither Dorea nor the twins would mind him being a little late so long as he apologised. He could finish up this piece, tidy up and come back either after dinner or tomorrow morning to enamel the other flowers and sculpt a few more. He was running low on copper and gold anyway, so he could arrange for more of that to be bought on his behalf at the same time.

Taking another calm, slow breath, Xanxus went back to enamelling. Losing his temper or trying to rush would just make everything take longer and possibly ruin things as well. Finishing would mean he had the flowers in hand to show his family and everything would be fine.

It _would_ be all fine. It would.

Xanxus carefully placed the delicately pigmented flower in a stand, set down the unused powder next to it, stepped well back from his workbench and took a few moments to swear loudly and vehemently at the ceiling, his own insecurities and the old fart for giving him fucking _adequacy issues _in the first place. Fucking _stupid_ brain; now he was going to have to be _deliberately_ late just to prove to himself that it really _didn't_ matter.

In which case he might as well get a few more flowers done.

* * *

Dorea was really not at all surprised at her husband being late to tea; anything that distracted him while he was trying to coax her into intimacy was definitely _very_ distracting _indeed_. She'd been expecting it really, which was why the food part of tea was delayed until half-past four and she'd changed into a proper riding habit before meeting the children. Hector had been very fractious today despite his midday nap and had insisted on being carried everywhere by either Blaise or Rence, who had taken it in turns so they could get their own work done in between times.

As she had promised at breakfast, she would be letting her children take rides on Chione and heading out to the far end of the front lawn to feed the thestrals. Feeding the thestrals would wait until just before bedtime however, as that way she could give their tea time to settle beforehand.

She didn't really _need_ to change for riding, not when she would barely be riding the length of the lawn and back, but she'd worn the deep green habit earlier on her check of the Wards and grounds and putting it back on gave her an excuse to redo her hair with some different flower pins. Dorea limited herself to the two mirrored honesty and clematis pins on either side of her braided bun; there was every chance Xanxus might bring out a few more that he'd made since lunch and if so she wanted to be able to put them in at once.

"Where's Papà?" Cassie asked as soon as Leo arrived in the garden with both twins in tow.

"He's late," Dorea replied easily, "so we're going to start without him. You wanted to ride Chione, didn't you kitten?"

Cassie brightened instantly. "Yes please Mama!"

"Well then, let's get through the polite introductions and see if she's up for a flight, shall we?" Dorea said cheerfully. "Marius, do you want to fly?"

Marius pondered the question. "No Mama," he said eventually. "Chione's really big and she doesn't have a saddle. I want to stroke her. She's really pretty."

"I'm sure that even if she doesn't want to fly, Chione will be happy to let you preen her," Dorea assured her oldest son. "Let's go find her; Neville said she was sunning herself near the greenhouses."

Cassie hurtled off across the grass; Marius dashed after her, probably intending to try and make sure she didn't accidentally upset the hippogriff with her enthusiasm. Dorea followed behind at a more sedate pace; Chione wouldn't hurt the children, although Cassie might well get knocked over if she was too pushy.

"Blaise is meeting us down there with Hector," Leo said, falling into step beside her. "They've been helping Neville garden." That the 'gardening' had likely involved mud pies, picking 'flowers' –weeds and various wild plants– and flopping around on the grass was a given; hopefully Hector was feeling happier now.

* * *

It was twenty-five to five when Xanxus arrived in the part of the gardens he'd been told his wife and kids were in, feeling annoyed with himself for having got caught up again and being so _very_ late for something he actually wanted to do. He did have more flowers for his wife –and a couple for the twins– which would hopefully smooth things over a bit.

Xanxus rounded the corner of the greenhouse and stopped dead, caught somewhere between awe and horror: there was a pale gold hippogriff standing mere metres away. A fucking massive eagle-horse hybrid with a beak large enough to break his arm, taller than the tallest riding horse Xanxus had ever seen, and his youngest was _hugging_ its _forelimb_. Hector barely came up to the massive beast's _shin_ yet was petting the feathers and babbling happily as that wicked, powerful beak ruffled the toddler's messy hair. It could probably _eat_ his littlest son in two mouthfuls. Possibly just one mouthful.

"Xanxus?" His wife hurried to his side, looking concerned. "Are you alright?"

Xanxus found his voice. "The _fuck_?" He managed hoarsely.

Dorea glanced over at Hector, apparently unconcerned. What _was_ it with his wife and raptors, seriously? First the killer owls and now this… thing; this was definitely starting to look like a trend.

"That's Chione, she's a sweetheart," his wife said matter-of-factly, placing a gently restraining hand in the crook of his elbow. "Complete darling, just like her father was when he was younger; Hector's as safe with her as her own chicks."

Chione was now eyeballing Xanxus with the indifferent watchfulness common to all raptors –leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, but come over here and there'll be trouble– so he wasn't too sure about his wife's assessment of the situation. "Darling," he repeated dryly.

"Oh, you've never met a hippogriff before, have you?" Dorea said, "Sorry, I forgot; right, hippogriffs. Very proud, so be polite to them. When introducing yourself you step into reach, make eye-contact, hold it for a moment then bow. If the hippogriff likes you, they'll bow back and then you're allowed to pet or even ride them. If they don't like you, back up before they take violent offense. Chione's _very_ unlikely to take offense –like I said, she's a sweetheart– but it's important to be respectful regardless."

Xanxus didn't want to be polite; he wanted to hustle his son away from that beak and those wicked claws before something fatal happened. But he was getting the impression that doing so would be as poorly-judged as trying to 'rescue' a toddler from somebody's well-trained family dog, so manners it was. Well, since it was a magic animal it was probably reasonably smart; the admonition to 'be polite' implied they understood human speech, at least. That seemed to be the norm for any magical creature really.

That his wife had been one of the people reminding him he _shouldn't_ bow to others due to being a Prince, but was now casually indicating he should bow to something out of a bestiary was vaguely hilarious; clearly hippogriffs commanded far more respect than politicians.

Wondering internally at _what was his life _between all these clichés gone astray and magical beasts, Xanxus walked closer to Chione the hippogriff, paused at about the point he judged himself to be just within reach of those very sharp hooked claws, met its sharp golden gaze for a few seconds and bowed the way he'd been taught to honour a sparring partner. The hippogriff stared coolly at him for a long moment then bowed deeply, forelimbs bent, making Hector squeal in glee as its neck feathers brushed the toddler's face.

Stepping closer, Xanxus carefully ran his hand down Chione's neck, marvelling at the massive feathers. Now he'd actually _seen_ a hippogriff, he could understand why _riding_ one would appeal. He was a little tempted himself.

"Papa!" Tiny arms wrapped around his knee with surprising strength; Hector had finally noticed him. Xanxus looked down at his youngest and smiled.

"Hello Hector."

"Papa, higgogi!" Not too bad an attempt for a toddler, that.

"Yes, it's a hippogriff," Xanxus agreed, glancing sideways at said creature, which was now ignoring him in favour of his daughter.

"You're _late_, Papà," Cassie complained as she petted the hippogriff's feathers, but there was no real bite in her rebuke.

"I made you flowers," Xanxus stated as a peace offering; his daughter had no way of knowing his lateness had been semi-deliberate, which was a pretty shitty thing for him to do when he was supposed to be the mature adult in their relationship.

Cassie _beamed_ up at him, eyes shining. "Let me see, let me see!" She squeaked, bouncing in excitement and making the hippogriff snort and take several quick steps away. He didn't blame the hippogriff for that; his daughter had been both loud and high-pitched.

Xanxus' lips twitched and he produced the folded paper packet containing the two pins he'd made with his daughter in mind. Cassie accepted the gift with quick hands, carefully unfolded the paper then gasped happily when she saw the contents. "Mama! Look! They're so pretty!" The five-year-old hurtled over to her mother, almost running her twin over in her haste.

"Hepatica, how lovely," Dorea said warmly, bending down to get a closer look at what Cassie was clutching close to her chest. "They mean 'confidence', owlet."

"Put them in my hair, Mama!" Cassie demanded.

"Cassie."

"Sorry Mama," Cassie said, not noticeably apologetic, "please put them in my hair? I want to show Papà!"

"Of course, owlet," Dorea relented. "Give them here."

Xanxus glanced at Marius, who was hovering closer to the hippogriff with the air of somebody used to being overlooked but still optimistic enough to hope it wouldn't happen this time. "I made something for you, too," he told his oldest son. He'd had to do a bit of lateral thinking for Marius' gift, since pins wouldn't have worked and enamel was too heavy to hang down like feathers could.

Marius' smile was elated as he shuffled closer. "For me?"

Xanxus nodded, producing a rather larger folded paper packet; he'd ended up making a tiara a bit like Bel wore, one Marius could wear like a headband so it wouldn't fall off. "Here," he handed the package over.

His son opened it with reverent care. "What leaves are these, Papa?" He asked after a moment's silence, gently stroking the enamelled green spikes.

"They're olive leaves and they mean 'peace'," Xanxus told him.

Marius carefully slid the headband on, fiddled with his hair a bit until he was comfortable then smiled shyly up at Xanxus. "Thank-you, Papa."

"Papà! Papà! Look!" Cassie exclaimed, bouncing over with her own pale purple flower pins tucked into her pigtails.

"Very pretty," Xanxus agreed.

"Oh, what's that Marius?" Cassie added, finally noticing her twin's new ornament.

"They're olive leaves and Papa gave them to me," Marius said happily.

"They're very pretty," Cassie agreed diplomatically, clearly thinking her own flowers were prettier but considerately not saying so.

"Your flowers are pretty too," Marius agreed. "Papa? Did you make more flowers for Mama too?"

"I did," Xanxus agreed seriously. His kids were so precious it physically hurt. How could anybody this closely related to him be so… cute? He'd _never_ been cute! Every single memory he had of being that young was of people calling him 'challenging' or 'difficult' or 'badly-behaved'; even _Nonna_ had referred to him as 'sharp' and 'exceptional'. The _only_ person who'd ever suggested in any way that he was easy to love –before his wife– had been his mother, and he'd lost her when he was four.

Cassie grabbed his arm and tried to pull him forwards. "Come give them to Mama!"

Xanxus resisted; Hector was still clamped onto his leg like a limpet and walking might result in the toddler getting bumped. "I can't go to Mama; Hector's got my leg," he told his twin children. "Maybe you could bring Mama over here?"

"Yes Papà," Marius said enthusiastically, dashing off at once; Cassie hesitated then ran after her twin. Xanxus glanced down at his youngest, who had both arms very firmly wrapped around his knee and was drooling on his trousers.

"Let go, Hector."

The toddler glared up at him mulishly. "No."

Xanxus raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" He'd always been of the opinion that small children were fully aware of their actions and reasoning, even if the reason was 'I want to'. Toddlers were still people despite being barely-verbal, not blank slates for parents to adorn as they wished.

"Papa," was all Hector said, clutching tighter.

"He's been fractious all day," Dorea said, Cassie and Marius each holding onto one of her hands and tugging her forwards between them. "I'm not sure why."

Xanxus had a guilty suspicion he _did_ know why; he'd missed breakfast and Hector hadn't been there at lunch either, so his youngest hadn't seen him since the previous evening. Clearly Hector objected to such little contact.

"It's not a problem," was what he said to Dorea, reaching out to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear.

"Show her, Papà!" Cassie demanded, bouncing eagerly.

Xanxus looked at Dorea, who was smiling and radiating shy anticipation down the marriage bond, and carefully produced a folded handkerchief from his jacket. He'd never been a handkerchief person before but Flippy had produced a whole stack of them from somewhere and it turned out they were pretty handy to have, so he was keeping them; they were good for wrapping the pins in at least.

He unfolded the bundle slightly, removed part of the contents and held them out on the palm of his hand. "Jasmine, for attachment," he rumbled, smiling at his wife's wide-eyed delight. "May I?" They'd go well with the honesty and clematis pins she was already wearing and were small enough that he could put them pretty much anywhere.

Dorea bent her head slightly so he could see over the top of her crown, holding still as he carefully threaded the white flower-topped pins into her hair; he deliberately traced firm lines on her scalp before pulling away and relished the shiver his action elicited. "Beautiful," he said quietly.

"Thank-you, husband," Dorea murmured, eyes bright and happy. Xanxus smirked.

"I've got more for you."

"Ooh!" Cassie exclaimed excitedly.

Xanxus produced the handkerchief bundle from his pocket again, unfolding another section and placing a slightly larger decoration across his wife's palm. "Purple columbine and honey flower," he said slyly, knowing the sexual implications of honey flower were about as explicit as flower language got. Oh, the florilegium said it meant 'sweet and secret love' but that was _definitely_ a euphemism.

"_You are terrible_," his wife told him in Russian, a rosy blush painting her cheekbones.

"_I know and you love me for it,_" he retorted, utterly delighted.

"What do those ones mean, Mama?" Marius asked.

"Purple columbine indicates 'determination to win' and honey flower suggests loving attention," Dorea said, neatly avoiding the erotic undertones of that _particular_ bloom.

"And there's wax plant flowers and yellow jasmine," Xanxus added, placing a second medium-sized arrangement in his wife's hands, "which together mean 'susceptible to your elegance and grace'." He'd wanted to do something with a less overtly suggestive message, as he recognised those ones would be easier for her to wear in public. He _really_ wasn't expecting her to wear the honey flowers anywhere outside the house, ever.

"That's pretty," Cassie said, going up on tiptoes to get a better look.

"And last but not least, dittany of Crete," Xanxus said, holding out the six identical pins like a miniature bouquet. "_For passion,_" he added in Russian. He'd decided against the bindweed in the end; maybe some other time.

Dorea closed her hand over his and leaned in for a kiss. "Thank-you," she said upon pulling away, "I love them." Sensing the show was over, both the twins wandered off towards the hippogriff.

Xanxus pulled his wife closer for another kiss. "_I couldn't resist the honey flowers_," he admitted candidly in Russian, "_but you shouldn't wear them if you don't want to_."

"_I'm sure there'll be an occasion,_" his wife said wryly; her smile then widened wickedly. "_If nothing else, I'm sure the married ladies I take tea with would be very impressed by your daring._"

Xanxus froze; he hadn't thought of that. Shit, if _Nonna_ was here to see this she'd _never_ let him hear the end of it; he'd be teased for the rest of his _life_. On into the afterlife too; her friends would all have been let in on it as well to make sure the story _never_ died.

"I set myself up, didn't I?" He muttered, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against his wife's. He was going to take a bit more care in the future; he wasn't entirely sure he wanted anybody else to see his wife with _those_ flowers in her hair. Maybe _this_ was why people gave their significant others cut flowers? So there was no evidence afterwards for strangers to find?

"If you are comfortable being shameless about it then I might," Dorea told him, "but otherwise I won't."

Xanxus wasn't sure how he felt about it right now; he had a sinking feeling he'd accidentally outsmarted himself. "Later?" He asked, looking at her again. He'd rather decide after he'd thought about it some more, like the social implications of his gifts and how he felt about the fact that people would gossip about them.

"Later," his wife agreed. Then she looked down at his toddler leech. "Hector, would you like Papa to give you a shoulder ride?"

"Es," Hector said firmly, tugging on Xanxus' trousers.

Shoulder rides for his youngest it was then; at least this way he'd be able to walk around.


	154. Chapter 154

Beta'd by the heroic Insane Scriptist.

Yay! Reviews are back!

* * *

**Of parenting and balance **

In the end Xanxus didn't get to meet thestrals on Thursday evening, whatever those were; their name was not at all familiar. Hector had refused to let go of him come bedtime so he'd gone back to the house to read to his youngest and tuck him into bed while his wife stayed with the twins. Hector had really been _very_ unhappy about being put to bed and had made a _massive_ fuss every time Xanxus tried to leave the room, which had eventually led to the frustrated and guilty-feeling Varia Boss picking the toddler up again and walking him around the room, humming soothingly and cheating with his Flames to encourage the little boy to sleep.

It did eventually work, but by the time he'd managed to put Hector down for the night it was well past the twins' bedtime as well, so he'd missed reading to them despite having _promised_. Dorea assured him they hadn't minded –she'd read to them in his place and they both recognised it was 'Hector's fault' for being fussy– but that wasn't really the point. _Xanxus_ minded. Clearly parenting was going to be _hard_, since he'd failed to take Hector's needs into account today and _that_ was what had disrupted their evening. The toddler was certainly the fussiest of his children, which might change as he grew older but then again might not.

He'd barely spent any real quality time with his youngest –soothing tantrums didn't count– which was definitely going to have to change. Well, he could maybe start doing that tomorrow? Or for part of tomorrow anyway; he'd probably spend a bit more time in his workshop, which was definitely _not_ toddler-friendly, but he could take a few hours to see to furnishing his rooms and having a toddler with him for that wouldn't be an issue. He also had to read the Sabina-related things that had been piled up on the desk of his private office –the Zabini herbal, military summaries and more– which were another possible toddler-friendly activity, provided Hector was prepared to entertain himself while Xanxus read. Which he might not be; Xanxus didn't know his son well enough yet to be able to say either way.

* * *

Friday morning started _wonderfully_ for Xanxus, with his wife accidentally waking him early while in the throws of an erotic dream –their marriage bond making life interesting again– which he had been _more_ than willing to help her with when she woke up gasping and needy less than a minute later. They'd both had to rush through showering and getting dressed afterwards in order not to be late to breakfast, but it had _definitely_ been worth it.

Breakfast began with Hector almost wriggling right out on Nanny Sofia's arms as he tried to get at Xanxus before they even reached the table, then refusing to sit in his usual high-chair and clinging stubbornly onto his father's jacket. Not wanting to deal with toddler screaming at close range before coffee, Xanxus waved off Knight and let his youngest sit in his lap through the meal. It meant he had to eat one-handed and he had buttery smears all over his jacket sleeves, but that was fine. As Dorea had so ably demonstrated for him yesterday, cleaning with magic was ridiculously easy and his Varia jackets were treated to repel most things anyway, so it wasn't like the butter was going to damage his clothes.

"So, plans for today?" Socialite asked, glancing around the table once the twins had left for lessons.

"Xanxus needs to decide what he's wearing to your wedding," Blaise said, glancing up from his coffee. The Varia Boss had noticed that he and his brother-in-law were the _only_ people in the house who drank coffee at _all_, which was interesting and possibly important. It might be cultural –British people were as a rule less into coffee than tea– but then again there might be something more to it than that. Magic meant that the little details could easily be very significant, but the reasons could just as easily be arbitrary.

He'd not considered until this moment that he might need to wear something new or different to the wedding though; this was ironically the _first_ wedding he'd ever been invited to. "What's expected?" Xanxus asked; if it was robes like half the Guardians wore as a matter of course then he'd be irritable, but some of the styles looked reasonably practical and there was at least plenty of room to hide weapons.

"It's being held in a regular church, so you could get away with normal formalwear or a military uniform," Socialite told him, the tenseness in her posture more to do with the event than his question; wedding jitters were something he'd heard about. "As _Principe di Sabina_ you have a range of different military uniforms you could wear and your Varia uniform technically counts, although that's a working uniform rather than a formal one appropriate for special occasions." She paused. "Dorea's got a Flame-treatment procedure she's used on formalwear before, so if you decide what you want to wear this morning, she can get that dealt with this afternoon so the clothes are dry and pressed for tomorrow."

A _magical_ Flame-treatment method? Xanxus wondered how the recipe matched up to the one he used on his feathers and Luss's uniform treatment procedure. "Uniforms?" he asked.

Blaise met his eyes frankly. "Think you can put up with an hour or so of being manhandled by tailors?"

Xanxus paused. On the one hand, he _loathed_ fitting sessions with every fibre of his being; in his experience they were _awful_. On the other hand, he was getting the hang of keeping his Allure in check and these would be _Zabini_ tailors, so they might well be as immune as Blaise and the rest of the relatives he'd met so far.

Maybe if he had his wife there to talk to? It was always easier to ignore the total strangers invading his personal space when there was somebody he trusted present to keep an eye on the trash and take his mind off things. He glanced at his wife.

"Keep me company?"

"If you like," Dorea said easily, bluebell and jasmine pins standing out clearly in her dark hair. "I should probably fill you in on various background details of the wedding, like who's going to be there and why and how I know them, so this is as good a time for that as any." She paused. "Oh, and my other Mist Guardian needs me for something, so we're going to meet up in the home of a family friend on Sunday. You're very welcome to join us."

"Family friend." Considering the effort his wife seemed to be putting into letting him ease into his new responsibilities, haring off to some random person's house seemed out of character… even though Xanxus _did_ want to meet the Mist who was probably currently infiltrating the Vongola. That did take some ability.

"You know him as Talbot," his wife said, upending reality with five words. "Xanxus? Are you alright?"

Xanxus raised his free hand to request quiet and then smoothed down Hector's hair; the toddler had clearly sensed his shock and started fussing. The distraction of soothing his youngest was actually helpful.

"You know Talbot," he managed eventually.

"He's a longstanding friend to the Potter family; he's technically a cousin many times removed as his grandmother was a Potter," Dorea explained. "I know him under a different name, but Rence spent several years studying alchemy under him and my Knight has met quite a few Vongola and Varia as a result."

Alchemy… that meant ringsmithing; Knight was a _ringsmith_. A fully trained ringsmith who had been taught by Talbot, despite the old ghoul having turned down a good number of people who'd worked with Flame Tech before; fuck he had to be _amazing_. His wife had her own ringsmith and really that explained a _lot_ about her people and why most of them had Flame rings.

"I'm up for seeing Talbot on Sunday," Xanxus decided; he could ask the old ghoul for Vongola news without worrying too much about bias or things getting missed out for personal reasons. He was going to have to get the shark to move a few summaries from Information into his office so he could read them, but getting things direct from Talbot would let him interpret the Varia files more accurately.

"Okay, so fittings as soon as possible, to be finished by lunchtime," Blaise stated, pulling out what looked like a small pocket mirror and tapping it purposefully, "so everything can be ready for tomorrow morning. Rhea, are you going to make up the Alchemy solution or should I ask Lawyer?"

"Ask Knight; he's been fiddling with it for improved efficiency," Dorea said, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. "The only thing I really _have_ to do today is receive Ginny's report once she wakes up; she got back from the Caribbean at four o'clock in the morning and left a note requesting a meeting later. I suspect something went wrong with the salamanders; possibly evidence of foul play."

Knight had left with the twins, so Xanxus would have to ask the man about Flame-treatments later.

"I really hope it's nothing serious," Socialite murmured.

"I promise I won't miss your wedding, Fay; you're more important than that to me," Dorea said lightly but with complete sincerity.

"I'll go rustle up some tailors then," Blaise said, getting to his feet and leaving the room.

"I need to check in with the new Potter secretary and talk to Padma," Socialite decided, also getting to her feet. "After that's out of the way I'll be heading home, so I'll probably see you all at the wedding."

"Sally-Anne's arranging matters with your mother, right?" Dorea asked, getting to her feet and hugging her Sun Guardian.

"Yes, she's not letting me do anything," Socialite confirmed, smiling faintly. "See you tomorrow, Rhea." She too left.

Hector, perhaps sensing his father's intent to get up, twisted around and grabbed hold of Xanxus' shirt and tie. "Papa," the toddler complained, face reddening and lip wobbling alarmingly. Xanxus wrapped a firm arm around his youngest and got to his feet.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to put him down without a fuss," the Varia Boss admitted ruefully.

Dorea was unmoved by his statement, but not in a mean way. Just… matter-of-fact. "I carried him around all morning yesterday," she said frankly, walking around the table to lean into Xanxus and smile at the toddler, "and you really haven't spent much time with him yet, so consider it an opportunity. He'll probably settle enough for a nap before one, since he eats at noon, and by the time he wakes up after he may be feeling less clingy."

Okay, so what to do until the tailors showed up… "I'll take him back to my rooms then," Xanxus decided. He could look at wallpaper pattern books and maybe make a few choices. "Want to join me?"

His wife smiled. "I'd like that."

* * *

Picking out wallpaper and paint was a hell of a lot easier with somebody willing to wave a hand and demonstrate what a room would actually look like when decorated a certain way, so that part was over and done with after not much more than an hour; Xanxus _had_ been thinking about this in between everything else over the last week. Finding furniture he liked would be a little trickier; he'd never actually picked out his own furniture before. In the Iron Fort he'd just been provided with furniture, which had been replaced whenever he broke it, burned it to ash or otherwise utterly trashed it. He'd had no input in the process whatsoever. Maria-Chiara might have had a hand in furnishing his suite, but she could just as easily have left it to minions; some of the things that had showed up had offended him on principle and hadn't survived so much as a week.

In the Varia Mansion he'd had more of a choice, since in the Varia everybody personalised everything, but he hadn't really taken advantage. His bed frame was one Housekeeping had fetched when he'd demanded 'something simple and sturdy', his office chair was probably Traditional since it looked like a fucking throne and the one time he'd managed to destroy it somebody had replaced it with an identical one and the rest of his furniture matched his bed frame. If he'd actually given a shit he probably could have demanded different things, but he hadn't cared enough to bother at the time. He'd been too caught up in his fury and vengeance.

Now though, _now_ he was going to take full advantage. So what _did_ he want out of his furniture?

Sturdy was the first thing: something that fell apart if he dumped something heavy on it was no good at all, and fireproof –or at least strongly fire resistant– would be wise as well, although the anti-Wrath ward did mean he could always fireproof his furniture afterwards.

For actual pieces of furniture… he wanted an armchair and a big, comfortable sofa, definitely, and a decent footstool so he could put his feet up. Possibly a better coffee table; the current one was okay but he wouldn't say no to a larger one in his sitting room. Bookshelves and cabinets. A weapons' safe, so he wouldn't stress about his kids picking up his shit when he wasn't looking. Maybe a different bed and wardrobe, if he saw something he liked; not that he'd slept on the bed in his private bedroom yet.

A better desk and chair for his private office definitely, along with shelves, cabinets and a drinks cupboard. Something he could play music on, maybe? There weren't any electrical sockets in his wife's house, but she was ridiculously musical and he'd seen three different radios around the place so far –two of them antiques– so clearly they ran on magic somehow. Thing One had mentioned CDs at dinner once, so it was definitely possible.

Part of him _really_ wanted one of those fainting couches for his sitting room; the space was _more_ than big enough to have a sofa and a few chairs around the coffee table then the couch over by the window without feeling crowded. Sexing up his wife in his private space _definitely_ appealed and having lots of different surfaces to 'christen' would be fun.

He should probably get some soft furnishings too, beyond the obvious curtains; maybe a rug or two and some cushions. A curtain over the variable door would be smart too, so nobody he decided to invite in could see the dial.

Reaching out, he pulled the first fabric book towards him and started leafing through it. Then he paused because hey, some of these patterns were familiar; much more familiar than any of the many, many wallpaper designs had been, although one of those books had still rung a bell. Now he knew why.

"Willian Morris?" He probably should have expected it; his wife was British after all, had oodles of class and the money to pay for this kind of thing.

"I like them," his wife admitted candidly, her head propped up on his shoulder as she leaned into him, her hands twirling the bobbins of her lace-making. "If you don't, there are other patterns you can look at –including a few original wizarding designs– but I find these to be very restful." She waved at the stack of sample books he hadn't looked at yet. "These are all from when we furnished this place and while I _did_ do maybe a quarter of the guest wing in Morris, less than a sixth of the main house is; the rest is various other classic brands, colour variants the house-elves put together for me and a lot of wizarding designs, especially in the public rooms. Some of the walls and ceilings have been painted with original designs as well, since I'm patron to quite a few artists."

Xanxus nodded, turning the page of the fabric book so Hector could pat at the next page. He didn't mind –he was actually enjoying the patterns he'd seen so far although some of their meanings in flower language were incongruous, hilarious or just plain Dumb– but it was nice to know what the general expected standard was. He hadn't exactly been paying much attention to the décor, beyond noticing that it was tasteful and that each room had its own colour scheme, with some of the connected rooms having a common theme.

Hector turned the next page himself, a little clumsily but the fabric was sturdy enough to take the abuse, and squealed happily. "Tag!"

Xanxus glanced down; there was indeed a stag in the printed design, along with a couple of deer, a stream, a few flowers and various trees against an indigo ground. "Yes, it's a stag," he agreed. It was a decent design actually, one that would look good as curtains and had a green in common with the rather subtle wallpaper he liked best so far for his office.

Hector looked up at him. "Papa like?"

His Sky son was really _very_ perceptive _indeed_; that was probably going to be trouble further down the line. "Yes, I do like it," Xanxus agreed. "Let's see what other patterns I like, shall we?" He reached out to turn to the next sample, but Hector got there first.

* * *

The fitting was stressful, but not for the reasons Xanxus had been expecting: the tailors were professional, brisk and impersonal, the outfits he tried on allowed for a full range of movement and having Dorea there made it easier for him to not think about any of the many disastrous fitting sessions he'd endured back when he still thought the old fart was his father. Fucking trash with wandering hands and lingering touches; had they _really_ thought he'd let them get away with pawing at him like that?

The only problem with _this_ fitting was Hector, who was _not_ happy that his father wasn't holding him every single moment despite Xanxus still being in the room: the toddler _screamed_ and clung each and every time Xanxus handed him off to Dorea, only calming down when the Varia Boss took him back. This was incredibly awkward, as it meant that the tailors would be fitting Xanxus' trousers as he juggled an unhappy Hector and fitting shirts and jackets had to be done at speed while Dorea tried in vain to soothe the screaming, flailing toddler, Xanxus breathing deeply and trying to relax and not move because the quicker each item was fitted the quicker he'd be able to hug his son again.

By lunchtime both he and Dorea were feeling frayed and Hector had the hiccups, which were very obviously making him very miserable indeed. The clothing situation was thoroughly dealt with though and the tailors had somehow managed to create a very comfortable formal suit in a dark red wool and silk blend _on the spot_ which was going to be stitched together, lined and treated to be ready tomorrow morning, along with a suitably narrow tie in a dark, subtly-patterned silk. He had decided against wearing a uniform to the wedding, since it would make him stand out from the other guests; Xanxus very much wanted to blend in as much as possible since he still knew next to nothing about his wife's culture.

"Long morning?" Fool asked casually as he joined them at the table along with Executioner, Troubleshooter, Blaise and Barty.

"I will feed you to the wyverns," Dorea threatened through gritted teeth, falling heavily into her chair and pulling out a few pins so she could re-arrange her dishevelled hair, which Hector had pulled on quite hard at _least_ a dozen times in just the past half-hour and uncountable other times before that.

Xanxus sat in his own chair opposite his wife, his movements few and deliberate, Hector clinging to his shirt collar and snivelling into his shoulder in between hiccups. The sheer _effort_ involved in soothing a wilful toddler who didn't understand that the world didn't revolve around him was _exhausting_.

"Want my report now or later?" Troubleshooter asked, the freckled redhead glancing from Xanxus to Dorea with a sympathetic look in her hazel eyes.

"After the meal, please," Dorea said firmly, reaching for the glass of mead that had appeared by her place and taking a careful sip. All the Guardians nodded, Executioner turning to talk to Barty in an undertone until the first course arrived.

* * *

By the time the early lunch was over Hector had managed to eat a modest amount, stopped hiccupping and was now dozing off flopped over Xanxus' shoulder. The Varia Boss was also feeling a whole lot better, having drunk several glasses of rakı with the pickled bonito his meal had started with and most of a bottle of red wine with the _perfect _rare steak and sauerkraut that had followed. That there had been absolutely no words spoken over the meal whatsoever –apart from what was needed to get people to pass the condiments– had been wonderful and Xanxus now felt like he could engage in conversation without throwing things or ripping somebody's head off.

"I think I can bear to listen now," Dorea said, smiling at Troubleshooter as a serving bowl of ripe persimmons and two dishes of crème fraîche appeared quietly in the centre of the table and the scraped plates were replaced with empty dessert bowls.

The petite redhead sighed loudly. "It's a _mess_, Rhea," she complained, accepting a generous serving of fruit from Leo. "Just, I'll explain the whole series of events and then you can decide what to do about them."

"The situation's not resolved then?"

Troubleshooter shook her head as she scooped out a spoonful of flesh from her dessert. "It's something you need to take vaguely official action on so no, I couldn't. I cleared up the mess and ensured a week or two wouldn't make a difference to the situation then came straight back."

Dorea's shoulders sagged. "Tell me."

"The _beginning_ of this mess was about two months ago; a minor dispute between two of the salamander farming families on _Isla Negra_ escalated into property damage when one side had the bright idea of Engorging the other's salamanders. There was a brief stampede, lots of underbrush got burnt and the supervisor got involved, making both families cooperate to recover all the salamanders and clean up the mess. They settled their differences afterwards and that should have been it." Troubleshooter paused, twirling her spoon. "Except the two teenagers who recovered a cat-sized salamander from the tropical hellbender pen neglected to mention that the salamander had been cheerfully fertilising the hellbender eggs when they found it. So the hellbender breeder got a nasty shock when he came down to check up on the eggs one day and found three-dozen glowing tadpoles in a pond full of steaming water, the adult hellbenders all climbing the walls and the other tadpoles boiled alive."

Dorea winced. "Is that when they called you?"

"Noooo," Troubleshooter drawled sarcastically. "This is when they realised they would probably get in trouble for experimental breeding, but were too interested in the hybrids to just kill them. So the tadpoles were relocated to a few tanks, the dead spawn and eggs were disposed of and the hellbender breeder appropriated the two teenagers who'd failed to inform him this might happen and assigned them to monitoring the hybrids. Which all grew at tremendous speed once the teens had the bright idea of heating the tanks overnight, escaped four days later and demonstrated they could survive just about anywhere but killed off entire local aquatic wildlife populations due to liking their environment to be around boiling point and being able to make it so."

Dorea covered her face with her hand.

"At which point the supervisor found out, shouted at all involved _very_ loudly and sent the message asking me to come over and make a decision," Troubleshooter said dryly, "except I can't even do _that_, because tropical hellbenders are an endangered magical species nobody knew could hybridise with salamanders –in fact nobody knew salamanders _could_ breed before now– and the breeder knows Newton Scamander and owled the man about his findings _because_ _they_ _know each-other _so the dreadful little beasts are _official_. I ensured that every last hellspawn had been rounded up and put in stasis and owled Scamander to let him know permission was _not_ granted for this little adventure in experimental breeding and that if he wants to take over he has to come and talk to you about it in person, so now I'm back here to let you know before you get the transatlantic auk from said impassioned magizoologist wanting to camp on your island for the next year and change, studying the pests."

The emotions Xanxus was getting across the marriage bond were of mingled dismay and hilarity. "You think he will?" Dorea asked carefully, peeking out at Troubleshooter through her fingers. "He's going to be one hundred and four this year."

"I read the letters Rhea," Troubleshooter said flatly. "He sounds like Luna. Would _Luna_ let being a hundred and four stop her?"

"Okay, so I need to make space in next week's schedule for an eccentric centenarian magizoologist," Dorea sighed, her hand sliding down her face. "Potentially at short notice, what with the Black family having a _reputation_ so he'll feel the need to dash over and 'rescue' the poor misunderstood breeding accidents in the name of science," she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, "and I just _know_ Luna is going to get involved."

"Look on the bright side," Blaise said, "at least this way she might stop poking the Varia just to see what happens."

Xanxus twitched. The lunatic was doing _what_. He couldn't really move, what with having his son snoring gently on his shoulder, but this still required an explanation.

"What," he demanded, glaring at his brother-in-law.

Blaise threw up his hands. "It's nothing bad, honest! She's set up a videogame Territory for them to play in and is handing out prizes for high scores. Useful things mostly, plus a few prank items for spice; nothing that'll get them into trouble they couldn't find by themselves. She's also set up a temporary protective Ward, so nobody who might do something stupid will connect any of Dorea's Guardians to you and come looking."

How was Investigator managing to side-step Mammon's security? Yes he was taking advantage of the lunatic Mist's skill there in order to access his office, but loopholes weren't a good thing to have in security. Xanxus grimaced briefly; he'd probably have to ask and hope that Investigator's honest-but-elliptical answer was comprehensible. Some nuance Mammon had missed or some technicality she was taking advantage of.

"That would probably be a good thing," Dorea agreed, smiling wryly. "Okay, you've told me and I'll make a decision presently; you can go back to bed now."

"Thanks Rhea," Troubleshooter said warmly, getting to her feet and walking around the table to hug her Sky, "I'll see you all tomorrow morning; today was the first sleep I got since Tuesday."

"Sleep well," Fool called after the Storm as she strode out of the room.

* * *

Translations

Isla Negra = Black Island (Spanish)


	155. Chapter 155

Beta'd by the boot-loving Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of boots and their implications **

In an utterly baffling reversal, upon waking up half an hour after lunch Hector had completely lost interest in being carried everywhere by Xanxus and instead wanted to chase cats. Xanxus had met three more cats since Chaos the Russian Blue had introduced herself: a slender, athletic black cat of no particular pedigree belonging to Executioner, a large longhair ginger cat with a squashed face belonging to Troubleshooter and Steward's very affectionate Angora. It was highly unlikely that Hector would manage to catch even _one_ of them, but if the toddler wanted to run all over the house in the vain pursuit of cats that was his prerogative. His wife assigned Fool to ensure Hector didn't do himself a serious injury and that was that.

His afternoon unexpectedly freed up, Xanxus found himself slightly at loose ends. Yes, he did need to go take a look at what his furniture options were, but he wanted to do that with his kids –possibly all three of them– to see which pieces were reasonably child-friendly, were unlikely to topple over if a small, energetic person tried to climb them and were comfortable to sit on. It would probably take hours too, so it was a perfectly acceptable late afternoon activity to tire them all out before bed. He'd rather explore the options offered by what was in storage than commission everything new; he wasn't even sure what it was he wanted beyond a few basic criteria.

So, what to do before then? Well, he knew what he _wanted_ to do: he wanted to explore yesterday's discovery concerning his wife's reaction to him in leather, seeing as she was no longer in pain and –judging by this morning– could probably be coaxed into letting him spoil her a little bit.

The images his mind came up with were _very_ tempting, but another part of his brain was gnawing on a problem and seducing his wife just to distract himself from that increasingly pressing issue would be dishonest. His wife was _not_ a distraction, she was very much the main event in his life and their relationship was not at a point where he could seduce her to distract himself without it having negative repercussions.

"Heavy thoughts?" Dorea asked, coming up behind him and leaning her cheek on his shoulder, arms wrapping loosely around his waist.

Xanxus leaned back into her, enjoying the feeling of her breath on his neck. "Something I've been putting off," he admitted.

"Boring, complicated or high effort?" his wife asked; that was an interesting choice of categorisation really.

"High effort," the Varia Boss confessed dryly, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. High emotional effort in this case; the physical was negligible.

"Well, _I_ am going to take the afternoon off and read escapist fiction in my private sitting room, so when you get it over and done with, you could come and join me," Dorea suggested a little coyly, pressing her face to the back of his neck so he could feel her smiling.

That was definitely an invitation; a temptingly multi-layered invitation at that. "Are you going to change?" Xanxus asked quietly, voice dropping deeper. "Since you'll be relaxing in private."

"I might," his wife murmured archly. "I could wear different flowers in my hair, too."

She did not specify any particular flower, but the insinuation was enough to make the air feel warmer. "I'll not keep you waiting then."

"No need to rush," his wife said lightly. "You don't want to have to go back later after all."

Xanxus turned so he could pull Dorea into his chest and kiss her deeply. "Noted," he rumbled as he eventually pulled away. "See you soon."

* * *

Briskly pulling wide the doors of his Varia wardrobe, Xanxus sat down on the floor and let himself actually look properly at the six pairs of boots neatly lined up along the bottom. He'd barely glanced at them when he got his uniforms out last week –hadn't been able to face the implications– but he was feeling much more comfortable in his skin now and continuing to procrastinate wasn't going to make things any better.

Besides, he needed a smarter-looking pair of boots to wear to the wedding tomorrow.

Varia boots weren't made in-house like the uniforms were; boot-making was a specialist skill. The Varia therefore patronised the cobbler in the nearby village, whose family had been making Varia boots since Tyrant's day, and every Named Varia got a fully fitted pair of specially treated boots every year along with two uniforms. Boots were fully personalised entirely to the specifications to the assassin wearing them rather than changing at the whims of the uniform designer –Lussuria under Xanxus' rule as Boss– so in _theory_ Xanxus should have had six identical pairs of boots waiting for him, all matching the rather abused pair he'd been frozen solid in. _That_ pair was still comfortable and well broken-in, but were not in any fit state for a formal occasion.

There were however six _different_ pairs of boots in his wardrobe, neatly lined up in order under where the uniforms had originally been hanging, left to right from oldest to newest.

Just looking at them, it was kind of obvious that his being on ice for so long had given Lussuria… issues. Issues the Sun had expressed by taking them out on Xanxus' wardrobe; suddenly those God-awful Versace-knockoff coats he'd destroyed made far _too_ much sense.

Shit. The okama wasn't _technically_ his bonded Guardian, but Xanxus didn't really put much stock in that; it was a person's _choices_ that mattered and Luss had chosen to accept Xanxus as his Sky. Then Xanxus had run off and got himself in trouble somewhere his Sun Guardian _couldn't help him_. When a big part of how Lussuria defined himself was tied up in looking after the people he cared about. Fuck and fucking _shit_.

Okay. That gave him a starting point at least. Figuring out how Luss felt about things and why would help later, when he had to interact with his Sun Officer again.

The first pair of boots were completely identical to how his ruined pair had looked when new, right down to the spacing of the eyelets up the front and the way the laces were threaded through. They were smooth and flexible to the touch though, so somebody had definitely been oiling all his boots regularly in his absence; probably Tyrant, who was also the most likely candidate for airing his clothing and repairing his wife's wedding dress. His mind supplied an image of Tyrant fixing the seams which was absurd and terrifying, yet disturbingly plausible.

Considering Luss had been planning on handing out the new uniforms in September, those boots had probably been added to his wardrobe less than a month after he'd been frozen. His absence would still have seemed temporary and his Sun Officer would have been busy dealing with all the issues created by the massive influx of injured and maimed assassins to Medical following his Dumb not-coup.

The second pair of boots were sleek, pointy-toed, pull-on, below-the-knee riding boots; perfectly acceptable to wear beneath a suit when undercover and practical for folding trouser legs into when you were going to be wading through mud, blood and entrails. The only impractical aspects were that those kinds of boot usually took boot-hooks to get on and a boot jack to remove… and the pointy toes were an unnecessary aesthetic addition. A year on from his freezing Lussuria had been feeling passive-aggressive about the situation. The boots were perfectly well-made and reinforced with steel plates on the inside –he could probably break someone's shin with those pointy toes– but taking them on and off would be fiddly and he might even have to ask somebody to do it for him after a particularly messy or tiresome mission… which ensured that if his Sun Officer offered to help he was much less likely to turn the okama down.

Luss's way of making _sure_ he took care of himself, by ensuring he _needed_ assistance for apparently-trivial things. Typical Luss trickery.

That would have been the autumn following the long lull Squalo's timeline revealed; most of a year without real missions, far _too_ much time for a building full of professional assassins with issues coming out of their ears.

The third pair of boots were a much more overt 'fuck you', being fetish wear. They weren't even politely pretending _not_ to be fetish wear: they were made of fine, supple and glossy black leather, had barely any sole to speak of, would go up to his kneecaps and were held shut by laces which were each made of a narrow strip of cream leather that wrapped around hooks that went right up the front of the boot from above the arch of his foot to just below the knee. They were not boots you could wear outdoors without risking your neck the moment it started raining and you'd be able to feel every single bit of gravel through those thin, flexible soles. The shape of the boot suggested they'd hug his calves so perfectly he'd barely be able to tighten the laces at all.

Lussuria dressed his toys up in boots like these sometimes; Xanxus had seen them before and had promptly wished he hadn't. 'You may as well be dead so I'm going to dress you accordingly' was probably the message here, which said the Sun had been in a really _nasty_ mood for long enough to both come up with this idea and then persuade the cobbler to follow through with it. The okama had likely found putting these in his wardrobe extremely cathartic… and had probably amused himself ever since by imagining Xanxus wearing them. Possibly while dead.

Xanxus was well aware he was very much to his Sun Officer's taste, but that had never made him uncomfortable until now. Which was very _definitely_ the point of this pair of boots; Luss knew him far too well.

The fourth pair of boots were fucking _motorcycle boots_ with thick, rigid soles, heavy padding up the front and held closed with buckles. _Buckles_. Three of them up each side of each calf and one across the arch of the foot. The _fuck_? That would take _ages_ to put on! They weren't practical! All that shiny metal was a disgrace to everything the Varia stood for!

Fucking Lussuria was just messing with him now: three pairs of boots before these, all unworn, meant the Sun Officer knew he didn't really _need_ to keep on arranging for Xanxus to get a new pair of boots with each new uniform since he very obviously _wasn't_ wearing them out. But Lussuria had gone _on_ paying the cobbler to make a new, _different_ pair of boots _every single fucking year_ for his own twisted amusement and had gone out of his way to design a boot that would _fit_ but that he _knew_ Xanxus would never fucking _wear_.

Well the joke was on the okama; motorcycle boots could double as riding boots and these ridiculously Stupid monstrosities would be good to wear while riding his wife's hippogriffs. He would never, _ever_ wear them in the field but they'd still get used.

The fifth pair of boots were a bit more painful: they looked a lot like the second pair, except rather than being proper stiff pull-on boots they were pliable with a zip up the inside of the leg; more fashion boots than anything else. Lussuria clearly hadn't bothered to put that much effort into things that year.

That was the year _Nonna_ had died in the spring of.

The last pair of boots showed a return to form though: like the Stupid boots they had buckles, but only three on the outside of the each foot rather than seven per boot. They had zips on the outside of the leg, but the zips were hidden by a flap held in place by the buckles. They also looked like motorcycle boots, but had thinner, more flexible soles than the Stupid boots and would go up to about an inch below his knees, the exact same height as his first pair of boots. The buckles were also appropriately dulled, so they wouldn't give him away on a dark night.

Peace offering boots. Not his usual preference, but close enough that he was prepared to try them out and easy enough to get on and off that he might even demand a second identical pair if they proved as comfortable as his current pair. Luss had clearly been expecting him to be defrosted within the year when he commissioned these.

Well, now Xanxus knew what he was going to wear when he went back at the beginning of Quiet Week. But in the meantime, those ridiculously skin-tight indoor fetish boots looked like something it was be great fun to go and spend time with his wife in, seeing as she had already shown a fondness for playing with his boots and that implied she _noticed_ them. He did want to seduce her today after all…so what to wear or _not_ wear?

* * *

Pausing in the doorway connecting his wife's dressing room to her private sitting room, Xanxus took a moment to appreciate the picture she made. She was sat crooked at one end of her sofa, her left foot tucked under her right knee in a way that hiked up her skirts to reveal a wedge of frilly petticoats and a thin line of white silk stocking up her right calf. One slipper was discarded under the coffee table; the other had slipped slightly off her visible foot and swayed slightly in time with her breathing.

As promised, she had changed; changed into a sheer silk dress the colour of red wine that didn't quite hide the lines of her underskirts beneath it and made it possible for him to follow the much lower neckline of her petticoat across her breasts. She was also wearing _his jacket_ hanging carelessly around her shoulders, the short Varia jacket he'd left with her yesterday and not been able to find this morning. _Fuck_ but she looked _edible_ like that, all shimmering red silk over white frills and topped with black leather, the rosy dittany of Crete flower pins holding up a very simple hairstyle. Sunlight diffused by fine linen curtains cut across the carpet lying on the floor in front of her, the strong light illuminating the edges and folds of her clothing.

Well if that was the game his wife wanted to play, Xanxus was more than willing to oblige. Walking silently around the edge of the room behind his wife, who was engrossed in a book with a distinctly sci-fi cover –which was really fucking funny because of magic but something to ask about later– he came to a stop in exactly the right place for her to see all of him when she looked up. Then he reached out and gently tapped his knuckles on the back of the chair beside him.

Dorea glanced up and Xanxus _heard_ her breath catch, _saw_ her fingers clutch at her book as surprise and desire bloomed across the marriage bond, the desire quickly outstripping the surprise. Xanxus smirked hungrily at her and deliberately flexed his muscles; he'd forgone a shirt and was wearing the most closely-fitting but still comfortable pair of leather trousers in his wardrobe along with the fetish boots, all in the interest of eliciting this _exact_ reaction. Totally worth it.

His wife's wide, dark eyes and the racing pulse in her neck made his blood sing. Stalking closer, Xanxus dropped slowly and smoothly to his knees right in front of her, plucked the book from his wife's slack fingers and set it down on the low table behind him. "Hello, my lovely_,_" he rumbled in Italian, still smirking.

His wife drew in a shaky breath. "Xan-xus," she whispered back, eyelashes fluttering involuntarily.

Xanxus reached out and gripped her left ankle in his right hand, running his thumb back and forth over the bone. "Let me take care of you," he coaxed, placing his left hand on her right knee and keeping his eyes firmly fixed on hers. "I want to indulge you. Delight you. Spoil you." He let his voice drop lower with each statement of intent and revelled in how it made her heart flutter. "Please," he begged shamelessly, letting himself think of all the things he desperately wanted to do to his wife so that his own lust would be tangible to her.

"I want you," his wife admitted in the same language, voice halfway breathless. Xanxus slid his left hand up her thigh to plant on the seat by her hip and leaned up and inwards, face inches from hers.

"How _much_ of me?" He breathed, the innuendo crystal clear.

The little hitch and shudder was _delicious_, but the way his wife braced herself against the armrest and looked him dead in the eye was _fucking hot_.

"All. Of. You." She bit out, voice low but no less sharply challenging.

Xanxus' felt his smirk widening into a broad, hungry grin as he settled back down and pulled her left foot out from under her other knee, tucking her heel up over his shoulder. "As you wish," he growled, repeating back to her the words she'd said to him yesterday when it had been _her_ ravishing _him_ as he slid his hand up her stocking-clad leg past her knee. She looked so damn edible he _had_ to start with reminding himself how she tasted…

… and after she'd come screaming a few times he was going to give her the opportunity to scratch his back bloody like she'd done on their wedding night.


	156. Chapter 156

Beta'd by the consistent Insane Scriptist.

Goodbye 600K, the plot marches on! Hopefully I'm going to manage to update tomorrow too, but I'll be away from home so it will probably get put up later than usual.

* * *

**Of interludes and connections **

It was a week now since Squalo had seen his Sky, a week that had been utterly nuts in at least three different ways right from the outset and gone downhill from there. Which, considering said 'outset' had involved actual living, breathing Pokémon and live-action Super Mario, was completely fucking _loony-tunes_.

Actually, since he'd thus far been spared sarcastic rabbit tricksters and optional physics, Squalo wasn't going to tempt fate in that area. It hadn't actually been a _bad_ week, per se, just very weird. Even by Varia standards.

He really could have done _without_ Bel's visit to the CEDEF though. Changeling's unexpectedly prompt report on _that_ had been succinct yet filled with so much deadpan not-quite-humour that the Rain Officer was still not sure how badly the fiasco was going to bite him later. He'd pushed her demanded raise through, which would hopefully win him a reprieve, but reading between the lines –in those gaps not filled with the spectre of terrible retribution– she wasn't going to be CEDEF Head Secretary for much longer. Her explicit reasoning had been that 'motives for my placing have become obsolete' but that was pure Rain-obstructionism since his reasons for putting her in the CEDEF had been obsolete for _five years_ and she _knew_ it.

Squalo found it far more likely that Changeling had finally run out of fucks and was considerately retiring from the CEDEF before she murdered somebody in a messy and public fashion, so he'd sent her a confirmation, given her a four-month deadline for 'extraction' and promised a month's paid leave on top of that. She was technically a veteran now, more than halfway through her Varia career, so she deserved to reap some of the benefits when she'd already put in three times as many mission hours as most assassins managed in twice that time.

Mammon would gripe about the paid leave, but Squalo knew better than to push a stressed Rain. _He_ was a Rain and knew all too well the kinds of ideas that started to look seductively reasonable after a few months of concentrated bullshit at all hours of the day and night. Mass murder was one of them.

Then there had been Gregorius' owl-delivered letter, which had made Squalo twitchy because the only people he knew of who delivered by owl were the Zabini –Bel's deliveries from the Principality all came that way– and anybody who used Incongruous Owls for delivering the post had to take the integrity of the mail very, very seriously since they were using what amounted to 'silent death on wings'. And be so dedicated to fucking overkill they'd long since left 'proportionate responses' behind and were happy inhabitants of 'what is this overkill of which you speak?' which was a completely different kind of problem.

That had only been _Tuesday_.

Wednesday had involved headache-inducing mission reports from Chaos Squad –and _why_ hadn't he objected more when Kuchisake named them that as it had to be tempting fate– which was at least a familiar problem, in that their reports were _always_ headache inducing. Just in new and exciting ways each time. This time had involved 'vehicular homicide', which in context meant that their target had been strong enough in spirit and angry enough about being murdered that their ghost had been able to possess the car the Squad had borrowed for the mission and tried to kill them as they were driving home.

So Maínomai had murdered the car. While his Squad was _in it_.

Murdered it with extreme prejudice, according to Vahn: it had been strangling Pýř with a seatbelt and Maínomai apparently didn't like it when people did that. That they'd survived despite having been moving at over one hundred and ten kilometres per hour along a very narrow and winding road when Maínomai comprehensively slaughtered the vehicle they were inside was entirely due to three-quarters of the Squad being Mists; that they'd managed to get home in record time _despite_ this and have their reports already written as they stomped through the front door was also a Mist thing, or possibly a pissed-off-Maínomai thing. Squalo _had_ noticed that said Mist wrote his most coherent reports when intensely displeased about something and _this_ report had all the classic hallmarks: eloquence, vehemence, good rhythm and mild yet ominous undertones that made the hairs on the back of Squalo's neck prickle.

Thursday had been all Levi's fault and Squalo refused to even _think_ about the implications of _that_. Bad enough that he'd had to do some _very_ quick talking to convince the Lightning Officer that no, Schöne's attitude _really_ wasn't a problem and Mjölnir would better serve Boss in a mixed Squad rather than being put in Levi's own personal Squad…

Levi wasn't stupid. Unfortunately. And wasn't that a sad thing for Squalo to be thinking about a fellow Officer? He wasn't even going to bother articulating all the many Levi-problems, but it wasn't like they had an Officer Quality Lightning to replace the man with. Mjölnir would make a solid Squad Leader with a bit more time and experience, which would keep her well away from Levi's tendency to murder those under his command who failed to meet his standards or worse, exceeded them and became a 'threat to his position' as they had the potential to replace him. The other Lady in Lightning Division, well, it had been a while since that particular Division had a General Manager to look after them, which they were going to _need_ as more and more of them were somehow developing more rounded personalities at odds with the brainwashing the mafia subjected them to.

Friday had involved a Naming, which was at least slightly positive but rather less positive was that the newly-Named Castello had only gotten Named because he'd managed to avoid getting murdered by one of Ottabio's cronies, specifically by a two-ton-paperweight that had been thrown at the back of his head when he commented on Ottabio being several years past the usual Varia retirement age. That Castello had _caught_ the paperweight, turned and fastballed it back into his attacker's face, shattering the idiot's skull… Medical had classed it as suicide since it had been the Dumb Cloud's own Flames Multiplying the weight that did him in and Castello had been promoted to replace the dead idiot.

Interesting that Sekti had been the one to Name Castello though.

* * *

Squalo left the Varia Mansion at half-past seven in the evening on Friday in order to ensure nothing would happen to keep him in HQ when what he really needed to be doing was visiting his Sky. It was a week now since he'd last seen Xanxus, which was plenty of time for Boss to come to terms with Family deaths and get stuck into the Varia paperwork so he'd probably have questions. Squalo could get away with leaving the Mansion today because he'd taken on a solo mission; nobody needed to know that the window the client was insisting on didn't even _start_ until Monday and it was local enough that Squalo didn't _actually_ need to leave before Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning at the latest.

Since this was technically a mission he left on foot; taking a Varia vehicle to Boss-Lady's house would be Dumb and it being a local mission he was going to take a bus to get to his destination. Well he was going to take several buses and possibly a taxi, since he would be travelling on a Sunday and that meant limited services were running. He had everything he needed in a rucksack, he was familiar with the area already and the mission was easy enough that he could have assigned it as a milkrun, but any excuse to visit Boss was a good one and Squalo wanting to get out of Headquarters and kill somebody after the week he'd had was perfectly plausible. He _did_ want to have a few days away from the Varia and murder somebody, after all; that just wasn't _all_ he wanted to do.

Showing up at the back door of his Boss's wife's house during dinner was entirely the wrong time of day for a polite social call, but Squalo didn't care; she had staff and he was fine with kicking about in a study or lounge for a few hours and getting stuck in a guest room overnight. It'd be _quiet_, which would be a godsend.

Being on foot meant Squalo could cut across Varia grounds and directly into the grounds of the neighbouring property; the lack of obvious security was a bit worrying, but Squalo guessed his not being able to see or sense anything was due to his continued inability to see magic –he just could not get the hang of Vahn's 'Aura Sight' which was annoying– and the 'free pass' Investigator had mentioned back when she abducted him. That had implied there was a lot of security, but he was allowed through it so it wouldn't affect him.

Striding up a low, rolling ridge with ease, Squalo slipped carefully through the scrubby trees at the top of the rise and down the other side, his view of the house he knew was ahead partially obscured by the vegetation. The tree-line wasn't so far ahead though, and Squalo could hear horsy noises on the wind, which fitted with Jasper the groom and his horsy clothing last week.

Except, Squalo realised as he eased his way through the thorny scrub and paused on the edge of the field behind the stable-block, these horses had _wings_.

Considering the mention of gorgons, he probably should have expected winged horses. Greek mythology and all that, but…

There was a loud snort, a stomp and Squalo turned quickly to face the very large roan stallion now advancing cautiously in his direction, immense wings raised in threat and tail swishing in agitation. The Rain Officer sighed and made an effort to gentle his body language.

"Sorry," he told the horse, moving off towards the house at an angle that would keep him at a distance from the rest of the herd. Superbi in general did not have much to do with horses –fussy, fidgety and unreliable beasts– but that year in school when Reborn had been tutoring Dino had been _very_ educational for Squalo. He might not _like_ horses, but he knew how to calm them down.

The stallion stopped a decent distance away from him and just watched him cross the field, not trotting back to the rest of the herd until Squalo had vaulted the fence over by the stable block. Where there was somebody waiting for him.

"Ello again," said one of the older men Squalo had last seen debating car maintenance, his British West Country accent thick enough to require attentive listening. Squalo did not for a moment let his guard down; the man's smile suggested he was having a private joke at the Rain Officer's expense and the Varia assassin knew far too many languages to let a thick, drawling accent lull him into a false sense of security. Add on that the solidly-muscled man with his grey hair and cheerful wrinkles was twanging at the Rain Officer's instincts in much the same way as career Housekeeping members sometimes managed when irritated…

"I'm visiting my Boss," the Rain said flatly. He was not going to justify himself, not even to somebody who looked like they wrestled bulls for a living. Or to said person's younger relatives, who were all miraculously popping out of the woodwork to watch.

"Oh aye," the older man said agreeably, eyes sharp and no-nonsense as he propped his knuckles on his hips. "Sneaking around the back?"

Squalo reminded himself very firmly that he was _not_ nine years old, getting caught stealing biscuits by the housekeeper of his parents' home. No matter how accurately this stranger was pressing those same emotional buttons. "It's quicker," he defended.

The man snorted. "I'll be taking you up to my Lady then," he stated, making it completely clear that Squalo's opinion on the matter was moot. The Rain Officer did not protest; there was no earthly reason why being able to use magic would be limited to the upper classes, so he was facing unknown firepower here. "Step this way, sir."

This time Squalo _did_ twitch; that 'sir' was not intended as a compliment. "I'm not a 'sir'," he grumbled, stalking closer. "I fucking _work_ for a living." That was something he'd heard the previous Alastor say countless times and he thoroughly agreed with the sentiment; almost nobody in the Varia called him 'sir' unless they were being sarcastic, the robot Lightnings being the glaring exception to this rule.

"Oh I bet you do," the old guy agreed, wrinkles crinkling and smile sharp. "Lady Black would never have married a man who paid people to _just_ look decorative."

This was the first time anybody had told Squalo _to his face_ that he looked like somebody's bed-warmer; no, worse, his _Boss's_ bed-warmer. The fucking _nerve_–

"Voi! Who do you think you are, insulting Boss?" He snarled, pointing a finger right in the man's face. Then he pulled the finger back, because that toothy smile was _creepy_.

"I'm the man who'll be feeding you and yours to the griffins if you ever raise a hand to my Lady," the old guy said agreeably, like that wasn't a threat. Now he knew who this guy reminded him of: Nebbia.

Shit.

Squalo pressed his palm to his forehead and dragged his hand down his face. "I got the impression she could do that for herself," he managed evenly.

"Aye, that she could," the old guy agreed, delight and pride all over his body language, "but we're here to ensure she doesn't have to. Much more important things she could be doing with her time, after all."

They'd reached the house; Squalo's hope that he'd get handed off to a member of the domestic staff proved fruitless.

"Who the hell are you anyway?" He grumbled as they set out along a corridor.

"Ar, where are my manners?" The old guy shook his head. "I'm Mr Stewart." He held out a hand without breaking step.

"Squalo, Captain of the Varia," Squalo replied, briefly shaking the proffered hand. The way the other man said 'Mister' suggested he was the patriarch of his family, which the Rain Officer suspected was considerably larger than the dozen or so men already identified.

"You do his Lordship's dirty work then?" The tone that line was delivered in indicated that 'dirty work' was something to be proud of and _definitely_ included occasional homicide.

"When he's not doing his own," Squalo agreed, finding humour in the situation. Apparently now they were talking shop.

"Always good to have a Lord who takes an interest in the particulars," Mr Stewart agreed, nodding appreciatively. "And here we are."

'Here' was not a door Squalo had seen before; in fact the entire hallway was new to him. How that was possible when it was the _same floor_ as the music room he'd visited in last time and the building wasn't really wide enough for more than one corridor on each floor was a question for another time though. Magic.

Mr Stewart did not knock on the door, or indeed get within a metre of it, which was Interesting. It still opened barely ten seconds after they'd arrived, revealing Lady Dorea Black-Potter wearing a fairly concealing deep purple dressing gown over something with a lot of creamy lace frills at the sleeve cuffs and ankles, ballet flats on her bare feet, her hair bundled up in a glittery gold net held in place by tiny white floral pins and looking rather distracted. She also had faded yellow bruises on either side of her throat, which Squalo made a deliberate effort to ignore; he didn't want to think about how she'd got those.

"Mr Stewart, what– ah. Thank-you," she said, glancing at Squalo then turning to her aging family retainer and smiling warmly as her accent slid from crisp and sharp into something much closer to Mr Stewart's own. "Did he get lost?"

"I found him in the upper paddock, Milady," Mr Stewart said, smiling fondly up at her. "I think you may be needing to tweak the wards so future visitors don't come out all over the place. Wouldn't want a guest to get themselves eaten by accident, would we?"

As opposed to on purpose, which was clearly a tried-and-tested method of corpse disposal.

"Aye, I can see that might be awkward," Boss's wife agreed solemnly, eyes dancing. "I'll see to it tomorrow afternoon; make sure all visitors come out around the front lawn."

"That'd be just grand, Milady," Mr Steward said, raising a hand to touch his forehead where a hat brim would be if he'd been wearing one, then turning to leave.

"Squalo Superbi, you may come in now," Dorea Black-Potter said clearly but quietly, her accent back to what it had been before as she stepped backwards into the room. "Xanxus is here too," she added when he hesitated.

Okay, if Boss was inside then being in the room too would be less uncomfortable, despite Boss-Lady clearly did not give a shit about receiving guests in her nightie. Unless wearing a dressing gown counted as being 'dressed' to her?

Squalo followed her in, ignored the door closing behind him and paused just inside the threshold to take in what he was seeing. Decently large room with a tasteful floral wallpaper in green and cream with yellow and pink accents, polished wooden floor, old-fashioned sofa and armchairs upholstered in dull purple pushed back against the walls and a smallish dining table in the middle with a wooden chair on each side, a large carpet between the table and the windows. Dining chair closest the door was empty; Boss was sitting sideways on the other, pushed a way back from the table and naked to the waist with a thin curve of recent purple bruising over his collarbone. A shirt with drying bloody streaks across the back lay crumpled on the floor, an old Varia jacket from when Tyr had been in charge was tossed over the sofa, lying open to reveal a few reddish stains of its own and Boss's wife had hurried over to hover behind Xanxus, wiping something that smelled disinfectant-ish down his back and muttering unhappily.

"If you'd _told me_ I could have healed them! It takes _seconds_ and you wouldn't have spent the rest of the afternoon bleeding all over your shirt!"

"S'fine," Xanxus rumbled negligently, tilting his head back so he could meet her eyes. "I tired you out," he smirked, "and I like them." He glanced over at Squalo and nodded, prompting the Rain to sidle closer and pull an armchair forwards from against the wall to sit in.

Dorea flushed pink, her hands still moving. "You… okay, fine, but you could _still_ have asked me –or anybody else– to seal them up so playing with the children and moving furniture wouldn't have made you bleed everywhere!"

Squalo was not enjoying the subtext of this conversation, not at all. He didn't want to know the specifics of his Boss's sex life, thanks. Although that they'd managed to get that far– nope, not going there. He did not want to know this much even!

"Doesn't really hurt," Xanxus stated indifferently, stretching out his legs in front of him and crossing one ankle over the other.

"Ridiculous, impossible husband," Dorea grumbled, no bite to her words as she ducked around out of Squalo's line of sight.

"Lovely wife," Boss countered, voice rough and terrifyingly fond. Squalo ignored the flirting; the _fuck_ was his Boss wearing on his feet? Those were _not_ regulation Varia boots, not by _any_ stretch of the imagination! They looked _far_ more like the kind of thing Luss bought in sizes that wouldn't fit him and everybody did their best not to think about! Wait…

"Where'd you find those boots?" Squalo asked suspiciously. He'd _better_ not be right about this.

"Wardrobe," Xanxus said evenly, indicating that yes, the Rain was right on the money and Luss _had_ been buying fetish gear for Boss while he was on ice. That still did not explain why Boss was _wearing it_.

"Why?" He demanded, barely polite because _the fuck why are you wearing them Luss will find out and neither of us is ever going to hear the end of it, you moron! He'll be buying you those until the day he keels over dead _went unsaid.

"Wife," Xanxus replied smugly, eyes flashing with something dark and playful.

Once again, that was _too much information_ and Squalo despaired of his own brain, seriously, because the first thing it came up with in response to _that_ was 'hey, at least Luss will like Boss-Lady then' in Kuchisake's 'cheerful doom' tone.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Dorea asked, straightening up and catching the Rain's eye.

"Yes," Xanxus said before Squalo could even open his mouth.

"I've eaten already," Squalo protested, because he could already see his Boss was in a very fine mood and inclined to mercilessly tease everybody within hearing range. Or that was how he'd _used_ to be; it was clear _now_ that Xanxus wasn't going to tease his wife more than she was comfortable with reciprocating, which left Squalo as designated victim and chew toy.

Fuck him, had he actually _missed_ this?

Dorea glanced down at her husband –who blinked innocently up at her or at least _tried_ to since he mostly looked mischievous– then over at Squalo, her body language restrained but displaying hints of curiosity and scepticism. Her Flames were running free all over the place, subtly brushing against the edges of his senses and humming ever so faintly with something gentle yet steely. Squalo couldn't yet put words to all those nuances but she felt… steady. Reliable. Her and Boss together felt _right_.

She rapped her knuckles on the table. "One more for dinner," she said to nobody in particular, "who has already eaten." She paused. "And air one of the smaller guest rooms, please."

"Not a guest," Boss pointed out.

"I know, but I really don't think he wants to sleep in the wing where most of my Guardians and the staff are," the lady of the house said frankly. "Maybe once he knows them better."

Boss tilted his head down thoughtfully. "Shark," he said conversationally, "you're coming with us tomorrow."

"Coming where, Boss?" Squalo asked cautiously. There was far too much amusement in his Sky's demeanour for this to be a good thing.

"Wedding," Boss said blandly. Which explained _nothing_ beyond that Boss was attending one and really, Squalo had been hoping to avoid wedding-related things this month.

"Socialite is getting married," Boss-Lady said more helpfully. Squalo considered the implications, which were many and multifaceted. Unbonded or not, Socialite was one of Boss-Lady's acknowledged Guardians, so Dorea would of course be attending the wedding. Since their Sky was going, _all_ the other Guardians would be attending as well, along with their spouses if they had them. The kids would also be taken along, even if they didn't attend the actual ceremony. There would be a reception afterwards too, with speeches and shit.

Considering that Dorea Potter-Black's Guardians and other associates all seemed to be drawn from a single age-group and social extraction –with Negotiator the glaring exception– it was very likely that just about everybody else she knew who _wasn't_ her Guardian yet was vaguely her age would _also_ be at this wedding. With their own spouses, kids, parents and what-have-you; this was going to be a _big_ wedding.

Which Boss was attending, because his wife was attending and letting her go off to a wedding on her own would be bad form, so he was making Squalo attend too as an extra pair of eyes and back-up he knew and trusted. Oh, and there was this whole Prince-thing as well, so Xanxus was probably going to wave him at his relatives as proof that no, he didn't need extra security.

"Any Zabini attending this thing?" The Rain Officer inquired as Boss-Lady straightened up and set the bloody cloth she'd been cleaning Boss's injuries with aside. He hoped it was just from blood that had crusted, because how deep she'd managed to scratch was just too much information. Her nails didn't look that sharp, unlike Magharibi's. Boss-Lady was wearing rings though and some of them were fairly elaborate; that was more likely, as human nails didn't really scratch that deep, unlike cat claws. And argh, _why_ was he still thinking about it?

"Other than Blaise, you mean?" Dorea Potter-Black clarified, glancing at him. "Bastiano and Gaetano both are, as they've got to know her rather well while being body-doubles. Costanzo is coming too, as is Vincenzo with his wife and children. Xanxus' sister is coming as well, of course, as are most of the house staff including my ladies-in-waiting. So about two-dozen Zabini in total."

Costanzo was the auditor who'd chatted to Squalo on that rooftop five years ago while looking far too much like Secondo for comfort. He'd probably look even _more_ like Secondo now, what with being older. "Are the body-doubles attending _as_ body-doubles?" Squalo asked suspiciously, because he'd got a feel for Zabini humour by now and they liked to come at things sideways. Personal security for royalty just wasn't _done_ but that didn't mean they couldn't make attacking their Prince stupidly difficult for any hopeful opportunist.

"Not deliberately," Boss-Lady said lightly, waving her fingers over Boss's back in a purposeful-looking manner. "They're all attending as themselves." Boss shivered, then twisted around to take a look down his back. The contortion revealed a decent number of reddish, fading scars across his ribcage and considerably more raised scratches all over the Sky's upper back. Xanxus then looked up at his wife and stuck out his lower lip in a pout.

"They were stretched and would have got infected again; I had to close them," she said flatly, hands on hips.

Xanxus's ridiculous pout widened into a scheming smirk. "I'll have to do my best to persuade you to give me some new ones, then," he purred, which was by far the longest sentence Squalo had heard from his Boss today. The fuck had being disgustingly in love done to his Sky? The pout and attempts at innocence earlier were odd if playful but this blatant flirting was more proof of love doing really strange things to people, because Squalo had always considered his Boss to be an _intensely_ private person.

Boss-Lady blushed slightly, but didn't back down. "Not for a day or two; let the scratches fade a bit first."

Boss made a dissatisfied sound in his throat; the _fuck_ was this saccharine domesticity and where had it come from? _One_ _week_ was not long enough for them to get this comfortable with one-another!

"You didn't mind holding me down before," Boss's wife said abruptly, raising an eyebrow at her husband; "what's changed?"

Squalo deliberately looked away at the opposite wall as Boss's entire demeanour turned hungry and sexual. The flirting had been bad enough; he wasn't going to watch foreplay. Hearing Boss get to his feet and the dark, compelling murmur of the other man seducing his wife was more than terrible enough already, thanks.

There was a muffled clatter from the table –Squalo didn't wince physically but his Flames definitely reacted– and Boss sighed grumpily.

"Dinnertime," Boss-Lady said a little breathlessly.

Squalo chanced a glance; the table was now piled with covered serving dishes and there were three plates laid out, along with a newly-appeared chair that matched the other two. Boss-Lady was still fully dressed –if a dressing gown even counted as dressed– but her eyes were dark and her cheeks pink. Boss looked like he was considering skipping food entirely, but relented when his wife elbowed him in the ribs. Wait… Squalo knew that look. Fuck, he was going to have to sit through a meal with his Boss alternating between flirting outrageously with his wife and teasing Squalo mercilessly.

Wonderful.


	157. Chapter 157

Beta'd by the festive Insane Scriptist.

Happy Christmas Eve to all! I hope everybody has enjoyed the updates.

* * *

**Of getting thrown in the deep end and treading water **

"Are you sure you've got enough weapons?"

Squalo's eyebrow twitched and he glared at the dark-haired Sun who'd just asked that incredibly Stupid question. "Voi! The fuck kind of question is _that_?" He demanded. There was a limit to how many weapons you could carry and still blend at a _wedding_.

Fool's own eyebrows shot up. "I'm asking because you've gone rather more minimalistic than I was expecting," the Sun clarified.

Squalo frowned; he had his bound sword, of course, but this was a _wedding_ so he had to at least _look_ politely civilian. His Varia uniform was sufficiently suit-like to pass, but more weapons would be rude. He could probably get away with a small holdout pistol, but he hadn't planned on needing to carry concealed for the Monday mission so he hadn't brought anything smaller than a 9mm.

"Ah," Fool said abruptly, eyes brightening, "you don't know! Come on," he grabbed Squalo's jacket cuff –of his _left_ sleeve and was this guy Dumb or just that crazy to grab the Rain Officer's sword-arm? – dragging him down the hall towards Boss-Lady's private rooms.

"Dorea, cousin-dear, open the door!" Fool carolled gaily, hammering on the door Squalo couldn't even get within a _metre_ of without express permission –he'd checked earlier this morning– "You owe your husband and his minion an explanation!"

The door opened, revealing Dorea Potter-Black in a different dressing gown –this was one was green– and her curls elegantly pinned up in a very complicated arrangement with lots of very large cabochon garnets set in gold all over it and tied together with fine golden chains. "Leo, what?" She demanded, a green snake poking a head longer than Squalo's hand over her hip and flicking its tongue curiously in his direction. That. Was a. _Big_. Snake.

"Explain to your husband's Rain how he can carry all the weapons he wants to the wedding," Fool said cheerfully.

"Oh?" Squalo glanced sideways to see Boss leaning in an adjacent doorway, wearing a pair of suit trousers in deep burgundy, matching jacket slung over one shoulder and a subtly textured charcoal silk tie hanging loose around his shirt collar. Boss hated wearing a tie too tight.

Boss-Lady smiled, the expression smug and wicked. "Well, Xanxus is the Prince of Sabina, you see," she began airily, "so he has free reign over Sabina's military. This includes the freedom to create entirely new military units and forces and to staff them at his own discretion. So, since you, Squalo Superbi, are a personal vassal of the _Principe,_ were the commanding officer of the Varia when you became such and explicitly _gave_ the Varia to him, the Varia are therefore a Sabina military unit."

Squalo blinked. Fucking _seriously_?

"A special operations unit," Dorea Black-Potter went on casually, "under the Principe's personal command, in fact. So, as his military aide and ranking subordinate, you are entitled to be as well-armed as you wish when travelling with your commanding officer, what with being responsible for his security. You even get diplomatic immunity in Magical areas; Costanzo has the paperwork." She smiled more widely. "Zabini royals all have their quirks and running a black ops unit out of his preferred private residence is hardly the strangest thing a _Principe_ has done with his free time."

It took Squalo a moment to realise the sound he was hearing was his Boss laughing; not the loud mocking sound he was familiar with but soft, deep and genuinely amused chuckles. Xanxus was leaning heavily on the door jam, bent double as he shook with laughter. "Fucking _official_?" He wheezed.

Boss-Lady's expression of contentedly vicious superiority was a thing of beauty. "Official, above-board and fully legal," she assured him. "Has been for the past four years, in fact; there's even a military budget you can pay them out of if you decide to secede from the Vongola entirely." She sighed. "Of course, by Sabina law the Varia building and surrounding grounds are _already_ sovereign territory –since you technically acquired it by conquest– which we've cleared with _La Confederazione di Napoli e Sicilia_, so you don't even have to worry about the local magical laws while on your own land."

Xanxus strode past Squalo and wrapped his arms around his wife, still chuckling lowly. "Fucking _love_ you," he murmured, pressing kisses to the shell of her ear, "sneaky, brilliant, beautiful wife."

"They're your people; I couldn't just ignore them," Dorea Black-Potter protested, batting at her husband's shoulder as the snake wrapped itself around her other elbow, head resting against her upper arm. "Now let me finish dressing so we can leave on time."

"So now that's cleared up," Fool said cheerfully, spinning around to grin cheesily at Squalo and ignoring the lovebirds plus snake, "_are_ you sure you've got enough weapons? Because we've got an armoury you could raid for more knives and I for one always feel naked without a garrotte at this kind of do."

Squalo considered his options. Yes, he did have more weapons in his bag, but if he was being offered a choice of concealable blades… "Show me," he decided. The implications of the Varia having been made _legal_ as a completely separate entity from the Vongola were something to gnaw on later, possibly during the church service.

"Right this way!"

* * *

"_You are too large for me to wear as an accessory, Fizz; you have been for years now and you know it,_" Dorea told her boomslang familiar exasperatedly, a section of the snake's upper body wrapped around her forearm as he flicked his tongue obstinately in her face.

"_You should not travel unguarded, Mistress!_" Fizz protested. "_Not among so many strangers!_"

"Holdup?" Rence asked, stepping into the doorway of Dorea's dressing room and glancing from her to Fizz and back again, his dark green suit and tie making his hair look much brighter than usual.

"Fizz wants to come along and protect me," Dorea sighed.

"He's too big for you to wear," Rence pointed out mildly. "Couldn't he delegate?"

"_Silly humans have no understanding of appropriate threat responses,_" the boomslang grumbled.

"_I will not take Bise; she dislikes humans even more than you do,_" Dorea said firmly. The black mamba had been moved to the Sicily Estate's greenhouses when they left Potter Manor and she was perfectly content keeping the local rodent population down.

Fizz's head swayed from side to side. "_What of Siyāh?_"

Dorea frowned. "_She is not even here!_" She protested.

Fizz flicked his tongue decisively. "_Then I will go and ask her,_" he decided, unwinding himself from her arm and coiling expectantly on the floor

Dorea sighed; Siyāh was a black krait she and Fizz had met while visiting the Black Plantation in India for the second time, who had made a point of greeting them on every subsequent visit and engaging in polite conversation. She was fairly small –not even two feet long and slender to match– and very, very venomous, but possessed a wonderfully calm disposition.

"Wibbly," she said aloud.

There was a soft crack. "Mistress calls?" the elf asked hopefully.

"Wibbly, please escort Fizz to the Black Plantation so he can talk to Siyāh, the krait who lives under the West Veranda," Dorea said tiredly. "When they have finished conversing please escort him back here; if Siyāh wished to join him please bring her along too."

"Wibbly will," the elf agreed, reaching out a hand to touch Fizz and then vanishing into thin air with the gigantic boomslang.

"Fizz is recruiting?" Rence asked, smiling. "Well, at least Siyāh will blend with your dress."

Dorea glared at her Knight; yes, she was wearing a dark red gown with wide skirts and black trimmings, but _if_ the krait decided to join her then the petite serpent would probably wrap around her arm, which would be rather obvious considering her dress didn't really have sleeves, just black chiffon and lace wrapped around her shoulders and upper arms following along from her neckline.

"I would need to wear gloves to hide her," she grumbled, "and I can't wear _black gloves_ to a wedding!"

"A wrap or shawl perhaps?" Rence suggested.

Dorea considered it. She could certainly get away with a black lace shawl around her neck and shoulders, even though doing so rather defeated the point of wearing a low neckline and sumptuous necklace in the first place. Then again, once she was sitting down in the church surrounded by friends she could take the shawl off and no stranger would be close enough to notice the snake at all.

"I've got a few black shawls," she decided, turning towards the appropriate wardrobe; her ladies-in-waiting were all dressing themselves, so she was managing by herself today. Which she was perfectly capable of doing _every_ day, thank-you-very-much, but Emanuela and Carla enjoyed helping her choose what to wear and how to do her hair –and most recently trying to guess which outfits her husband would like best on her– and she liked chatting to them about various frivolous things, so it worked out. They were now dear friends after so many years together, if not at all the kind of people she would have befriended of her own initiative.

"There you are then," Rence said, walking off again. Dorea guessed he'd sensed her frustration; Rence's sense of her moods was much more sharp and subtle than any of her other Guardians had, something she attributed to his training under Uncle Nick.

If Siyāh agreed to this, Dorea was going to have to explain to her husband why she was wearing a highly venomous snake as an accessory; bother. Well, it would at least be an interesting conversation…

* * *

Eating dinner with Dorea Potter-Black's myriad Guardians had been an experience; lurking beside his Boss as all those Guardians milled around, gossiped and talked shop in the Front Hall of said Lady's house was even more so. Adding her very Zabini staff into the equation just made everything six times stranger, as just two seconds in it was abundantly clear to Squalo that the entirety of Boss-Lady's staff –the ladies-in-waiting included– were of a completely different social class to her Guardians; more a Zabini equivalent to Mr Stewart and his many nephews, sons, grandsons and great-nephews really. Making them actually _Boss's_ Family retainers and wasn't that a trippy thought?

The interactions were remarkably egalitarian though: the two ladies-in-waiting were gossiping about fashion in French with Steward, Secretary, Matron and oddly enough Consul; the older footman was having a knowledgeable discussion on concealed and improvised weaponry with Fool –magic provided as an unfair an advantage there as Mist Flames did for Mists– Executioner and Troubleshooter were talking axes with the younger footman; three suspiciously nondescript men he'd not actually seen before and the possible housekeeper who'd let him in last week were discussing sightlines and levels of awareness with Investigator –who was wearing a startlingly sparkly and gauzy layered gown in shades of midnight blue with matching rollerblades– in a way that suggested the house had far more places you could spy on people from that was immediately apparent; and both Things, Blaise and Lawyer were discussing magical creatures with a middle-aged Zabini with the kind of scars on his hands and face that came from wrangling not-quite-domesticated animals on a regular basis. The Varia's cat-wranglers all had scars like those. In fact, more than a few Varia had one or two scars like that, mostly from their mook days.

Listening to all those different conversations, it was very clear that the Zabini present had a far more practical, specialised and experience-based education than most of the Guardians, who instead had a much broader knowledge base and the necessary theoretical background to make a cross-disciplinary approach actually _work_ in the subject of their choice. Equally clear was that every single person in the room was both magically capable and dangerous as fuck, mostly because none of them had anything to prove. The people who didn't bother with posturing were always the ones to look out for; they tended to actually be competent.

Then there was the nurse, standing off to one side with Governess and both male Lightnings, keeping all three children distracted and entertained as they waited for the Lady of the house to show up. That Governess was so _very_ much a Classic Cloud –and so strongly Cloud she had no clear secondary Affinity– yet was fine with a pair of excited five-year-olds ricocheting around her personal space along with a happily flailing toddler was _baffling_ though.

Governess liking the Lightnings was easier to understand: Barty the Irritating was chatting to her about Ancient Egyptian engineering, which she was visibly enjoying despite being constantly interrupted by small children wanting clarification and explanations. Knight the Ringsmith on the other hand was just standing there… although he was 'just standing there' so close to Governess's back the Cloud was actually leaning her weight on him half the time.

Did functional Lightnings ground Clouds somehow? Something to think about… and if they did, then oh, the _irony_ because hey look, we're meteorologically accurate! The puns would never _end_…

Then there was a clatter of footsteps at the top of the main staircase and Boss-Lady appeared, wearing a red ballgown with black accents and a lot of very fancy jewellery. Rather than descend the stairs properly she actually slid down the banister rail –impressive in a ballgown with a skirt that poofy– and landed on her feet at the bottom as though it had been easy. Closer to, Squalo could see she was wearing a broad necklace set with dozens of cabochon garnets and a tiara to match, both of which looked old, expensive and easily weaponised by anybody with a knack for Storm Flames. As did all those hair decorations.

Then that fucking massive bright green snake of hers slid between the banisters and made its way down the decorative carvings to the floor with startling speed and grace, slithering rapidly across the polished marble and coming to a stop right next to Boss-Lady, rising up to tilt its head at her reproachfully.

Dorea Potter-Black looked irritated and unrepentant as she drew herself up and _hissed_ at her oversized pet.

The snake hissed back, swaying agitatedly. Squalo then noticed the much smaller snake wrapped around the bright green snake's neck, right below the base of its skull.

Boss's wife stiffened for an instant before deliberately relaxing with an unsettling full-body shimmy that ran down her spine like a wave. She hissed again, this time for longer.

The tiny black noodle then poked its head up and hissed too, much more quietly.

A small hand pressed against Squalo's thigh. "Fizz and Mama are arguing security again," Lord Marius Black said matter-of-factly, as though talking to snakes was normal. Maybe for him it was.

"Uncle Blaise says Mama isn't allowed to go anywhere without an armed escort," Cassie added from Boss's other side, her head leaning against her father's hip, "but Fizz thinks humans have in-a-pro-pree-ate threat responses and doesn't like it when Mama leaves her territory without a sensible Creature to keep an eye on her." She grinned up at Squalo, "_especially_ for big public things."

"The other snake?" Boss asked, looking down to meet his daughter's eyes.

"That's Siyāh," Cassie said, going up on tiptoes and leaning forwards to stare at the tiny black serpent now coiled on top of the green snake's head –green snake called Fizz– and conversing with Dorea. "Mama told us about her but we haven't seen her before; she lives in India."

"Green says she's a black krait," Marius added. Squalo wondered if either child knew how incredibly venomous black kraits were, both greater and lesser species; their mother definitely knew but evidently did not care. Then again, if you could understand and be understood by snakes then getting bitten was probably far less likely. And black kraits were pretty hard to provoke compared to, say, cobras which could spit venom. The 'not allowed to go anywhere without an armed escort' thing sounded like it had a funny story behind it, so he'd have to ask Blaise about it sometime.

Boss-Lady sighed and held out a hand to the krait, letting it wind its way up her arm and wrap twice around her throat like the world's most dangerous collar. She then lifted the black lace shawl draped loosely over her elbows and wrapped it properly around her neck and shoulders, disguising the deadly reptile more effectively.

"Shall we?" She said, looking around at her amused audience.

Boss strode forwards to tuck her right hand into the crook of his left elbow, ignoring both the giant snake and his wife's new living accessory. "Lead on," he invited, smirking across at her. Squalo then noticed that the height difference between the two lovebirds was suddenly negligible rather than the ten centimetres he was pretty sure it actually was. Boss had clearly already noticed, since his muted aura of smitten smug now sported undertones that suggested he was _really_ looking forwards to watching his wife's hips sway with every single step she took in the heels he couldn't see but still _knew_ she was wearing.

Squalo resigned himself to suffer in silence as he fell in behind his Boss, Knight coming up beside him to shadow Boss-Lady and everybody else swirling around them. The Rain Officer thought the Ringsmith took his obsession with the colour green a bit _too_ far; a green suit? Seriously? Even his fucking _boots_ were green! The only thing he was wearing which _wasn't_ green was his shirt and the contrast just made everything else look greener. Knight's skin included.

That Knight had greenish tint to his skin made Squalo seriously wonder about that old Arthurian legend and if it had actually had any basis in fact. Magic proved that it was possible more of those stories _did_ than was really comfortable, but decapitation being survivable was something that he as a swordsman was _very_ uncomfortable with. As a swordsman, decapitation was an obvious sure-kill, barring freaks like Deadpool who cheated.

Later; first he had a wedding to suffer through and a _lot_ of people to meet.

* * *

By the time the marriage service was over and everybody was milling around and chatting in the interval leading up to the wedding breakfast –which was for family and close friends only, so of course Boss and Boss-Lady were invited– Squalo had noticed a whole lot of interesting points, drawn a number of conclusions and made a few tentative assumptions.

Firstly, Blaise Zabini had vanished with the kids at some point before the service even started and was still missing, but nobody had commented on his absence despite his mother –Boss's sister and _shit_ that resemblance was _creepy_– being present and chatting happily with everyone.

Squalo did not like the Black Widow. She made his skin prickle in a really bad way despite being incredibly personable and engaging. It was probably her complete comfort with her own enjoyment of entrapment and murder that was setting him off there and if so, Squalo was happy for it. He needed those instincts, thanks.

Secondly, this wasn't just a wedding but a bloody high-school reunion: bride and groom had attended the same boarding school together, so most of the bride's side already knew most of the groom's side and everybody was talking in code and sharing in-jokes. Knight, who had stuck close to Boss-Lady –and therefore close to Boss since Squalo's Sky refused to drift more than a few feet from his wife– had explained a few things to him, like the school's house system and the stereotypes attached to them, but there were years of shared history in all the relationships he was eavesdropping on and the Rain Officer knew he was missing a lot of nuance despite most of these people also being Flame-Active and very openly readable. Although a solid proportion of the groom's side had really odd Flames, which was _definitely_ something systematic rather than just training. Not all these 'Hufflepuffs' had odd subtle Flames but it seemed like at least two-thirds of them did, Active or otherwise.

It was the people who were slightly older or _not_ in on the subtext who were interesting really. Like the bride and groom's respective parents, who despite being clearly in the know about magic lacked most of the cultural know-how. More proof of the school system being the gateway to magical society. The Zabini were interesting in being magical but from a different culture, which meant there were conversations going on about differences and legal nuances which Squalo was quietly memorising to go over later.

Thirdly, a hell of a lot of the wedding guests were politically significant: the husband of the matron of honour was the bleeding _Minister of Magic_ which was like having the Prime Minister at your wedding, except nobody was making a big deal of it because they were far more interested in ragging the guy about shit he'd done at school or how he'd walked into a wall when he found out his wife was pregnant with their now-two-year-old son. Which yes was funny, but most would be more interested in politicking with high-ranking government officials rather than bringing up old history.

Those were the people who had rebuilt Britain's magical government under the aegis of Dorea Potter-Black, who was younger than all of them by several years and had been an unapologetic tyrant throughout her rule, and they all adored her. Maybe 'adored' wasn't the right word; they were all pleased to see her, wanted her opinion of things and left those conversations feeling motivated, dazzled and energised.

Definitely Sky-Harmony at work and not so different from how Dino interacted with his Family, really, except that Boss-Lady did not consider herself to be in charge of these people so didn't ever hand out orders. Just opinions. Suggestions. Reminders. Occasionally asked questions concerning related minutiae which made the speaker pause and look very thoughtful before excusing themselves and dashing off to talk to somebody else.

Politics might not be Squalo's favourite thing but he still knew what they looked like and Dorea Potter-Black was a pro. She even made it look _easy_.

Fourthly, the names and family connections. Squalo didn't even mean the surnames; the first names of those present ran the spectrum from 'boringly normal' to 'desperately strange' and this was his opinion as a member of a family who had for the past three centuries named their kids after wildlife. So far he'd been introduced to a Byron, a Hecate, a Nymphadora, a Sterling, a Cassandra, an Astoria, an Ernie –the best man– an Ingrid, an Audric –one of Boss-Lady's in-laws– a Maximilian, a Romilda –whom Boss had eyed in a way that suggested he'd heard her mentioned before– an Ophelia, a Wayne, a Gertrude, a Cedric, a Rigel and a Hilary who was a man, not a woman. Probably. Hilary had been wearing a suit rather than a dress, anyway. The baffling bit was how all these people were connected: some of them were purely themselves, others had 'such-a-cousin to so-and-so' added on to that and others still were Lord, Lady, Heir or Proxy… and most of _those_ seemed to know Boss already. And be a bit intimidated, although admittedly unlike most of the Mafia Dons who were shit-scared of Xanxus, these people seemed to actually _like_ his Boss for scaring them rather than just respect him.

The number of times Squalo had heard 'I should have expected it really, I mean you're _Dorea's_ husband' and variants thereof was a bit amusing really. Clearly Boss-Lady had been blatantly terrifying at school. Or maybe they were referring to her family background, since the few older guests on the magical side worded it as, 'as expected of a husband to the Lady Black' before moving on into anecdotes about her relatives. Who indeed, _did_ sound like they had been a lot of fun.

Fifthly, Boss's relatives were all _just like him_ in the very worst of ways. Costanzo Zabini –now a genuine Secondo doppelganger– hugging Boss-Lady, kissing her and grinning like Boss did when he was winding you up on purpose because it was funny as he asked about her children; Vincenzo Zabini hugging _Boss_ and threatening to come and visit with his kids in the upcoming week; Gaetano Zabini wearing a suit only a few shades off Boss's –definitely deliberate– and mirroring his ruler's physical mannerisms while engaging Xanxus in a low-voiced conversation about classical violin music; Bastiano with his red eyes, fierce presence and dark brown suit debating passionately about sports in Boss's _voice_ –nearly gave Squalo a heart attack– and of course Angelique Zabini, Black Widow, who was flirting with everybody who engaged her in conversation and smiling in a way that Squalo just _knew_ meant bad, bad things would soon be happening to other people.

The entire Vongola had thought Boss was aberrant, deviant and terrifying, but it was looking like he was fairly average by Zabini standards, if a bit more violently inclined than most; the rest of the Zabini seems more inclined to tease, torment, distract and sabotage than outright murder, as a rule... although there were plenty of exceptions. Which was a scary thought even _without_ pondering the implications of Boss having his own military: it would be filled with _more _Zabini who shared those same aberrant thought patterns and attitudes. Squalo had managed to read the book on parenting Siren children last night and it had been a revelation. He'd followed it up with the book on how Siren tendencies were integrated into Zabini culture between breakfast and dressing up to leave, which had given the Captain of the Varia a whole lot of new things to ponder. Like there being a country where Varia attitudes wouldn't get a person singled out by the rest of the population for being strange and excessively violent.

Never mind that the Varia were technically _legal_ somewhere now… and had been for years, which was something he was going to have to adjust to.

Squalo hoped the wedding breakfast would give him time to start putting all this in order in his mind, or else he might not have sorted everything out before he had to leave for his mission.

* * *

Translations 

Siyāh = black (Hindi)


	158. Chapter 158

Beta'd by the salubrious Insane Scriptist.

Well I had the chapter, so a very happy Christmas (or winter festival of your choice) to all my readers!

* * *

**Of discussions and linguistic drift **

"So what's with this 'be kind' thing, voi?" Squalo asked, catching Blaise Zabini's eye over his cup of very good tea. Both Rains and their Skies were relaxing in Boss-Lady's private sitting room and recovering from the wedding, the Rains in armchairs and the Skies on the couch. Currently Boss had his wife's feet in his lap and had taken her high heels off to give her a foot massage, so the Lady Potter-Black was slumped backwards against the other end of the sofa with her eyes closed, making happy bedroom noises from time to time with half her skirts crumpled under her and the other half dragging on the floor. Her tiara and necklace had been handed off as soon as she walked in the front door, but her fancy hairdo and the snake coiled around her throat remained. The snake he was certain was exceptionally venomous, yet obviously wasn't the really big one the labyrinth was for, as it was far too tiny.

"Well, before Rhea started teaching us all about Soulfire she was running an after-hours study group for bored or struggling students," the other Rain began, setting his own hot chocolate aside to cool a bit. "She started doing this in her first _week_ of school, mind you; back when most of us were eleven. Which incidentally completely revolutionised school culture, because she didn't care about which House people belonged to so long as they were polite and made an effort, but that's another story. Anyway, over the years we ended up studying ahead a lot and reading lots of supplementary material, which in turn led to people getting frustrated because they couldn't remember details. So Rhea and a few of her Traditional British friends introduced the rest of us to Occlumency, which is the art of defending your mind from intrusion, but is also very handy for ordering your thoughts and improving your memory."

That explained how very calm and practical all Boss-Lady's people were; a habit of organised thinking made it much easier to be sensible. In theory at least; the Varia proved otherwise, as many of them could be calm and practical but were only sensible some of the time, no matter how organised and clever they were. Kuchisake was proof enough that practical did not mean sensible.

"Of course, to have an orderly mind you have to know what is _in_ your mind," Blaise went on ruefully, "which got rather distressing at points because no teenager likes finding out they are as fallible, prejudiced and narrow-minded as the people they dislike. However just about everyone pulled through, adjusted their expectations accordingly and accepted that in fact they weren't anywhere near as nice as they thought they were."

Squalo snorted; okay, that was very funny and he could see Lawyer in particular struggling there. She seemed the self-righteous type. A lot of the others struck him as more personally ambitious, but Lawyer looked liked the activist do-gooder type; that was his impression of her at least. The sort that didn't realise that 'doing good' by her standards would end up destroying some part of the local culture or village economy.

"The thing is, once you have ripped off your blinders, accepted the very worst of yourself and moved past it, you realise that most people don't live in the real world at all," the other Rain continued, "but in a fluffy fantasy world of their own making where they are the most important person and everybody else's actions are made taking _them_ into consideration. Or else they believe that everybody else has the same desires and objectives as they do. It got rather annoying, but at least in the study group we were surrounded by fellow realists." Blaise sighed. "But then Rhea taught us about Flames and things got… sticky."

"Oh?" Squalo had an inkling of where this was going; going Active did interesting things to people's emotional balance and priorities. Mostly because you abruptly had to get _real_ honest about what you wanted and needed and the why thereof in order to actually _use_ your Flames to begin with; that sort of personal knowledge tended to rearrange how you thought about things, then become something of a foundation to build the rest of your life on later. After that it was just a matter of willpower.

"Certain people who will not be named started to get impatient about their peers' refusal to see sense," Blaise said mildly, picking up his hot chocolate again. "Which led to a very interesting lecture from my dear sister on the nature of kindness; kindness is good, but it is not nice. Nice is not making waves; kind is not taking away other people's choices and the consequences of those choices. Consequences are educational, you see, and it's not kind to deprive people of their hard-earned education. You may even be _providing_ that education."

Squalo grinned behind his tea; _definitely_ a good match for Boss if she thought like that.

"How did she put it…? 'We are kind people, and it is not kind to drag people out of their comfortable rut and force them to experience actual reality against their will. Respecting people's choices is important. We may not be good people, but we can be kind people.' Of course there are moments when kindness is overrated, but it's a good ground rule." Blaise paused. "It's also handy for keeping a low profile and not traumatising random bystanders."

"So when she tells Investigator to 'be kind'…" Squalo said leadingly.

"She's reminding dearest Luna-Bell that most people do not experience quite as much reality as she does on a daily basis, so to make an effort to avoid destroying people's mental and emotional security," Blaise replied calmly. "For instance, most people don't _want_ to know that you don't actually have to ask in order to know deeply personal things about them. Asking anyway is polite and kind, as it means they don't have to find out."

That was not so different from Mammon's attitude to his Esper abilities, although the focus was more on 'don't tell' than 'don't look'. Then again, Squalo was getting the impression that Luna the Lunatic _couldn't_ not look. Which was disturbing but no worse than certain other Mists the Varia had.

"It's also a reminder that power is no excuse for rudeness," Blaise went on serenely. "Dorea's big on manners; they're what hold society together after all."

On the couch said polite lady whimpered loudly, back arched and head pressed into the padding. Squalo raised an eyebrow at his fellow Rain.

"What a lady does in her own home is her own business," Blaise said mischievously. "It's not like she's in public, is it?"

Okay, so not _actually_ an exhibitionist; this was definitely cultural dissonance. The suite and potentially the entire _house_ being explicitly a private space actually explained Boss's behaviour too: Boss was _very_ private and part of that was because everybody in the Vongola had gossiped about _everything_ he did or said and every nuance of his behaviour. But with his wife's house and especially her rooms being classed as 'private' so everybody who lived here knew _never_ to talk about it to outsiders or even gossip much amongst themselves… no wonder he was so much more open.

The Varia gossiped too, but less pettily and invasively than the rest of the Mafia trash as the Varia cared very little for those grasping social and political games, beyond how those games might or might not influence who was paying them; too much gossip on a subject a Varia assassin didn't care for would lead to action of the sort that would land the gossipers in pain at best and a shallow grave or unplanned retirement at worst. There was however a reason Squalo liked visiting Petronilla and stopping by to see his family every now and then and a big part of it was that Nilla and his favourite relatives all kept their mouths shut about his private shit. Admittedly his Mist friend did so because she considered him her favourite toy –which made his secrets her treasure to be greedily hoarded– but it still counted.

"Armed escort?" Squalo asked next. Blaise seemed to be in a sharing mood, so he should take advantage.

"Ha! Yes," Blaise chuckled, shaking his head ruefully. "Back when she was still fourteen, a bit over a month before she married your Boss, Rhea got abducted off school grounds by Barty –he was still working for the terrorist who wanted her dead see– and he made off with her while she was taking a break from a school event. Said abduction led to her killing two people in self-defence, declaring war on behalf of her Family and setting a parliament of Black Owls on her enemies." The Rain paused for effect; "hence our disinclination to let her wander off on her own ever again."

Barty the Irritating had switched sides? That didn't really fit with the picture Squalo was getting of him… possibly an honour thing there, since his former employer –the papers had referred to the man as 'the self-styled lord Voldemort' when they weren't calling him 'Tom Riddle'– had _lost_ to Dorea Potter-Black and an old-fashioned feudal culture like wider magical society seemed filled with would have rules to the tune of 'to the victor go the spoils'. Wait a moment…

"Black Owls?" Squalo had a _bad_ feeling about Blaise's wording there.

"Look like great grey owls yet very definitely are _not_, very fond of bacon and are far too intelligent for comfort?" Blaise suggested, smiling over his drink.

Well, shit; Squalo hated being right sometimes. On the upside, if those were Boss's wife's owls, it wasn't actually a security breach. Technically. On the downside, Boss-Lady had specially bred attack owls she used as couriers.

Maybe she'd let the Varia borrow them sometimes? Cell phones were not as secure as they might be –they _still_ didn't have their own satellite– and the postal system was no match for a nosey Mist, or even a determined Latent to be brutally honest. A homicidal and partially Flame-proof owl on the other hand was _not_ something people expected to contend with. If they could commission a few for Varia use, well, then he wouldn't have to mention the idea of breeding actual attack birds as messengers to a member of Housekeeping; the Varia cats were all charming, smart and dangerous enough to claw through uniforms but they were still cats and couldn't fly.

* * *

"You're a swordsman? Like Mama?" Marius asked, grey eyes wide and excited. "Have you fought Mama yet?"

Squalo had not been expecting this when he'd gotten dragged into entertaining Boss's kids for a few hours before their bedtimes. "No, I haven't." He _had_ known she could use a sword, considering she'd shown up at that first lunch with one, how she moved and the scars on her hands, but he'd not followed the thought through to considering the possibility of sparring with her himself. Mostly because he hadn't expected to have the time until a while after Quiet Week, with all the secrecy and needing to get Boss up to speed on everything, he belatedly realised.

"Why not?" Marius demanded.

"I haven't had a chance yet," which was true and less embarrassing than 'I didn't think to ask.'

"I'll go ask now then," the five-year-old declared firmly, turning and dashing off towards his mother, who was teaching his red-eyed twin sister some dance steps. Squalo followed in the boy's wake, not sure if he was hoping Boss-Lady would say yes or no. If she said yes it would definitely be interesting and very fun, but Boss might not be pleased. If she said no he'd be disappointed, but Boss also wouldn't kill him for accidents that hadn't happened.

Accidents could _always_ happen, especially when you were fighting somebody completely unfamiliar. Happened sometimes in the Varia, although most Suns at least did go through a few slow light-contact spars before moving on to beating each-other bloody, in order to learn how their new sparring partner moved. The other Divisions weren't as… kind, as a rule.

"Mama, Mama! Are you going to fight Squalo?" Marius demanded, voice carrying very well.

"That is entirely dependent on him wanting to and your Papa agreeing to it, since Squalo works for him," Dorea Potter-Black said equably. She wasn't wearing the snake anymore, thankfully, and had changed into a simpler gown. Not one that looked practical for fighting in though.

"If they both say yes, will you?" Cassie asked. "Today? Now?"

"Please Mama, I want to watch!" Marius added, bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Well?" Boss-Lady asked, turning to Boss who had his tiny red-haired youngest perched on his shoulders, hugging his head. He would never have pictured Boss with a redheaded kid if he hadn't seen it for himself.

Boss turned and stared at Squalo, his gaze flat and assessing. The Rain Officer stared back; no, he wasn't going to try and kill his Sky's wife because he wasn't _Stupid_, thank-you very much, but he _was_ going to give as good as he got if he was given the go-ahead. It would be a nice change of pace from sparring with fellow assassins… and he wanted to find out how good she _really_ was with a blade.

"Hn," Boss grunted decisively, nodding.

"I will change into something more practical and we'll reconvene in the basement then," Boss-Lady said easily.

"Thank-you Papa!" Marius shouted happily, dashing over and hugging his father's legs.

Boss ruffled his son's hair with a smile, then glanced assessingly over at Squalo again. _This_ look was rather more complex than the earlier one had been.

Ah, of course; Boss hadn't seen him fight since he was fourteen and he'd learned a lot since then. The Rain Officer grinned at his Sky; _this_ was going to be _fun_.

* * *

"So, what kind of spar is this?" Dorea Potter-Black asked lightly, rolling her shoulders and bouncing slightly on her toes. "Full-on anything goes? Swords only? Full-contact physical but no fancy extras? Flames allowed, only passive Flame effects allowed, what?" She had changed into the armoured leather gown he'd first seen her wearing and a good pair of boots, although Squalo was deliberately not thinking about the oddly large scales on them. She'd also changed her hairstyle to something much more severe and unlikely to fall apart during physical exertion.

"Full-contact physical and passive Flame effects," Squalo decided after a pause. It hurt his pride to decline her offer of an 'anything goes' spar, but he didn't know jack shit about magic and she would probably wipe the floor with him in seconds as a result. Limiting themselves to a fully physical spar and restricting Flame usage to passive internal things would keep things slow and amicable enough that they were unlikely to accidentally maim each-other in the heat of the moment. They weren't using dull training weapons after all.

His opponent grinned, the expression transforming her face into something compelling and predatory. "Oh good. You seem a decent fellow; I'd hate to kill you."

Squalo couldn't help snorting; Princess Bride? Seriously? "I'd hate to die," he retorted, drawing his sword with his right hand as his opponent did likewise. The Mist-bound blade felt comfortable there, but not as much as it would in his left hand, despite his left hand being a prosthetic. A number of people were under the impression that it wasn't a complete sword, since most had only seen the blade extended from one of his sleeves and not dropped fully into his hand. As though he'd give up the mobility that using his wrist could bring to sword moves when he didn't want to.

Two seconds in Squalo discovered that his Boss's wife fought like no swordsperson he'd ever fought before and narrowly avoided having his knee dislocated. "The fuck was that?" He demanded, backing up and away from the crazy lady. Who _competent_ led in with such a wild obvious strike just so they could kick somebody's leg out? Anyone with good timing and skill would have cut her leg off if they were expecting the move and could dodge the wild strike and following precise thrust. He had just been too surprised to do so.

"Oh, I'm _sorry_," Dorea said sweetly, "were you under the impression that fighting was _fair_? My tutor taught me to survive in a mêlée, not fancy-pants duelling for showing off to pretty ladies."

Oh it was _on._ "You wanna play it hard; let's play it hard."

His opponent snickered. "That was a _good_ movie." She hefted her sword again, the fingers of her free left hand flexing in a way that told Squalo that cutting magic out of the equation had been a really _smart_ choice. "Relatable."

"Oh?" Squalo asked, ducking out of the way of a swing that would have taken his arm off if it had connected. As much as movies portrayed sword fights as a clash of steel and physical strength, actually _doing_ that with a live blade was just asking for your sword to dull and warp from all the nicks it would get; a poorly made blade might even break at the tang from the force. A real sword fight was mainly dodging, quick strikes and the occasional parry rather than complete blocks.

"I _always_ ask about the special features on weapons the Things hand me," Dorea confided, twirling and trying to bisect him at the waist; her skirt hid her footwork enough that he couldn't take advantage of the brief moment needed to prepare for such a movement, so he hadn't been able to predict or prepare for that damn mocking twirl, "and flamethrowers are my favourite."

Squalo grinned. "Do you like dyed-in-the-wool killers, too?" He asked, feigning and lunging.

His opponent tilted gracefully away from the blow and kicked him in the upper thigh. "Have you met my husband?"

Okay, point to her; fighting somebody who was wearing a skirt was not something Squalo was used to and it made it hard to read her footwork. Time to try a slightly different style… a curved blade style would lose a bit too much cutting power with a straight blade, but using his sword as though it were a shorter blade would be one hell of a surprise. And it was.

"Who taught you to fight like _that_?" Dorea demanded, ducking away and putting some more distance between them, as she had clearly felt he had gotten too close for comfort.

"No one of consequence," Squalo teased; he was enjoying this.

"I must know!"

"Get used to disappointment."

"Kay," Dorea conceded with a shrug and a smile, before lashing out snake-quick and yanking on his hair, pulling him right off his feet and throwing him across the room. Thankfully not _by_ his hair, but his pride had certainly been manhandled as much as his body.

"VOOIII!" Squalo bellowed, rolling to his feet and lifting a hand to his scalp. That had _hurt_ and he'd never seen anybody not a Sun move that fast. Or _not_ seen, since he actually hadn't noticed her move in time to retaliate. Few people not Suns or Clouds were that strong either; damn, it had been so long since Squalo had fought a Sky that he'd forgotten how bullshit they were. Passive Flame enhancement on a Sky? He'd basically agreed to have his own ass handed to him since _this_ Sky very obviously knew what she was doing with both blade and Flames. And just as obviously more than just her Sky Flames and primary Affinity, which was Rain. Sun wasn't even her _secondary_ Affinity...

His opponent _laughed _in his _face_. "S'what you get for vanity, gorgeous."

Urk; ignore, deflect, deny, he was _not_ going to flirt with his Boss's wife when Boss was standing _right there_. Or _ever_, even; not even as a joke. He liked living, thank-you. "You mock my pain," Squalo deadpanned back.

A raised eyebrow and a wicked smile. "Life is pain, Captain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Safer ground; Squalo shoved most of his hair down the back of his jacket –he wasn't going to call a halt just so he could find a hair tie– and changed fighting styles again. Something more Eastern this time, as there were a few techniques in the styles he knew that were tricky to face. Dorea was good, very good even, and her unstructured and very versatile fighting style was definitely something that would be lethal on a battlefield, but fighting one-on-one put her at a slight disadvantage; mainly because one-on-one meant somebody could take advantage of openings that wouldn't be so obvious in the chaos of a battlefield, although he wasn't sold that there _would_ be openings if she was using magic as well as swordplay. Of course, that she never actually _engaged_ for long enough for Squalo to make use of his superior skill put _him_ at a disadvantage, which meant the field was more or less level. So long as they kept things light and easy. Serious and he'd lose; if not due to magic then because of Sky bullshit, since experienced Skies were ridiculous when it came to Flames as they could focus on most of the specific types and use them all to their advantage.

If she'd dragged him down after grabbing his hair rather than throwing him across the room he'd be maimed or dead right now. He should up his game.

"Why are you smiling?" Dorea asked suspiciously as they circled. He was adapting to the skirt by paying more attention to her hips; they showed where she had her feet if not how. He was getting better at predicting her lunges and kicks more as well, so he had been making use of that. On the downside, she was getting better at reading him too.

"Because I know something you don't know," Squalo replied cheerfully; he was going to _enjoy_ butchering this particular quote.

"And what is that?" Points to the Lady for playing along.

"I am not right-handed," the Rain said, switching hands.

The smile he got in return was _breathtaking_ and quite disconcertingly evil for somebody who wasn't a Varia assassin. "Oh, there's something I ought to tell you," she sing-songed.

Squalo realised where this was going and wanted to laugh, but didn't because this was still a fight and it was turning out ever better than he'd hoped. "Tell me."

"I'm not right-handed either."

Wonderful!

* * *

Xanxus slumped back against the wall of the duelling room, watching intently as his wife and right hand chased each-other back and forth round the room, quoting silly movies. A lot of the quotes were unfamiliar, but he should have expected that really. He'd probably missed a lot of movies coming out in the past five years.

"Look, are you just fiddling around with me or what?" Squalo growled as Dorea dodged and ducked her way past half-a-dozen very quick moves, retreating all the while. That looked like a practice combination of swings there; the shark might be in a spot of trouble.

His wife could use the Harmony factor in Sky Flames to predict their children's wants and needs; predicting physical moves was far easier, even in a stranger, and while it wasn't actual prescience, it was enough to keep ahead when there was a difference in skill and ability, as Xanxus knew first hand. Skill favoured the shark in terms of technical brilliance, but he couldn't use that when he couldn't force a lengthy confrontation; in terms of ability, his wife couldn't maintain her prediction ability and any significant specific Flame-enhancement at the same time, so any burst of extreme speed or strength was very temporary and explained why she kept any confrontation brief; although there was something about his wife's use of Sun Flames that didn't quite fit his understanding of Flame mechanics. Plus he was getting the feeling that while both were brilliant with a sword, they had specialised somewhat differently.

"I just want you to feel you're doing well," she retorted, eyes wide and mocking as she lunged.

"Oh, fuck you," the Rain said, rolling his eyes as he parried.

"Language! There are children present!" Dorea scolded, wagging a finger as she twisted away from him. Not a full turn, but it was an opening nonetheless and the shark took it.

"Never argue with a woman; they're always right!" Thing One called from the sidelines.

"Do the Varia subscribe to Gupta's Law of Convenient Anomalies, Captain?" Xanxus' wife asked playfully as she ducked what would have been a decapitating strike. Only to bring her sword up as she tried to remove the shark's extended arm.

"Mammon's a fan," the shark agreed wryly as he rolled sideways and back onto his feet in a single move, twirling his sword, "as are Information."

"What's with the superfluous flourishes, seriously?"

Squalo grinned manically. "_Nothing is more necessary than the superfluous!_" He bellowed in Italian as he charged.

Next to Xanxus, Blaise and both Things promptly fell over laughing. Even Knight cracked a smile. The Varia Boss didn't get it; he was _definitely_ going to have to watch some films before going back to the Varia, considering the entire Assassination Division ran on in-jokes. In-jokes and lingo he was severely out of date in.

"Do you know how to use that thing?" Squalo demanded as Dorea almost managed to brain him with the hilt of her sword, blood tricking slowly from a scratch along her jaw.

"Yes," she deadpanned as she aimed a swipe at his centre of mass; "the pointy end goes in the other man."

The shark sighed in a very put-upon fashion as he darted out of the way. "This is going to take a lot of work."

"Free your mind!" Dorea retorted, bending in a way that really should not have been possible for somebody with a spine. The back wasn't made to bend that way.

"I don't need kung fu," Squalo snarked, whipping his sword around in a reverse grip and driving her back a few steps. "Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"

"Dodge this." She responded. Squalo _almost_ dodged the sudden lunge that slid past his blade and towards his chest; leather parted and Dorea shook a few droplets of blood off her sword as she ducked past him. The long, shallow slice along the side of the shark's ribs wasn't anything life-threatening but it would definitely slow him down… except the bleeding had already stopped. Interesting use of Rain Flames, that.

"There is no spoon," Squalo said smugly, flipping his sword again, with an obvious flourish which made the Things break out in giggles once more.

"Don't think you are, know you are," Dorea replied calmly, settling once again into a ready position.

Yeah, Xanxus _definitely_ needed to catch up on those movies.

* * *

The spar eventually ended when Squalo accused Dorea of trying to kill him and she looked him right in the eye and said, 'Death is only the beginning'. Which for some reason made _Knight_ choke, hiccup then keel over on the floor laughing his head off. Squalo had stopped dead to stare at the hysterical Lightning, then stilled as Dorea rested the tip of her sword on his collarbone.

"Surrender," she suggested.

Squalo stared at her flatly. "You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept."

Dorea smiled, shaking her head. "You people. If it's not in a movie, it's not worth knowing, is it?"

The Rain Officer blinked, then shook his own head and chuckled. "You watched _that_? Okay, for that I can surrender."

"My Fool has a truly unique taste in cinema," Dorea agreed, lowering her sword and stepping back.

Seeing that the spar was over, Marius and Cassie dashed out of the viewing area and up to the fighters.

"Mama! You're awesome!" Marius shouted, grabbing his mother's free hand and swinging on it.

"You won!" Cassie agreed, hugging Dorea's legs.

"I think it was mostly equal overall," Dorea demurred, carefully sheathing her sword and reaching down to ruffle her daughter's curls. "We weren't seriously trying to kill each-other after all."

"Nah, you were better," Squalo conceded easily. "I'm not a battlefield specialist." He was an excellent swordsman –the _best_ swordsman even now on just technical brilliance– but he was an assassin, not a warrior. If she'd been going all-out against him she would have flattened him in seconds, because she wasn't _just_ a swordswoman; she had the advantage in magic and Flames. If they hadn't been using passive Flame enhancements he might have been able to outlast her or overcome her actual physical strength and speed, but that didn't really count when in an actual fight _anything_ would go. Of course in an ambush he'd kill her before she even noticed he was there, so it all worked out. She had solid sword skills despite not being the most technically precise; she'd obviously win if magic was allowed as there was no way for him to counter _that_ but in pure blade skills, he'd faced many worse and few better as she actually had enough experience to recognise the limits of her style and adapt them to the limitations of the spar.

"The Black Family specialise in war," Dorea said quietly, catching his eye with a wry smile. "We're pretty good at it." She twisted her arm to examine the bloody scrape he'd inflicted just below her elbow, which looked healed under the blood. Sun Flames again? Those definitely weren't her primary –or even secondary– Affinity…

"What do the Potters specialise in then?" Squalo asked, curious.

Boss-Lady smirked. "Alchemy."

What, turning lead into gold and shit? Squalo wasn't sure if she was having him on or completely serious.

"Ringsmithing," Boss rumbled, coming up behind him and nodding appreciatively. Squalo smirked at the compliment then caught the meaning of his Sky's words.

Ringsmithing. Alchemy. Alchemy was ringsmithing; ringsmithing was alchemy. Alchemy included ringsmithing and probably a hell of a lot of other impossible things that otherwise made no solid scientific sense; gems focusing Flames was a matter of composition and construction, but the major secret in ringsmithing was how the ring's metal conducted and focused Flames in such a way that the stones wouldn't break. Magic might explain that part.

"You're related to Talbot," Squalo said aloud, because he already knew it was true and hey, that explained a _lot_ including how the hell she'd managed to defrost Boss without knowing any Vongola lore. Talbot would know it all by virtue of being around as it happened.

"His grandmother was a Potter," Dorea agreed, briefly meeting his eyes before smiling up at her husband, who had moved around behind her and had wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him slightly, the movement completely comfortable.

Oh, so it was Talbot using _her_ family specialty, not her using his; well, that explained why Talbot was selling to the Mafia at least; he was plagiarising somebody else's hard-earned work. Okay, that was kind of funny and totally plausible. It also neatly explained why Talbot had taken on Knight: Boss-Lady had dirt on him. That was even funnier.

Boss however was now ignoring everybody except his wife, which Squalo would have felt less uncomfortable about had 'everybody' not included his kids; okay the kids probably didn't understand Ancient Greek, but the Rain Officer _did_ and he did _not_ want to hear Boss talking dirty to his wife, _especially_ when sword allusions and combat references were being made. Nope. Not sticking around for this. At least Boss's youngest wasn't still here; he'd lost interest part-way through the fight and been carted off out of the room by Blaise. Squalo was now going to follow his fellow Rain's example and make like a tree.

"Going somewhere?" Thing Two asked, raising an eyebrow as the Rain walked past him.

"Patch myself up," Squalo said shortly, noting from the corner of his eye that Knight had managed to pick himself off the floor and deftly corral the kids away from their parents. Nice to see he wasn't the only person uncomfortable with them hearing that, even if they didn't necessarily understand it. Could probably understand the blush on Boss-Lady's cheeks, if they didn't assume it was from the exercise.

"You should see Matron," Thing One said, coming up on Squalo's other side. Squalo eyeballed both Mists sceptically.

"No, really! She's our medical professional," Thing Two said.

"And she really _is_ a professional," Thing One interjected.

"She's the one who has been overseeing your boss's health," Thing Two continued.

"And really, looking at him you wouldn't know he was an ice cube two weeks ago," Thing One finished earnestly.

Squalo considered the offer. On the one hand, total stranger medicating him. On the other, total stranger who had been medicating Boss, who did indeed look a hell of a lot better than the Rain Officer had been expecting, considering that last week he'd been all over scars and barely mobile. "Fine," he conceded.

"Right this way then," Thing One said grandly, waving a hand with a flourish. "Follow me, if you would."

Squalo followed.


	159. Chapter 159

Beta'd by the artistic Insane Scriptist.

A week full of updates coming up!

* * *

**Of rest and taking stock **

Squalo didn't get a chance to sit down with just his Sky until after dinner, when Boss-Lady firmly excused herself 'to fix the Wards' –the cute little redirect he had prompted her to come up with by going around the back the other day– with a glance at Boss that communicated a hell of a lot more than a reminder that Squalo was leaving in the morning. Boss had given her an equally layered look back, kissed her gently and then left the room himself, glancing at the Rain Officer in passing. Squalo had obediently followed his Boss out and upstairs to the door near Boss-Lady's suite that Boss had been standing in this morning, which turned out to lead into another suite. This one belonging to Boss and _much_ more private than his wife's, as there were barely any other Flame-traces in it at all: just said wife and their kids.

Boss had promptly sprawled on his back on the very long and comfortable-looking sofa, yanking off his new-looking boots and waving Squalo into one of the chairs on the opposite side of the coffee table. A coffee table with stacks of notes, folders, diagrams and a few of the language books from Boss's Varia Office piled on it.

Time to give his reports then; the wedding first.

"Three distinct social circles, though they overlap," the Rain started: "people the bride and groom met in school, political connections and family members. The family members are on the outside, being non-magical; only the parents and siblings of the bride and groom knew about magic and nobody actually said _anything_ that might have given the game away. They're all old hands at casual secrecy. Political connections were generally older than the school crowd, although there's an overlap in the people three to six years older than Socialite where a good number of them are politically significant but know her and your wife from school. The rest of the political guests were anything from ten to fifty years older than everybody else and were there because Socialite's husband has a grand plan he's cultivating connections for and it being known that Lady Dorea Potter-Black would be at the wedding attracted a lot of upwardly mobile trash." Which Boss-Lady had definitely done on purpose, to improve Justin Finch-Fletchley's political capital and remind people that she was still invested in what was going on in Britain despite not living there anymore.

Boss's forehead furrowed briefly and he drummed his fingers on the sofa back.

"Most of the guests were school friends, the people your wife grew up with between the ages of eleven and fifteen," Squalo went on. "She picked up _everybody_ with a half-decent attitude and a working brain in her own year group, the three years below her and a smattering of the most observant older students two years above her, then those people went on to recruit _more_ people in the years after she left school, although the recruitment apparently went softer for the ones more than four years younger as they didn't get the Flame training. A change in the school curriculum, incorporating more subjects, made the workload untenable I think." He paused. "Some of those kids _are_ being considered for Flame-training after they graduate, but it's case-by-case rather than wholesale and the ones still in school are vetting them. The social connections are what provide workplace prospects, so most of the political manoeuvring seems focused on getting your wife's people into places where they have the power to make changes, then letting them get on with it."

"They're the Constellation."

Okay, so the group had a name; a friendly egalitarian-sounding one too.

"They're pretty neatly socially divided according to school house, which is personality-related or at least goal-related rather than by Flames, but about a quarter of them have Flames that definitely _aren't_ the usual kind and most of those identify as Hufflepuffs. Those ones do most of the legwork in the government; the Ravenclaws mainly do research and nitpicky detail work, the Slytherins do smooth talk, backroom deals and bending the rules and the Gryffindors are the dynamic ones who make snap decisions then commit completely." Squalo paused. "Your wife has just about _every single_ Hufflepuff in the age bracket in her Constellation, along with two-thirds of the Slytherins, half the Ravenclaws and half the Gryffindors. In the set graduating next year she has pretty much the _entire_ year-group and she wasn't even in school that year." Her people were seriously impressive managing that, considering there'd apparently been some politician trying to implement a fascist regime in the school that year as well. He also needed to find out exactly who 'Theo' was, because the guy had apparently driven the woman insane at Troubleshooter's request; impressive for someone who had been a newbie self-taught Mist at the time. "Their school is the top one in Britain, where all the richest, smartest and most influential go. Your wife's got her school friends running the country to her specifications with minimal input on her part."

"No trouble then."

Squalo snorted. "They're all Sky-struck; the older ones have at least _noticed_ they're gone on her, but they don't see it as a reason to avoid her or add scrutiny to her behaviour and requests. She takes her oaths and responsibilities seriously, she keeps her promises, she very _obviously_ is not interested in amassing more power, and so they can't see why they _shouldn't_ read her in on everything unless it's explicitly confidential." The Rain shook his head. "In fact they seem to expect a _lot_ more ruthless brutality than has already been shown and would gloss over it if it happened; a credit to her family, they're all like that, blah blah. That she bothers with fairness at _all_ seems to make her a paragon."

Xanxus huffed in amusement. "Fun."

"Yeah, that civil war must have been something else." Reading about it in Bel's newspapers had been surreal enough as it was and not just because of the moving pictures.

Boss grunted, frowning again. Oops, probably shouldn't have mentioned that; Boss-Lady had been dealing with it while he was frozen and he'd been unaware of it happening. Time to change the subject.

"And your relatives are all _utter_ assholes," Squalo went on determinedly. "I am _so_ looking forward to the day they introduce themselves to the Vongola because Coyote's head will probably explode." Coyote might have been a Superbi by blood but he'd thoroughly estranged himself from the Family over the past fifty years, to the point that nobody thought of him as a relative anymore. He'd chosen to be wholly Vongola, had made his bed and the rest of the Superbi would ensure he got to lie in it. Cowardly elitist prick.

Boss huffed, but there was a shadow of a smile in there so Squalo took it as a win. "Reports," the Sky said abruptly, levering himself upright and turning to face the Rain Officer across the coffee table.

"Anything specific, Boss?" Squalo asked. There had been a _lot_ of mission reports written in the past six years after all.

Boss pulled a stack of notes towards him across the coffee table, picked up the top page and waved it at Squalo, who grabbed it so he could actually _read_ it; an annotated list of terms, phrases and mission references in his Boss's scratchy handwriting stared the Rain Officer in the face. Right. This was going to take bloody _hours_…

* * *

It was very close to midnight when Squalo finally left his Boss's suite; he wasn't expecting to find Boss-Lady waiting in the hall outside his borrowed guest room though. She definitely didn't mean it how it looked, considering she was in _another_ dressing gown, so Squalo ignored her choice of attire entirely.

"Need something?" He asked bluntly.

"Just to thank you," Dorea Potter-Black said quietly, "for making sure there was a Varia for my husband to come back to."

Squalo squirmed uncomfortably. He could _feel_ how incredibly thankful she was and it was so _awkward_. There were _layers_ to be awkward about even: she was grateful _he_ hadn't gotten himself killed so Boss hadn't had to wake up to broken bonds; was grateful she'd kept his other Guardians alive for the same reason; was really very grateful _indeed_ that he'd stuck with the Varia and done everything in his power to make sure it remained in the image Boss had envisioned before the not-a-coup. Yeah, he'd built on that and expanded things a bit, but his first thought had always been 'what would Boss do?' and it showed. But getting _thanked_ for it was just _strange_ because, well, what the fuck _else_ was he supposed to have done? The Varia _belonged_ to Boss –yes Squalo had given it to him but his Sky had made it his own in those short months before the not-a-coup– so of _course_ he'd stuck around and looked after it. Duh.

Getting thanked for doing the obvious thing was just _embarrassing_, seriously.

"_D__i niente_," he muttered.

Boss-Lady smirked sweetly at him; she was definitely feeling his unease and apparently thought it was funny. Bitch.

Then suddenly she was hugging him, which took him a moment to process because she'd done something freaky with her Flames to bypass his instinctive and violent reaction to 'unfamiliar person at close range' and by the time his muscles were paying attention again it was too late to pass off a reaction as 'whoops, instincts'. Which meant all he could do was gingerly wrap an arm around her shoulders and wait for her to let go.

She very considerately did so after just a few more seconds. "Seriously Squalo," she said sincerely, "thank-you so much for making sure Xanxus had familiar faces, opportunities and challenges to look forward to upon waking up, not more loss and mourning."

And then she was gone.

Fuck. Now he was going to have horrendous what-if scenarios bouncing around his brain all night. What _would_ have happened if Don Vongola had decided Squalo and Boss's other bonded were too much of a threat to leave in charge of the Varia?

Dear Merciful Christ, _no_. Squalo did _not_ want to think about it.

Just, just _no_. _Please_ no.

Fuck, too late. Squalo let himself into his room, closed the door behind him then turned and leaned his head forward to clunk against the wood. Fucking _nightmares_ dancing in his mind's eye and Boss-Lady must have _known_ he'd think of them if she mentioned it, but she _still_ had; probably because _she'd_ been thinking about them and wanted to share the misery. Just like Boss would have done, actually.

Squalo choked on a bitter chuckle. Those two _deserved_ each-other.

It hadn't happened. Boss was back, everything would work out from here. Dwelling on what-ifs was just Dumb and he had a mission in the morning.

* * *

Xanxus' Sunday was rather surreal, in that he had his worldview irreversibly expanded three times within an hour of finishing breakfast and it was all downhill from there. Okay, none of the revelations had been horrifying or upsetting, but the world was never going to look the same again and that was kind of frustrating. Partly because if not for his wife he'd probably never had found any of this out at _all_.

Talbot didn't actually _live_ in that draughty inaccessible old farmhouse he had his workshop next to, where he had always made everybody visit him. His actual house was six times fancier, an actual Roman villa and over a hundred kilometres away from the Iron Fort in the opposite direction. The villa however didn't have enough space around it for the sheep, so his keeping the farmhouse at least made _sense_ as magic meant the commute had to take less than a minute.

Talbot was _married_ and Mrs. Talbot was a _Cloud_, all shades of palest lilac-grey in hair and eye-colour, with warm ochre skin and playful but ancient eyes. The twins had called her 'Auntie Nellie' as she hustled them off to the kitchen for snacks.

His name wasn't even 'Talbot' and he looked nothing like Xanxus thought he had; he only dressed up creepy to fuck with the Mafia.

Annoying old ghoul.

"Good to see you up and about again, _Monello_," the annoying ghoul said with a cheerful smile, hazel eyes gleaming mischievously from a slightly tanned and vaguely middle-aged face topped with short straight light brown hair going grey at the temples and a receding hairline. He was a good five inches shorter than Xanxus had thought he was, stood ramrod straight rather than hunched over and moved like a man in his late thirties. Playing Talbot obviously required some extensive magical effort in order to _look_ like Talbot. He had exactly the right Flame-signature though, so it was _definitely_ the old ghoul; besides, only Talbot had ever called him _that_.

Xanxus looked at his wife, who was very kindly not laughing at his astonishment, the lemon blossom pin he'd made for her prominent on the front of her updo. "Nicholas Flamel?" He repeated sceptically. Okay, so the alchemy part fit but that was a fucking _story_! A fake made up in the seventeenth century by a bunch of editors to con money out of gullible morons! Mammon had told him all about it as an example of historical scams! That had been one of those strange conversations that had happened back when they were re-working the Varia's financing and monetary systems so they were more functional and less stressful to deal with; because of course the Varia had more ways to make a profit than just paid murder and some of the people _within_ the Varia also had their own little sidelines and money-making enterprises using the Varia as an intermediary, which of course Mammon charged a fee for. Said enterprises included scamming morons.

"Would it help if I said I was working as an editor in Paris in the early sixteen hundreds?" the ghoul offered, still smiling.

The twisted, devious, outrageous ancient _fucker_; Xanxus wanted to punch him, but didn't quite dare. "Evil old ghoul," he grumbled, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets to remind himself that he couldn't throw fire at the immortal _asshole._ No matter how much he wanted to, because he knew doing so was childish. Just because the story managed to turn into a joke that was several centuries in the making…

Nicholas Flamel chuckled. "I've missed you too, _Monello_," he said fondly. "You were a breath of fresh air; little Giotto would have loved you and Ricardo would have been be delighted to have somebody with their priorities straight to help him run herd on the rest of the Family." He shook his head. "Ah, but that was a long time ago; come and sit down, all of you. Perenelle will keep the twins busy in the kitchen helping with lunch, so we can talk until the meal." He turned away, walking down the wide, airy central hall of the Roman villa towards the main rooms.

Xanxus felt his wife slip her hand into the crook of his elbow and stepped forwards mechanically, Knight following behind them with Hector on his shoulders. The fuck had his life turned into, seriously. Evil old ghoul was even something of a distant relative now and that was just as strange as his taste in jokes.

"So, I take it from your youthful appearance that young Timoteo didn't settle for house arrest, _Monello_, despite claiming such?" the old ghoul asked once they were all settled on couches in the dining room, Hector now in Dorea's lap and being fussed over.

"Froze me in a block of Zero Point Breakthrough Flames," Xanxus muttered bitterly, rubbing his right eye. It didn't hurt anymore, but it did still twinge sometimes when he splashed cold water on his face in the mornings. Going by Matron's notes he was damn lucky to not have lost any visual acuity in that eye –magic was amazing– and if it had been anybody Vongola defrosting him he'd probably have spent the rest of his life compensating for the injuries incurred. One of which would have been vision loss; wouldn't have been the end of the world but it would have made him a _lot_ more pissed off about things.

"What a foolish boy," the ghoul said sadly, shaking his head. "Giotto would be devastated. He came up with that trick to stop fights, not imprison people."

Xanxus grunted noncommittally; it was common Vongola gossip that Talbot and Giotto had known each-other, but verifiable details of the connection were seriously thin on the ground.

"Don Vongola is set in his ways," Knight said quietly, smiling slightly when Xanxus turned to stare at him. The Varia Boss _still_ wasn't sure how he felt about this particular Lightning, but he was prepared to reserve judgement for a little longer. He was valuable for his skills and strength, but that didn't mean Xanxus liked him as a person; especially when he was so close to the Varia Boss's wife. Knight did not make sense.

"You met him." Xanxus had not expected that. Knight was not the sort of person one would send to make any sort of political contact with a Mafia don, so there had to be a story behind that.

The green Lightning inclined his head politely. "He came up to the workshop to visit Talbot and there was a misunderstanding concerning my presence," the younger ringsmith said elliptically.

"What the Green Knight here means," the old ghoul said lightly, "is that he trounced Timoteo's Storm and Rain Guardians when they very foolishly attacked him in my workshop. Dear Daniela was greatly taken with him."

Xanxus breathed through the twinge the mention of his _Nonna_ caused him. Yes, she was dead, but that didn't mean he should pretend she'd never existed. "Oh?" Knight had taken Coyote down a few pegs? It couldn't have happened to a more deserving target. Coyote had always been the worst of the old fart's Guardians about condemning his behaviour; always on his case for any perceived lack of refinement –which was _constantly_– and the one most likely to bring up his mother's profession as an indictment of both her and him.

"I and the Constellation member I was fitting with a ring were invited to tea," Knight revealed, not commenting on how he'd managed to deliver a beat-down to the old fart's right-hand man. A modest Lightning? How had that happened? Most Lightnings liked to show off a bit, no matter how brainwashed they were.

"How did that go?" Xanxus asked, curious despite himself. He knew his _Nonna_; tea-time was interrogation time and that the Vongola were clearly still in the dark concerning his wife and her people indicated Knight and whoever had accompanied him had managed to avoid giving anything away.

"Interestingly; we took Veritas and Crocodile," Knight said with a deceptively sweet smile. Xanxus took a moment to picture Governess and his wife's proxy for the Black seat at the Wizengamot attending a tea with his grandmother and had to crack a smile of his own; oh, to have been a fly on _that_ wall…

"Who won?" He asked.

"Massimo Vongola interrupted less than twenty minutes in, so we retreated in good order after a brief skirmish," Knight admitted.

Which was tantamount to winning; _Nonna_ would have verbally flayed Massimo for that and the idiot would have sulked for _weeks_ afterwards.

"I'm taking Hector to play in the garden until lunch," Dorea said abruptly, getting to her feet with her son in her arms and leaving the room. Xanxus stared after his wife in confusion; what was wrong? Why was she angry all of a sudden? Had he messed up somehow?

"Hearing about Don Vongola upsets her," Knight said, drawing Xanxus' attention back to the green-haired Guardian. "It reminds her of how very much she wants to set him on fire." The Lightning paused thoughtfully; "possibly after an extensive torture session and public dismemberment."

Xanxus blinked, taken aback. What? He knew his wife was upset about his having been frozen, but… _that_ upset? Seriously? Okay, on the inside he was jumping for joy that she really did care _that much_ and was _still_ pissed off about it despite his being free now, but… seriously?

The look the Lightning gave him suggested the other man thought he was possibly a little slow. "He kept you locked up away from her for the better part of six years," Knight reminded him, "and she could _feel_ you were cold, comatose and unresponsive for all of that; in fact you were technically _dead_, since your Soulfire actually left your body for the duration. She had to find you, get people in position to retrieve you and research a way to defrost you that wouldn't further damage you, none of which would have been necessary if Don Vongola had at any point done the sensible thing and revived you himself, so you and he could both confront your respective issues and move past them." The Lightning sighed. "I'm very impressed Poet managed to talk her out of ordering him to sabotage the Iron Fort, to be honest."

There was a lot to unpack there that Xanxus knew he'd have to deal with sooner rather than later, but… "Dead?" He'd been fucking _dead_?!

"Matron _told_ you that Dorea was carrying your Flames around for the entirety of your indisposition, yes?" Knight inquired.

Xanxus nodded; yes, she'd said that. That actually explained some of the odder impressions he had gotten of his wife's people before he'd formed his own opinions of them.

"Your Flames are the manifestation of your Will, which is your soul; it's why we call it Soulfire," the Lightning went on, which was a _very_ different way of thinking about Flames to what Xanxus was used to, "so you were essentially having an out-of-body experience from the moment you were frozen solid right up until Dorea defrosted you. Your soul and hers both inhabited _her_ body for the better part of six years, which is why she was a bit of a mess the first few days after you woke up and why she's still settling into herself. In fact, you're probably both a bit different to how you used to be as a result of that."

So the old fart had actually fucking _murdered_ him; just when he'd thought he couldn't hate the senile fool any more, he found new and pressing reasons to do so. The negligent fucker probably hadn't even _noticed_. Should have just delegated a 'natural' death for the old fart when he first took over the Varia; would have saved everyone a lot of hassle, pain and suffering –his wife in particular. Six years of _feeling_ he was physically dead since he sure as hell wasn't breathing, much less had a heartbeat while he was locked in a block of ice. Oh _fuck_. That was…

There was a distant thud of a door, running footsteps and somebody decently tall dashed past the wide archway connecting the dining room to the inner courtyard, headed for the gardens. Xanxus pushed himself upright on the couch; his wife and youngest were over there!

"That was Poet," Knight said worriedly, getting to his feet. "I don't think he's coping anymore."

That sounded like a very British understatement.

* * *

Translations

Di niente = for nothing, it was nothing (Italian)  
Monello = street urchin, guttersnipe; rascal, scoundrel (Italian)  
Nonna = grandma (Italian)


	160. Chapter 160

Beta'd by the introspective Insane Scriptist.

There's now a diagram on my deviantart (Umei-no-mai) showing all Dorea's Guardians, their Flame-types and nicknames. Since people have been asking.

* * *

**Of tripping over limits and recognition **

Dorea barely managed to brace herself in time to catch Theo as he half-fell on her, burying Stefano Torretta's face in her shoulder as his knees buckled. His arms clamped around her ribcage and he made a horrible keening sound, body shaking as his hands fisted in her dress.

A few yards away Hector sat down hard on the grass and burst into noisy tears; Dorea ignored her toddler son's empathetic reaction and guided Theo gently to the ground, so they were sitting down rather than him relying on her to hold him up. Curling a hand across his scalp, Dorea reached for the Runes written under his skin that had reshaped his face to match Stefano's and temporarily deactivated them; Theo should wear his own face for this. Theo _wasn't_ Stefano and his remaining such for so long was part of the problem; it had all become too much a while back, that had been obvious for a while and now it was enough.

Her Mist's only reaction to her actions was to slide down her front, curl more tightly into her and sob louder, his face now pressed into her hip with both arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Dorea ran her fingers through her friend's hair, feeling helpless and guilty. Why had she let it get this bad? Calling more strongly on her own Flames she wrapped them around her Poet, pressing against and through his skin.

Then her wailing son collided with her and she had to juggle _him_ too, so he didn't tread on Theo. By the time she had her youngest settled –half-sitting on Theo's ribs and snuffling snottily into her neckline– she had an audience.

"This is your… Mist?" her husband asked, looking and feeling a bit baffled. "How is it I can only feel his Flames through _your_ Flames?"

Unexpected flaw in the Fidelius Ward there; whoops! Oh well, it wasn't like she would be keeping secrets from her husband; some secrets needed background information to be properly understood so they could be shared at appropriate moments, and this was one of those times. Dorea pulled up more of her own Flames and urged them to seep more deeply into Theo's body and Flames, making the heartbroken Mist choke and clutch at her harder, although his loud, wailing sobs quietened slightly.

"The entire Mafia automatically suspects Mists, Active Mists especially," she said matter-of-factly, "'so I used magic to hide his Active primary Flame, so he could get into the Iron Fort and find you for me."

Xanxus nodded, carefully circling and coming to a stop just behind the shoulder Hector was whimpering into, where he sat down and reached out to ruffle the toddler's hair. "So they thought he was a Latent Rain."

"Yes."

"He's got a broken Guardian bond." It was a statement, not an accusation, but Theo still stiffened in her lap and keened a little louder.

"Shh, it's okay," Dorea murmured soothingly, imbuing her Flames into her voice for greater effect. "I've got you and I won't ever let you go, I promise." It wasn't like she could die any time soon and that was what Theo was most afraid of happening.

Theo slowly, painstakingly relaxed, sprawling across her lap like so much dead weight as his tears soaked through her skirts, still sobbing.

"My Poet has been posing as Stefano Torretta, who does actually exist and agreed to let Theo borrow his identity," Dorea explained quietly, her voice barely audible above her Mist's breakdown. "He was hired by your foster-sister slightly less than three years ago and was swiftly assigned to care for your Grandmother. He remained her primary attendant until her death, by which point he'd formed a Rain-bond with her. He was then assigned to Federico Vongola."

Her husband winced, the subtle movement of his face just barely perceptible at the edge of her field of vision; he clearly understood that what little equilibrium Theo had managed to hold together after losing Daniela had been terminally disrupted with his foster-brother's death.

"He handed in his notice last month and we had planned for him to extract himself in Quiet Week," Dorea went on, tone gentle and even, "but I am going to be high-handed and order him to call Madam Vongola this evening and quit." Hector was settling a bit, but letting her anger seep into her voice and Flames would just set him off again.

In her lap Theo made an incoherent sound that nonetheless communicated confusion and protest.

"You aren't okay," Dorea said quietly and firmly. "You aren't looking after yourself. You are going to call Maria-Chiara, tell her you can't face coming in to work anymore, apologise and possibly cry over the phone if that is how you feel; be honest. She knows perfectly well you are still grieving and will very probably let you go without protest. Then you are coming home and I am not letting you go _anywhere_ without me until your Flames heal properly. Do you hear me Theodore Justinian Nott?"

Theo nodded, which she felt rather than saw; his back muscles loosened as his grip on her waist relented slightly, but he was still trembling all over and crying on her, if more quietly now.

"Good." Dorea continued running her fingers through his hair. "Stefano can come over next week to sort out the memory bits and you can do whatever you feel is necessary to mourn and get used to _not_ being Stefano anymore. _Anything_, Theo: you have more than enough of your own money to indulge yourself with, I will happily subsidise you for specific items and I won't stop you so long as whatever you decide on is not self-destructive or violating somebody else's right to self-determination." She sighed ruefully. "It's not like you could _possibly_ top what Barty is doing in his free time…"

Theo made a curious snuffly sound.

"What _is_ Barty doing?" Xanxus asked, equally curious but considerably more wary.

Dorea switched to Russian; Hector might be eighteen months old but he understood a _lot_ more than was immediately obvious. "_Barty has been stalking and murdering rapists, those who target the young in particular_," she said lightly. "_He brings the bodies home for Crocodile to practice her Family Magic upon, along with the evidence of their wrongdoings. He wouldn't even bother with the evidence, except he knows I actually _care_ about not murdering people who haven't committed crimes that merit such_." Of all the hobbies, why this? Yes, she _could_ stop her Thrall so he gave up going out and committing murder, but it was one of the vanishingly few things he'd actually _chosen_ to do of his own initiative so she was reluctant to impinge on this tiny, hopeful manifestation of free will.

And he did at least kill people who deserved it; most of his victims targeted prostitutes, so it wasn't like the police were doing anything. Well they were probably looking for _Barty_, since he was killing 'valued members of society'. With 'valued' being up for debate, considering upstanding members of society wouldn't be visiting prostitutes or even going _near_ underage sex workers, considering that selling sex when you were under eighteen was illegal in Italy and buying sex from somebody that young was equally illegal.

"_Governess does magic involving corpses_?" Xanxus looked caught between fascination and concern.

"_Her Family Magic is all about building golems_," Dorea explained, "_and using dead bodies is easier and often more effective than building all the parts from scratch_." She had learned a lot about simulacra from sharing a house with Croc for half a decade.

Her husband nodded, his curiosity satisfied for the time being as he shifted around a little so she could lean on him a bit, offering wordless support. Dorea did so, grateful for his acceptance and willingness to let the specifics slide for a while longer.

* * *

Xanxus didn't mind just sitting on the grass in silence as his wife nursed her Mist through a grief-induced emotional breakdown, occasionally rubbing Hector's back as the toddler clung to her, whined and smeared snot over the shoulder of her dress. He had plenty on his mind that needed careful consideration. Like how he'd actually been dead. Properly physically dead. And his wife had _felt_ every single second of it, had it pulling on her mind and heart in every moment of the day and haunting her dreams at night. Yes, she'd had his Flames bouncing around inside her too, but that wasn't much better than a haunting.

His Flames being with her rather than trapped in his frozen body had probably protected his own Guardians from suffering adverse effects, come to that; Squalo hadn't seemed strained at all and apparently hadn't even _noticed_ Xanxus was no longer on ice until Luna abducted him. So in all likelihood Mammon and Bel hadn't noticed a change either; handy for keeping his 'escape' a secret until Quiet Week, but not everybody had benefitted from him haunting his wife.

Dorea especially had borne the brunt of the consequences of his Stupid and yeah, he was six years behind on everything but he hadn't _experienced_ those years; hadn't suffered through them, loss and helplessness seeping into his bones. He knew what it was like to rage against something you couldn't change, but loss was different. His wife had been intimately aware of his physical condition –fucking _dead_– and hadn't been able to move _past_ it. Hadn't _dared_ move past it even, since 'getting over it' would mean resigning herself to his death… which she very clearly had _not_ done since he was here now and he was grateful for that, but still. It was no wonder that half the time she just felt _tired_.

Xanxus could not _imagine_ what it would feel like and really hoped he never found out; his stomach roiled queasily at the very _idea_ of his wife dying. The warm, rippling presence on the fringes of his mind and heart was already something he couldn't live without, not if he wanted to stay sane.

Shifting even closer, Xanxus leant his forehead against the top of his wife's skull and breathed in the scent of her hair. He wasn't dead. She wasn't dead. They were both here, both alive, both together. Everything else would work out from here. They'd get there. Together.

* * *

Lunchtime had Xanxus appreciating Knight a little more; the man had got up and followed him out to the gardens when the noise started, but had somehow effaced himself when it became clear Poet was having a breakdown and then vanished back into the villa early on in the Varia Boss's conversation with his wife. He'd also somehow managed to delay the meal a little and then spent all four courses talking to the twins, distracting them from the very shaky Mist lying on their mother's dining couch behind her, face buried between her shoulder-blades and still trembling uncontrollably; they were eating in true Roman fashion, reclining on couches, but minus the wasteful decadence and excessive alcohol. Xanxus was doing what he could to help keep the twins engaged and reassured, but he also had Hector snuggled against his chest, demanding reassurance, as well as several uncomfortable revelations still settling in his mind, so he wasn't exactly at the top of his game.

Watching Knight with his older kids was kind of interesting but mainly very painful, because _hey look_, as a snide voice in his head observed, _now you know who their father figure growing up was, what with you having gone and got yourself killed like a moron_. They called him 'Green' –a really _terrible_ Arthurian mythology pun but probably an accidental one based on his colouring– and both Marius and Cassie very obviously assumed that of _course_ he'd want to hear about everything they'd been doing since he last saw them. Barely an hour and a half ago. And everything they'd been thinking about too. Naturally.

With Hector clinging to him like a burr, Xanxus couldn't afford to let his temper rise; his sensitive toddler son would think Xanxus was angry at _him_ and the Varia Boss was not going to bully his own children like that. He was _better_ than that. So he had to sit tight, breathe through the sheer _agony_ of watching one of his wife's Guardians parent his children with grace and patience and just let it _go_. It was so _hard_ to keep breathing, to forgive himself for not doing it, for not knowing the things Knight was referencing, for not having _been_ there to do this with them from the beginning. He also had to forgive his kids for not being so free and easy with him –which he'd not even _noticed_ until he saw them responding to Knight– and forgive Knight for stepping into a parental role in the first place. His kids had _needed_ a father and he hadn't been there. Knight _had_ been there, had stepped up and seemed to be doing the right things, which was _good_. For his kids.

Good for Xanxus as well to be honest, because Knight had taught the twins that fathers _wanted_ to hear everything and he was reaping the benefits there because both twins were willing and eager to talk his ears off during family time, Cassie especially. His daughter had never been told it was unladylike to chatter or run or fight or have opinions, so she had everything and did everything and was utterly content. Marius was happy too, but he was quieter and more thoughtful, so his questions and comments took a different kind of effort to Cassie's fierce effusiveness.

The really hard part was keeping himself grounded and reminding himself that Knight wasn't trying to show him up, or make him look bad to his wife, or _anything_ like that. He just wanted to make things less stressful for his Sky and he liked the twins. That was _it_. That _was_ the agenda. Xanxus was starting to recognise that he was maybe slightly paranoid about people's ulterior motives in relationships, but in his defence, the old fart had _always_ had at _least_ four ulterior motives for _everything_ he showed Xanxus, be it disappointment or approval, and his dumbass foster-brothers had been _worse_. Even _Nonna_ had always had her reasons, although she'd at least explained to him once that sometimes, the relationship itself was _enough_. That having a specific person _be_ there was reason enough to make an effort, and that some people would make an effort simply because they enjoyed your company.

Knight was clearly willing and able to put a ridiculous amount of effort into just about anything if it made Xanxus' wife happy, which extended to doting on her kids, somewhat. Xanxus recognised intellectually that he himself was willing to put a _lot_ of work into fixing his relationship with his wife, purely because it was _her_. Which made no logical sense, but emotionally it made _perfect_ sense because Xanxus refused to consider a life without her; it _wasn't_ going to happen. So of course he had to make it work. Was actually _making_ it work, despite the occasional upending of his worldview and his understanding thereof.

Unfortunately for him however that seemed to imply Knight was in love with Dorea. Xanxus did not like that implication. Sky-struck was fine –that was an occupational hazard for _everyone_ in the general vicinity of an Active Sky, including other Skies– but that was more 'I don't care what kind of relationship I have with this person so long as they notice me' than what Knight was doing, which was 'I am going to put all my time and effort into looking after my special person the way they want and need to be looked after'. Which looked a _lot_ like romantic love, for all that Knight didn't seem to have discovered sex was a thing, or if he had, it wasn't something he was interested in.

Xanxus was very, very wary of bringing this up with his wife, because the likelihood of him saying something awkward, insensitive or ambiguous was very high. He did not want her to feel like he doubted her commitment to him, or make her defensive about her relationships with her Guardians. He also recognised he was being a touch hypocritical where Knight was concerned, because Steward was nursing the tail-end of a powerful infatuation which he didn't feel at all threatened by despite it very _definitely_ being sexual. Maybe 'infatuation' was the wrong word, considering its depth and strength, but Xanxus had never previously been interested in the science and psychology of relationships so he didn't _have_ better words for what he was seeing. He might have to rectify that, considering his wife, kids and his wife's many Guardians, all of whom were strongly attached to her in various ways.

He knew a _lot_ more about the psychology of violence, trauma and mental illness, because being Boss of the Varia was educational like that. He would however _much_ prefer to never have to apply any of _that_ to his home life if it could possibly be avoided.

* * *

After lunch was… easier. In part because Theo the Poet –whose claim to fame among the Constellation was having driven a hated teacher insane– had reached a point of relative calm in the midst of his breakdown and was currently happy to Conjure sparkles and colourful illusions for the twins, so long as he was allowed to stay lying across Dorea's lap and not talk. Hector had thankfully dropped off during the after-dinner chit-chat, so Xanxus just had to keep the sleeping toddler cradled against his shoulder as he followed the old ghoul across the villa's courtyard to a smaller, semi-private sitting room where they could talk about the Vongola without Dorea having to hear. No need to upset his wife with more Vongola news and he didn't want the kids to overhear it either.

Knight had helped clear the table with Perenelle Flamel and had been engaged in conversation with her on weaving protective wards into clothing when Xanxus last saw him, which suggested something interesting about the Guardian's own favoured green roll-neck jumpers. But that was something for later.

"Tell me about the Family," Xanxus asked in Sicilian as soon as they were both sitting down. The old ghoul settled in his seat and rubbed his chin thoughtfully; Xanxus didn't try to rush him. It would be pointless and besides, he did want a considered opinion. Even if he was still having trouble reconciling his memories of 'Talbot' with this rather mundane-looking man; it didn't feel like it really _could_ be Talbot without the Mohawk, blindfold and cloak full of strange ingredients.

"A Family like the Vongola is rather like a parade," the old ghoul said eventually, gesturing to underline his words. "The Boss is at the head of the procession, leading the way and sending people ahead to ensure they know what to expect when they get there and don't trip over anything along the way. The less important people follow behind, all trying their best to keep up, the hangers-on run alongside, trying to get noticed and the momentum of the group causes everyone else to get out of the way rather than risk being run over." The ghoul smiled. "Of course in dear Daniela's case she was outpacing her scouts at a run half the time and dashing back to chivvy her allies to move faster the other half, but the urgency and pace did at least keep everyone together and ahead of any would-be competitors."

Nice metaphor. And yes, that was _Nonna_ all over; for all that she'd been retired for as long as Xanxus had known her, she'd still been like that. She'd slowed some, but had still possessed a vibrancy most of the younger Vongola had lacked. Erica and Ruggero both had a touch of it though.

"Timoteo on the other hand prefers a more sedate pace," the ghoul went on, tapping his fingers together. "More of a leisurely stroll than a steady march, one which has gradually slowed to a crawl; old age does that. He hasn't noticed the change in pace, mainly because his forward scouts are barely a step ahead of him and walking backwards as they look him in the eye, assuring him all the while that they can't see anything in the way."

Xanxus snorted at that hilariously precise indictment of Iemitsu Sawada. Depressing to hear but accurate as fuck; clearly Sawada had only gotten _worse_.

"The problem with a slow stroll is that it's not really a comfortable pace for a lot of people," the ghoul went on pensively, "so a few people have wandered off a little. The group has spread out, rather than all hurrying along close behind the leader. The allies have formed clumps and started private conversations, some of them drifting ahead of the pack. Certain people have wandered quite a way off course, keeping an eye on the leader but confident that they can be back before he notices their detour. Others have stopped altogether, since the pace is slow enough that they can catch up quickly should they need to. The hangers-on have infiltrated the core group and their voices are often louder than those of the allies, as they are no longer saving their breath for the march."

Fuck. That sounded _really_ bad. Loss of vision leading to loss of momentum, the longstanding Allies being ignored in favour of the suck-ups, corruption and decay rising by the day; all the shit he'd gone and stormed the Iron Fort to force the old fart to notice, still there and six years worse. Really fucking _Stupid_ decision there.

Why the fuck had he thought faking a coup would change anything again?

"So the Vongola is rotting in place and the wider Family is bracing for the worst," Xanxus summarised grimly. "What about the Heir?" The shark had mentioned there _was_ one, but no more than that. He definitely needed to demand some Intelligence briefings once he'd caught up on personnel.

"The Sun Arcobaleno is training him at Timoteo's request," the ghoul said easily.

So Dumbass Dino had been dropped for a more urgent assignment, or had possibly got to a point where he didn't need constant supervision. Eh, not really his problem either way.

"Who is he?"

"Officially there is nothing else," the old ghoul informed him, "but unofficially, the Heir is almost certainly a direct descendant of Primo."

Related to Sawada then; it was a fairly open secret in the upper echelons of the Vongola that the blond moron was descended from Primo through his Japanese father. It had been a major factor in the old fart's decision to put him in charge of the CEDEF; being External Advisor barred the scum from the succession permanently. It followed that he'd have relatives with just as valid a connection to Primo's bloodline and just as good a chance of being Skies. Xanxus suspected the only reason the old ghoul had specified 'Primo' rather than calling the founder of the Vongola by name as he usually did was to specify that the Heir was descended _only_ from Primo, rather than having blood from several different Vongola Dons and their various relatives, some of whom had also been called Giotto. Terzo's father for instance had been a Giotto, as had one of _Nonna_'s cousins.

"Japanese then." Reborn would have a chore and a half getting whoever the poor victim was trained up to Italian Mafia standards; the cultural expectations were completely different in Japan, never mind the language.

"Nobody tells me anything, _Monello_," the old ghoul said amicably in English. "They just show up when they want things."

Xanxus snorted; yeah, right. The ghoul heard a hell of a lot more than he let on and now he knew the man could change his face like it was nothing it was slightly clearer how he managed that. The Varia Boss still had no idea how he managed to obscure or hide his Flame signature in order to complete the deception, other than the obvious 'magic' since his wife and her Poet had managed to hide that he was a Mist from the entire Vongola despite Mists shedding Flame-traces everywhere.

"How did everyone react to you picking up Knight?" He asked, changing the subject. He needed some humour after that depressing summary and hearing about reactions to the smart, put-together Lightning with an obsession with the colour green would at least be entertaining.

The ghoul chuckled. "Oh, very amusingly. I got so many complaints from various Dons who were offended I hadn't been willing to train anybody from _their_ Family the moment news got about, which all cut off abruptly when they realised nobody knew _where_ I'd got him from. Or who he was. More visitors than I'd had in _years_, all of a sudden people wanting to consult about new rings or getting old ones cleaned…" He shook his head, smiling."I made a lot of money in the following months."

"How did news get out?"

"It was Knight kicking Timoteo's Guardians out of the workshop," the old ghoul shared cheerfully. "Let me tell you _all_ about it…"

* * *

Translations

See previous chapter.


	161. Chapter 161

Beta'd by the charitable Insane Scriptist.

* * *

**Of communication and combat **

Xanxus only got three-quarters of an hour of listening to Vongola gossip and sniggering about the undignified mess the wider Family had turned into trying to get details out of Knight. The old ghoul's perspective on his former apprentice was fucking _hilarious_ and hearing about various encounters –including a few Varia ones– very definitely made it sound like the Lightning vacillated between being completely serious –which somehow _always_ got chronically misunderstood– and being deliberately, frustratingly deadpan comedic in how he misinterpreted every last little thing in the ways that best benefitted him and Dorea.

Which the old ghoul had clearly very much enjoyed, but had Knight's victims tearing their hair and never being quite sure what was going on. Something that Knight very definitely enjoyed doing, or else he'd have changed his approach way earlier even though there had been no harm done.

Story time had however come to an end when Cassie barged in, threw herself at Xanxus' legs and demanded that he, "play with us, Papà! Green says he won't unless you play too!"

Xanxus experienced a moment's emotional conflict, which he swiftly and firmly repressed; no he wasn't going to get angry that his daughter asked Knight first, and no, he wasn't going to be angry at Knight for 'forcing' him to be grateful _either_.

"Of course, spitfire."

"I don't _spit_ fire!" Cassie protested hotly.

"You could if you wanted to," Xanxus replied with a smirk, getting to his feet and ruffling his daughter's hair. He had experimented a bit with where he could conjure Flames from as a bored teenager back when he was thirteen or so and yes, spitting fire was perfectly possible. Calling it to hands was just easier because human beings generally used their hands for everything. Well, beings that were mostly human-shaped clearly did too, since he didn't exactly qualify as 'human' in the strictest sense.

"Papà! Don't!" Cassie squeaked, trying to smooth her curls down again with a pout

"What did you want to play?" Xanxus asked instead, heading for the door and glancing back at his daughter, who instantly gave up on her hair and dashed after him.

"We're going to play dragon!"

* * *

'Playing dragon' involved Xanxus being the dragon, Marius being the royal prince the dragon had abducted for being a treasure worthy of hoarding, Cassie being the knight sent to rescue the prince –because girls can be knights, Mama said so– and the newly-awakened Hector being Cassie's squire, holding her weapons and making sure her armour was shiny. Dorea was sat over to one side as the prince's distressed royal mother, Knight was thus far lacking a speaking part and Theo the Poet was obligingly providing decently solid scenery and props from where he was snuggled against Dorea's side, including a pony for Cassie to ride and the armour for her to wear, a hoard for Xanxus to sprawl on and a cart for Hector to pull.

However when Cassie arrived at Xanxus' 'hoard' at the far end of the garden from Dorea, things went rather severely sideways to what Xanxus had been expecting. Clearly his experiences of knight-dragon interactions were seriously lacking.

"Hello, Sir Dragon? Are you receiving guests?" Cassie asked, 'knocking' in the air just past the edge of Xanxus' massive pile of conjured treasure. Theo provided a faintly ominous echoing sound to go with the gesture.

"I might be. Who asks?" Xanxus replied, flopping forwards over his very large hoard so Marius was trapped under him and he was at eye level with his daughter.

"I am Sir Cassie and I have been sent by Prince Marius' mother to ask if you will please give him back," Cassie said firmly. "He's still learning how to be a proper prince and has a kingdom to look after."

"No. He's mine now." Xanxus bared his teeth for good measure, partly to hide the _massive_ grin he could no longer smother.

"Okay, he's _yours_," Cassie conceded, "but surely you can let him out sometimes? He's not a proper prince yet as he hasn't learned everything."

"He doesn't need to be a proper prince, he's already a precious, irreplaceable treasure," Xanxus countered, getting into the swing of things. "And I'm not letting him go anywhere. He might get stolen."

"You could come with him?" Cassie suggested. "And bring the rest of your hoard, of course; his Mama _really_ misses him and I'm sure she wouldn't mind you so long as you don't eat anybody without due pro-voh-kay-shun and don't set anything on fire."

Xanxus made a show of thinking it over, rolling onto his back with Marius clutched to his chest so the five-year-old couldn't wriggle away and breathing a plume of Wrath Flames into the air; after all, what sort of dragon would he be if he couldn't breathe fire? "Hmmm…" he prevaricated, eyeballing the tiny, determined 'knight' sceptically from upside-down. "Your queen won't try to steal my hoard? It's all _mine_, I stole it fair and square."

"My queen _won't_," Cassie insisted, "so long as you don't try to steal from _her_ hoard, which is made of her people, their crops and their things."

"Not her son?" Xanxus teased slyly, snuggling Marius closer.

"Prince Marius is his own person and is going to inherit his Mama's hoard when he grows up," Cassie said brightly, her smile showing teeth, "so really, if you think about it, you just have to be patient and you'll have a _much_ bigger hoard in a few decades so long as you don't destroy any of it first."

"Sold!" Xanxus said cheerfully. "Are you going to help me carry my hoard?"

"No, that's what squires are for," Cassie said, reaching out and tugging on Hector's jumper. "Hector, help the dragon load his hoard onto your cart."

Hector pushed his rather small cart right into the edge of the hoard and started pushing the treasure onto it… which was incredibly funny because it all _fitted_ rather than falling off despite the drastic difference in size; quite a lot of the bits and pieces even obligingly bounced themselves into the cart rather than slide onto the grass.

"Okay then, off we go!" Xanxus said as soon as all his 'treasure' was loaded up, perching Marius on his shoulders, scooping up Hector and cart under one hand and Cassie –plus Mist-pony of course– under the other and running the length of the garden to set his daughter and younger son down in front of Dorea, who now had a crown and a paper-thin but very realistically designed castle erected around her and Theo. Up to about waist height, with some tiny fields, woods and a town in a metre radius around the walls.

Very cute.

Cassie immediately bowed, kneeing the pony so it bowed too. "Your Majesty! The dragon was open to negotiations and has brought the prince back to visit you. He is going to be staying nearby, to make sure nobody else tries to steal Prince Marius."

"The dragon will not attack my citizenry?" Dorea demanded to know.

"He has promised not to attack anybody so long as nobody tries to steal from his hoard!" Cassie chirped, dismounting her pony and bouncing proudly on her toes in her shiny and very realistic armour, which clanked in time with her movements.

"Very well; he can settle in the mountains of the edge of my kingdom," Dorea said, pointing to the two-dimensional and very pointy mountains that had just phased into being on her right, near an olive tree. "I will send out a decree so that everybody knows the dragon is my guest and he is not to be attacked."

"Let's go and lay out my hoard," Xanxus said, looking down at Hector, who had been happily pulling his treasure-laden cart up and down the path throughout the conversation.

"Oo-way!" Hector shouted, dashing over to the mountains and tipping his cart over. The suddenly-appearing massive pile of treasure occupied a space barely a metre square and was nearly six metres high; it looked ridiculous yet strangely plausible. Then Hector pushed the pile over and it slowly topped to the ground, accompanied by a cornucopia of hilarious sound effects: metal clanging, crashing, slithery sounds and a few 'bonk' noises for good measure, all very loony-toons. Hector watched it fall over, giggling madly, which suggested that this was not a new game and he'd done it on purpose for this exact effect. Maybe his wife's Mists had some kind of set scheme for whenever they played with his kids?

Xanxus headed over to the relocated hoard –which was now two metres long, about one and a half metres wide and taller than his children– and sprawled on top of it, removing Marius from his shoulders and setting the boy on his feet on the ground in front of him. "There; go visit your mother," he drawled.

Marius straightened his tiny illusory tiara –which was amusingly similar to the one Bel always wore– and bowed to Xanxus. "Thank-you for your kindness, Sir Dragon," his oldest son said sweetly before turning and running towards his mother in her paper-thin castle.

Only to get snatched up halfway there by Knight.

"Yummy, snack-sized royalty," Knight deadpanned. "I am a _very_ hungry dragon."

"Help!" Marius cried, flailing from where he was hanging from Knight's arms.

It was only Dorea, Cassie and Marius' complete lack of fear that prevented the fireball Xanxus spat at Knight from actually being genuinely lethal in strength; even that had been a last-second adjustment. The fire hit the back of Knight's jumper and exploded, knocking him forwards but oddly enough not even scorching his clothing.

"No stealing my dinner!" Knight snarked over his shoulder at Xanxus, grabbing Marius by the ankle and dangling him upside-down at arm's length.

Xanxus tackled the Lightning violently, catching Marius as the five-year-old fell and tossing the boy back under his shoulder onto the hoard, which was a lot more comfortable a landing than it looked. Then Knight twisted, trying to get him in a headlock, and the Varia Boss set about proving that yes, he did know how to wrestle. He was damn good at it, too. That Knight turned out to be mostly impervious to pressure points and incapacitating strikes meant Xanxus didn't need to hold back either, which made it five times more enjoyable.

He really _wanted_ to slam Knight's head on the ground a few times and twist the Lightning's arms until his bones creaked and that he was getting an opportunity to do so was just fantastic. That Knight had _definitely _done it on purpose made Xanxus like him more, as did the fact that Knight was giving as good as he got; getting elbowed in the jaw _hurt_.

Xanxus won though, managing to pin Knight to the ground and banging the other man's head on the grass a few more times for good measure. "Yield," the Varia Boss suggested as the Lightning groaned.

"Okay, no eating your royalty," Knight agreed, wheezing. "Am I allowed to run away now?"

Xanxus considered the request, which had far more nuance to it than was immediately obvious. "Yes," he decided, letting go of his wife's Guardian's hair and rolling off him. Knight sat up slowly, rolled his shoulders, winced and crawled off behind a bush, where he flopped on his back on the grass.

"I am now dead, he killed me," the Lightning announced, only his feet visible from Xanxus' angle.

"Hooraaaay!" Cassie cheered, waving her hands wildly. "Our dragon is the best dragon!"

Dorea clapped; Marius and Hector joined in the cheering.

Okay, so maybe Xanxus wasn't so bad at the parenting kids thing after all.

* * *

Sunday evening found Xanxus in one of his wife's many training rooms, practicing with the knives he'd appropriated from the communal armoury. Apparently one of the Constellation members had provided all the newer knives –her name was Hannah Abbot, codename as yet unspecified and he'd met her briefly at the wedding– and according to Fool he could commission a personal set of blades from her if he wanted. Xanxus was still considering it; knives weren't his go-to weapon, but he didn't have the necessary skills to make really good ones of his own and considering guns were the exception rather than the rule among magicals, it would probably be prudent to invest in a few less conspicuous backup weapons.

Of course the Zabini definitely had weaponsmiths, what with having _gladiatorial combat_ as a national sport, but there was no reason why he couldn't have multiple sets of blades. Different shapes and lengths were good for different situations, after all.

Sliding through the moves he'd learnt from street-brawling as a child, the movements he'd been taught by tutors and the trickier forms Squalo had beaten into his muscles –no way was the shark going to allow _his_ Sky to be anything less than competent in using a blade– Xanxus realised that yes, his stamina had definitely undergone a significant increase. So significant in fact that he could afford to change his fighting style to accommodate it, using more of the forms designed for outlasting opponents rather than simply overpowering or outwitting them. He was also faster and his reflexes were quicker, which was even more startling.

That was very definitely a reflection of his change in diet; had he seriously been that badly off before? How come nobody in Vongola or Varia Medical had noticed he was teetering on the edge of malnutrition? Unless of course this was yet another of those siren-related things, in that his body was doing things human bodies _didn't_, so nobody had ever thought to look. They'd just assumed that since he was up to Quality standards he was in peak health and fitness, which was what he'd thought too. Before. Despite the regular headaches, general irritability and occasional photosensitivity, frequent cravings for pickles, alcohol or chocolate and the difficulty he had sleeping properly.

Fuck, put it like _that_ and it was pretty embarrassingly obvious he'd never been properly nourished. Luss was going to pitch a fit when he found out, then another fit when he realised that this had been going on _under his nose_ and he could have _fixed_ it. There was going to be so much _fussing_ come Quiet Week it was going to be unbearable.

Actually no, he didn't have to put up with that shit: the okama wasn't his wife and didn't have a right to go poking his nose into Xanxus' personal shit. The Varia Boss had allowed his Sun Officer more leeway before, as he'd been the only person Xanxus _had_ who really cared about those details, but now Xanxus was married a lot of the shit that had previously defaulted to Lussuria was now Dorea's prerogative. So the okama would have to back off or get thrown bodily out of Xanxus' personal space. Possibly out of a window for emphasis, if he didn't get with the program quickly enough. Luss was observant enough that he probably wouldn't need the window treatment, but Levi had always been thick as a brick so the Lightning would definitely earn it at _least_ twice.

Xanxus really liked that Dorea _didn't_ fuss. She took in the situation, took a deep breath and asked sensible, practical questions. Or just moved straight on to providing sensible, practical _solutions_ which he was then allowed to accept, modify or refuse as he wished. She might yet fuss in the future, but Xanxus got the impression that in his wife, fussing would be a symptom of a larger and more complex issue underneath the surface. She was far too prosaic to fuss or ask Dumb questions when she could move directly to resolving the issue instead.

And she always asked, or at least checked with him part-way through to make sure he didn't have any objections. Xanxus found that incredibly helpful, as it opened his eyes to quite how many things he now had a say in –sometimes a final say– and gave him a much more complete picture of his wife's habits, preferences and responsibilities. The responsibilities especially, as many of those were shared by virtue of being _parental_ responsibilities.

Xanxus found parental responsibilities to be a fast-paced see-saw between uncertainty and surprise, with occasional forays into confusion, guilt, delight and relief. Partly because being a parent seemed to basically involve running after your child and trying to make sure they didn't do themselves a serious injury, either physically or metaphorically. There was no control –attempting to control just made things _worse_– and being sensible only worked half the time because children came at sensible from a different angle to adults. Xanxus _could_ see their angle if he took the time to –which he was doing more often because communication relied on shared perspective– which made negotiation both easier and harder. And it _was_ negotiation, because bribery did not work and his children were all enough like him that they refused to do 'pointless' or 'silly' things on principle… which included a few social specifics Xanxus hadn't realised the old fart had managed to slide into his head somehow. Like 'not disturbing your parent while they've got visitors', which Cassie said was Dumb since how else were they going to meet people? Mama was there, nothing bad would happen.

Xanxus could see already that he was not going to be able to keep his kids from visiting him at the Varia, which terrified him. However if he couldn't stop it, all he _could_ do was ensure that they really _would_ be safe there, even if he wasn't with them the entire time. Maybe ensure Knight or Executioner followed them around everywhere when they were in the building, making sure they didn't set off any traps or attract unwanted attention from assassins? Or he could make it a mission and assign a few reliable Varia. Although in the Varia, 'reliable' was relative.

It was with this in mind that he was going through the Squad listings and it was leading him to draw conclusions he'd never have arrived at before. Parenting really did open your mind to the possibilities.

At least there would be no children present for tomorrow's sparring.

* * *

Monday morning saw Xanxus in the basement of his wife's house right after breakfast, watching her Guardians warm up with their various weapons of choice. Not _all_ her Guardians of course –Socialite was on her honeymoon and Secretary had taken the kids to the theatre in Sabina– but most of the ones currently in the building, although Poet was the only Mist present. It was utterly fascinating to watch them banter, pair up and talk more seriously about practicing, new ideas, tried-and-tested strategies and recent real-life fights. Troubleshooter was twirling her hand-axes and telling the story of an encounter with a bunch of militants in the African bush, Barty was practicing a series of lunges with his short sword –which looked like a genuine first century Roman gladius– Fool was busy contorting his body in ways that would cripple most people and Governess was spinning her bladed chain-whip around herself with the negligent ease of the truly gifted. Even leather whips were tricky and while a chain whip wouldn't have the peculiarities of a leather whip, it was several times more perilous to wield due to all the sharp edges.

This was going to be so _much_ fun.

"Plan," he demanded as Dorea came up beside him, Theo on her other side with a full-sized broadsword on his hip; the shark would _love_ to spar against him sometime. Theo the Poet was a Mist, but that would just make him a more challenging opponent since few Mists bothered with anything closer than mid-range. The ones that did… well, they tended to be _very_ good _indeed_.

"We spar in pairs, generally; one to attack, one to defend and switching around mid-fight to put the other pair off-balance," Dorea explained. "So my idea was to pair you and Theo, since none of us have fought him in years and we have no idea how you fight. He's good at picking up thoughts and intent too, so communication shouldn't be much of a challenge."

Xanxus found his wife's statement to be ironically optimistic, since Poet hadn't spoken a word in his hearing yet. Then again, Mist; words were not strictly necessary.

"Who's your battle partner?" he asked instead.

"Depends on the day," Dorea told him; "usually Barty or Rence, sometimes Blaise. I try to work with everybody for least a few days every few months, so we all know what the others are doing and can coordinate in an emergency, but mostly I stick with those three. More Barty than Rence lately, to be honest; Rence and Ginny are damn good together and Daphne works a lot with him too, when she's not partnering Blaise."

"But not Barty." Barty was the interesting anomaly in his wife's circle and Xanxus _still_ didn't have the full picture of how she'd come to trust him. Her having inherited him from her conquered foe was not enough to explain the man's place in her inner circle; if she had just wanted to keep him close there were dozens of other ways she could have done it.

"Most of us can't keep up with Barty; bloody annoying lunatic genius," Blaise complained, joining the conversation and loosening the rapier at his hip. "Millie manages, as does Governess –and dear Merlin those two scare the _shit_ out of me when they're pointed in the same direction– but Dorea does it best. Although seeing my sister and her Thrall having a no-holds-barred throwdown is something I could sell tickets for. They're amazing and completely awe-inspiring."

Xanxus immediately turned to his wife, eyes hopeful. Seeing the full range of what she could do on her own would go a long way to quieting his lingering paranoia concerning her continued wellbeing.

"Maybe after the regular sparring round, if we've not injured or exhausted ourselves by then," Dorea agreed easily. "I'm not going to be sparring against you two since Theo would just throw the match in my favour, but you're not going to be short on opponents."

Good. He wanted to see how his wife's people held up in the field and the only person he'd tested so far was Knight, which had been informal and very restrained on both sides; enough for Xanxus to be confident that the Lightning knew what he was doing and could be trusted, but no more than that.

"So, ready?" Fool asked, bouncing over. "Croc and I are pairing up today."

Blaise patted Xanxus on the shoulder. "Try to avoid getting ninja'd," his brother-in-law recommended before stepping back into the viewing area. The room cleared quickly, leaving only Governess, Fool, Poet and himself in the combat area.

Xanxus then felt Poet pressing gently and politely against the edge of his mind and nudged back, pushing his initial observations and intentions over at his new combat partner. The information package he got back was just small enough to be easily processed and told him a lot about the very different styles favoured by each of their opponents. Oh, this was going to be _interesting_.

A no-holds-barred spar against a ninja-trained Sun and a Cloud with a fondness for Dr Frankenstein-style constructs; the shark was going to be _pissed_ that he'd missed this.


	162. Chapter 162

Beta'd by the belligerent Insane Scriptist.

Horror warning in this chapter: here be animated animal corpses.

* * *

**Of battle and subtext **

It was Theo who started the fight: the Mist cleanly split himself into three copies, all completely indistinguishable from each-other. One of the clones charged Odile head-on, sword drawn and poised to strike; another ran wide, attempting to flank Leo. The third remained at Xanxus' left elbow, sword held defensively. Dorea wasn't sure which of the copies was the real one, if any of them were –or maybe all of them were? Mist Flames were really _strange_ sometimes– so she settled in to watch the rapidly escalating spar from behind the sturdy Wards of the observation area.

Her husband, Dorea realised abruptly, was a very different kind of killer to what she was used to. She had learned more than just a little Vongola history while researching the mafia and her husband's place in it, and the Varia may have been referred to as the Vongola's 'Independent Assassination Division' but they weren't assassins as she understood them; they weren't people who specialised in being unassuming, unmemorable and ubiquitous as they quietly bumped off their targets. No, the Varia was a relic of the Second World War: they were as much saboteurs and front-line shock troops as they were silent killers, their presence as undetectable as their results were messy and implausible. They were the morale-killers, the nebulous 'they' in the phrase, 'it isn't paranoia if _they_ are out to get you' and were available for hire to every discerning underworld businessman with the money to pay their fees.

And her husband still commanded their respect and loyalty, even after so many years of absence.

Now she could see part of why: he was quick enough to catch Croc _and_ Leo off-balance, for one, and there wasn't a single superfluous _breath_ in his fighting style. It was full-on, all-out, keep-up-or-die for every single instant of the engagement and it was _beautiful_.

Lunge-dodge-duck-spin-catch-snap –dart past one of the Theos– sidestep-lunge-twist-step-throw –Leo somersaulting backwards to avoid the broken length of Croc's chain-whip launched at his centre of mass in a whirling spin– turn-kick-slash-catch-twist-pull-step-stab-turn-duck –under a barrage of paper throwing stars–pull-twist-_laugh_-step-_burn_…

* * *

Blaise briefly glanced sideways at his sister's rapt expression, eyes bright and lips parted, then back at the fight. His brother-in-law had kicked off at full speed, somehow snapping off part of Croc's chain-whip and hurling it at Leo, then using a knife to catch another section of the whip, get in close and do his level best to set the Cloud on fire. On _actual_ fire, rather than just attempting to immolate her with Soulfire; Zabini Fire could be augmented –consciously or otherwise– with Soulfire, but at its most fundamental it _wasn't_ Soulfire. It was simply _heat_, the raw, limitless energy born from the deep earth which melted stone like butter. An inheritance from the Palikoi who had, according to Family legends, swum in the lava pools and channels of their mother's home and namesake, Etna.

He himself was actually very bad at using it, only able to call on it at _all_ when augmenting with Soulfire, but his brother-in-law clearly had no such issues. As demonstrated by the fiery halo around Xanxus' hand where the air was ionising and the melted ends of the chain-whip that he had just mutilated _again_, with the unattached section flying across the room and hitting the far wall.

Croc retreated at speed, abandoning her forshortened weapon entirely and snapping her fingers with every step. Each snap made one of the summoning runes on her bracer glow briefly; Odile was stepping up her game. Two of the Theos were chasing Leo back and forth, dodging a range of improvised projectiles and keeping him from backing up his battle partner. The third Theo was now back-to-back with Xanxus, fending off stray origami and ballistic pencils with his sword so the younger man could keep his focus on the Cloud.

Then there were three very different dogs with faintly luminous agate eyes between Croc and Xanxus, all massive mutts of indeterminate origin and none of them moving quite right. Real dogs were heavier on their paws; they weren't cats and shouldn't _slink_.

They also weren't breathing, but that was a slightly different issue; Croc's simulacra weren't alive, so didn't actually need to breathe except to vocalise, which was reserved for non-lethal situations. Yes they were made of preserved flesh and bone a lot of the time, but that didn't make them alive as they were powered by magic. Runes, generally, so air was superfluous. As were lungs, in fact; Blaise knew far more about Croc's craft than he was entirely comfortable with, partly because it gave a wizard thoughts like 'this would be so much easier with puppets rather than people' when arguing with bureaucrats.

Croc had no trouble whatsoever classifying her creations as things rather than creatures, but it was a bit more challenging for people who hadn't been involved in the construction phase, since Croc made an effort to ensure the simulacra she had fashioned were almost indistinguishable from living beings. For neatness' sake apparently, but Blaise thought it was pure professional pride.

The way his brother-in-law was eyeing the simulacra, he was perfectly aware they were non-living constructs. However Blaise really, seriously doubted Croc would bother fielding anything that _wasn't_ warded against Zabini Fire when facing his sister's husband, so this was probably going to get interesting in short order.

* * *

It is one thing to be told that the person you are sparring against regularly turns animal carcasses into combat puppets, but it is something else _entirely_ to see a trio of dead dogs unfold upwards like something out of a horror movie, revealing naked muscle, etched ceramic plating and mantis-like arms lined with bone teeth that move like chainsaw blades, the head re-angling on the top of the spine with a series of metallic clicks so that the eyes are still looking in your direction.

That Xanxus' first thought was _Kuchisake will love her_ was fully justified; the loudly creepy Mist he remembered as an up-and-coming recruit, but the paperwork named as current Mist Squad Leader and retired GM, was an unrepentant horror fanatic.

Then he had to dodge because the walking abominations were not just fast but annoyingly Flameproof and Crocodile –definitely the appropriate epithet right now– was taking advantage of having meat-shields to fire a barrage of brightly-coloured spells at him. A Theo slid past him, broadsword wielded one-handedly as his free hand answered magic with magic. Xanxus turned, blocked a barrage of pencils with a blast of Wrath Flames and turned his focus onto Fool, who had somehow managed to murder one of the Theos opposing him. Xanxus still didn't know which one was the real one, but the extrasensory awareness of his surroundings being provided by the Mist was damn useful beyond that minor blind spot.

He could tell already that he probably wasn't going to win this –he knew jack shit about casting spells and had zero practice in pairing magic with Flames, unlike his opponents who were making it look _easy_, Crocodile especially who was using Flames to turn each spell into a nigh-inescapable barrage– but Xanxus wasn't just going to give up. Not when he was learning so much about his wife's Guardians and the possibilities offered by pairing Flames with magic.

Give him a year to learn the ropes and it would be a different story altogether, but until then he just had to endure for as long as he could, pay keen attention and do his best to not get caught out.

* * *

Half an hour of pitched battle interspersed with slow, circling stand-offs later Xanxus woke up with a start to Poet's apologetic face and realised he didn't even know _how_ he'd been taken out.

"What?" He demanded.

The Mist moved one hand in a rather theatrical manner; getting to his feet, Xanxus followed the gesture to Fool, who was helping Crocodile collect together the dismembered remains of two of her constructs and clear them out of the sparring area. Clearly he hadn't been out for many seconds if they were only just starting on the clearing up.

"How?"

The Mist reached out slowly and touched a finger to Xanxus' temple, conveying a somewhat complex memory-impression; Poet's own memory of the instant the Varia Boss had collapsed and the Mist's subsequent check on his bodily health, including brain activity.

Wait… he knew what that specific little collection of symptoms was. "Narcolepsy?" The Sky demanded incredulously, half-disturbed that one of the first things this Mist did in a medical emergency was to check what his brain was doing. Who did that and why?

Theo shrugged; it was an 'if you say so' kind of shrug. The Mist was clearly unfamiliar with both the word and the condition. Xanxus only knew about it due to a now-dead Varia Mist –one he'd killed himself shortly after becoming Boss– who had possessed a nasty little habit of Cursing fellow Varia he didn't like with it so they 'accidentally' died on missions.

That it was possible to induce a single narcoleptic episode with Sun Flames made perfect sense; Xanxus had just never considered it before. "Fool specialises in neurochemistry?"

Poet inclined his head; yes Fool did. Okay, his wife's cousin was utterly terrifying to be able to do that _remotely_ –he'd figure out how Fool did that later if nobody was prepared to tell him– and that he obviously preferred to make everybody think he was an acrobat and generalist suddenly made a whole lot of sense. Partly because Fool was a peppy friendly guy who actually _liked_ talking to people, even when the people were Dumb, but mostly because under the cheer and energy was a ruthless, devious little shit who had very few lines he wasn't willing to cross for his Sky.

Xanxus approved.

Crocodile on the other hand was a rigid and principled perfectionist who held herself to a very high standard, looking down on those who failed to do likewise. By not being there for Dorea Xanxus had clearly made a very poor first impression _in absentia_, which he would have to claw back as quickly and emphatically as possible. Those strict, immovable standards were what made her an excellent tutor for his children –Governess would _never_ allow her disdain for him to be visible to her charges or affect her treatment of them– and such a brilliant and unconventional combatant.

He still didn't like her much, but he could recognise her Quality. Especially after she'd made a point of insulting him fluently in ten languages when he managed to disarm –literally– one of her war dogs and not just one of the Cloud-duplicates that had lacked finesse and thorough magical protection; good for swarm tactics and commanding them didn't keep Odile from being a threat all by herself, either with wand or conjured weapon once a magical barrage had provided her with breathing room, like when he'd pressed her hard after destroying her second puppet.

Odile very clearly was _never_ going to let go of his wife, which was a good thing even though she was equally clearly going to be making his life awkward for as long as she disapproved of him. Joy.

Turning away from the Cloud and Sun, Xanxus headed across to where his wife and the rest of her Guardians were watching, the next two pairs already standing slightly outside the protected viewing area and warming up, complete with teasing banter from the spectators. Lawyer was checking her ammunition and Executioner was running through a slow set of moves with her axe, while Troubleshooter and Knight were talking quietly off to one side, gesturing every now and then and using words Xanxus had never heard before. What was 'wiggentree' when it was at home, or a 'shrake' for that matter?

Both questions were however set aside when he noticed how his wife was looking at him.

* * *

Dorea was enjoying the thrill of how she was currently feeling too much to attempt to quantify it. It was new, it was amazing, it was better than the wonder of watching a dance recital with a performer who was perfectly on the beat and genuinely feeling the emotions they were acting out, more thrilling than the death-defying beauty of a griffin courtship flight and it made her blood sing.

It was still lingering too, even though the fight had ended the moment her husband passed out; paired spars ended when one person was incapacitated, because at that point it was no longer a pair fighting but the remaining individual so the pair had lost. Watching her husband stroll back over to where she was standing –his pause as he met her eyes before crossing into the viewing area– was enjoyable in itself, but as a chaser to the fight it was _perfect_.

Smiling slightly as Xanxus came to a stop at her side and casually wrapped an arm around her waist, Dorea leant into him slightly as across the room Leo and Odile finished clearing away the bits of simulacrum and Rence, Ginny, Millie and Hermione wandered out into the centre of the room.

"Change in venue?" Ginny asked, twirling one of her axes.

Rence shrugged, as did Millie. Hermione smiled a little slyly and nodded, turning to catch Blaise's eye.

"Go for it."

"Rhea, preferences?" Blaise asked her, elbowing her gently in the side. Dorea tried to think. They were doing this because Xanxus needed to see how her guardians fought. He hadn't quite articulated it like that, but she wanted him to know and respect her Guardians' skills and trust them with her welfare; her husband had been intent on learning about and understanding the security protecting her home and this tied into that. She also wanted to show off some of the special features that had been incorporated when they built the house, things which went beyond defence and were as much about having fun as about training. Which of the sparring room's set environments would best showcase the skills of those currently poised to fight? Which would be the most challenging, considering what she knew of _how_ they fought?

"The cellar," she managed after a slightly too-long pause.

Blaise nodded, turned and moved over to the wall right beside the door they'd just come through, where he started tapping bricks.

There was a short pause, then a grinding crunch as pillars rose from the ground and a vaulted roof descended from above, the corners of the vaults landing on the tops of the rising pillars barely eight feet above the floor. The space above the newly-imposed floor contained a second set of pillars, differently arranged but also supporting a separate vaulted ceiling, all visible from the viewing area and projected onto the shielding.

"Not an illusion," Xanxus commented quietly from beside her.

"It's more effective practicing in a real environment; that way you can weaponise your surroundings like you would in a real fight," Dorea said absently, most of her attention on the warm feeling of her husband's side pressed against hers. She'd seen these four fight so many times by now she knew what was likely to happen and the setting she'd chosen ensured that it was going to be _very_ dramatic.

Lightnings tended to smash things when they weren't paying attention to their surroundings and both Storms and Clouds were highly destructive entirely on purpose; in this vaulted cellar taking out too many pillars would bring the roof down, along with the entire upper hall. All four fighters on the field _knew_ this, so how they played it would be interesting.

Rence and Ginny had never fought Millie and Hermione in this specific setting before, so it would be new and informative all around. Although she was probably going to struggle to pay attention; her husband was _very_ distracting, breathing a little more heavily than usual and his heart rate still slightly elevated from the circle-and-strike fight he'd just finished.

* * *

Xanxus was enjoying every second of his wife's lingering attention despite keeping his eyes fixed on the fight developing in the newly changed sparring area. It was an odd emotional cocktail, but that just made him all the more fascinated by Dorea and all the keener to find out more about how she thought.

Aesthetic appreciation was an odd emotion, even when not so intense to almost qualify as a religious experience. That it was all tangled up in recognition, understanding and the humming intensity that had last shown up while she was having her friendly spar against the shark… Xanxus' wife hadn't just liked how he _looked _sparring, she had the experience and skill to appreciate the power and control he'd shown and had the intelligence to follow his tactics. All of which had fed into her aesthetic appreciation and meant she was now broadcasting along the marriage bond a sensation not entirely unlike a morphine high.

It wasn't sexual, but if he put in just a little effort Xanxus knew he could change that very quickly. But he wasn't going to do that just yet; he wanted to watch the fight… and now he knew how _very_ much his wife had enjoyed the show, he wanted to put on a better show in his next spar. In which he'd be fighting one of the two pairs currently in the ring.

Wrapping his arm more snugly round his wife's waist, Xanxus watched the fight unfold.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Xanxus was gazing pensively at the rubble, wreckage and floating dust and pondering whether his wife would let him borrow Troubleshooter and Lawyer for when the old fart inevitably summoned him to the Iron Fort like a wayward dog. It would be glorious: Lawyer could do her level best to utterly obliterate the senile fool's ego with razor-edged scorn while terrifying him into having a heart attack, and Troubleshooter could cut Coyote down to size while commenting disparagingly on his intelligence and combat prowess. He could just lean against the wall and watch; Squalo would probably enjoy it too and deserved a bit of free revenge for having to deal with the old fart and all the shitty politics for the past six years.

Really though, the physical fighting had been dramatic and destructive but the banter had been _brutal_. Precisely chosen to offend, infuriate and distract, all sharp edges and toxic jabs. Xanxus honestly didn't think he'd have been able to keep his cool if he'd had to spar in the face of such painfully accurate verbal abuse without prior warning and was uncomfortably grateful that Crocodile considered such tactics beneath her.

Varia spars did not usually involve much banter, and when they did it was generally of the silly sort like his wife's match with the shark. Assassins didn't usually weaponise words; it wasn't immediately lethal so why bother? Yes, openings could be found or made that way, but it wasn't as valued as the skills it took to win a fight without resorting to such.

Except that, when running a massive Mafia Family or equivalent, it made excellent sense to have people on staff who could reduce your enemies to sobbing shells of themselves with a few well-chosen words. Hell, _Xanxus_ was perfectly capable of permanently traumatising people with nothing more than words, tone and body language, but that wasn't quite as versatile as the skills the Cloud and Storm had shown. Some of the comments were patronising and some he could tell had genuinely cut deep, despite this being a spar; he wondered on the reasoning behind that, although Lawyer and Troubleshooter certainly hadn't limited themselves to verbal assault…

And that wasn't even touching on the Lightnings.

Xanxus wanted his wife's Lightnings; surely she didn't need _all_ of them? From Knight's constructs that looked like they'd been lifted straight out of a _Green Lantern_ comic to Executioner's ingenious and unconventional application of Flames for stealth and misdirection, Xanxus had seen more original Lightning techniques in the past fifteen minutes than in the rest of his _life_.

Which was so fucking _sad_ it wasn't funny, considering that he'd expanded his understanding of what Flames could be used for by a factor of about six within a fortnight of becoming Varia Boss; _two people_ in _fifteen minutes_ had shown more variety and skill than the _entirety_ of the Varia's Lightning Division had in four months. That was _pathetic_.

His wife knew more Lightnings; she had skimmed the best people off the top of her entire generation and the matron of honour and at least sixteen guests at the wedding had been Active Lightnings. _Surely_ at least one of those was interested in spending a few years killing people for money and investing in the next generation? If nothing else he could see if one or two were willing to teach the Division a few tricks; some variety –and the awareness of further possibilities– was better than nothing at all.

It wouldn't hurt to ask; the worst that could happen was them saying no. He had his own country now, he could ask people how they felt about a career in homicide and not get arrested because he had his own army and armies were made of people who killed other people on orders for money.

Fingers poking at his side brought his attention back to his wife. "Hm?"

"Let go of me, it's my turn," Dorea said, eyes still dark and bright and her smile slightly fey.

Xanxus let go, wary of the odd turn her emotions had just taken. It didn't feel _bad_, but… oh, he _recognised_ this mood. This was 'I have a wonderful idea for a joke' with all the nuances characteristic of 'highly amused Rain'. The Varia Boss knew all about Rainy senses of humour: Maria-Chiara was a Rain, Erica was a Rain, Squalo was a Rain; fuck, even Tyrant was Rainy and Xanxus had experience with _all_ of them –admittedly only once in Tyrant's case– deciding that it was the perfect moment for some humour.

Rain-humour was _abysmal_. But hilarious. Provided you weren't the target. And thought terrible, terrible puns and psychological warfare were amusing. Which Xanxus did.

Xanxus suspected it said something unfortunate about his own sense of humour that he thought the shark was _hysterical_ when he really got going, which sadly was not very often. If his wife had a similar sense of humour to his Rain Officer though… ooh. Fun. Really, so _much_ fun. Heh.

He knew he was grinning as his wife sauntered lightly out onto the field, Barty right behind her, and he didn't bother to smother it; it wasn't like anybody here cared. True, Blaise and Steward did both glance at him sidelong as they followed his wife out into the now clear and clean sparring area, but neither seemed remotely intimidated… although Blaise did look somewhat wary.

"Field change?" Dorea asked brightly as her Storm and Rain Guardians paused well across the room from her and Barty. Blaise and Steward exchanged looks.

"Sure."

"Fool, pick something," Dorea said, flexing her fingers and bouncing on her toes. Xanxus noticed with interest the sudden apprehension that danced across Steward's face and the way his brother-in-law's shoulders sagged in resignation. They were _both_ expecting to be unpleasantly surprised by their Sky.

Xanxus had seen those looks on his Officers' faces a time or three. Or five or eight or twelve even, depending on the Officer. It was nice to find more common ground with his wife.

"Coming up in three, two, one!" Leo carolled brightly from behind Xanxus. A second later the Varia Boss was blinking at the _vast_ chasm that had opened up inches from his toes; Dorea and Barty were a distant splodge at the bottom while Blaise and Steward were perched on an outcrop off to the right, a steep, twisting staircase down into the crevasse carved into the edge of their perch and down the wall behind them.

That the Rain and Storm's response to being at _least_ half a mile from their opponents was to instantly start calling up as much power as possible and begin weaving defences said a lot about his wife, all of it very reassuring.

Then there was a loud reptilian shriek and suddenly nothing made sense.

* * *

Blaise did not trust his sister's smile; that was a _terrible_ smile to see across the battlefield, even if this was only a spar. That was barely a step down from Luna's 'I wonder what will happen if I do this' smile and several long strides further into deliberately inflicted discomfort than the dreamy Mist usually bothered with.

The Rain was always very sure his sister was much less human than she appeared when she smiled like that; it was far too playful.

Then Leo changed the field, he caught Daphne's eye and they shared an instant of terrible foreboding. Drawing his sword and trying desperately to call on one of his larger Elementals as quickly as possible, Blaise hoped they'd have the time–

A wyvern screeched and suddenly the gaping void in front of their tiny platform was full of beaked, toothy maw wide open in threat, quivering spike-edged frills bristling threateningly around short horns and scaly jawline as further back leathery wings beat thunderously and Blaise barely had a moment to think _oh SHIT_ before they were engulfed by a chokingly thick cloud of sulphurous gases. Eyes watering, Blaise shifted to summoning up a smaller Elemental and wrapping it around his face. The water would filter out the toxins, so he could breathe properly again. He breathed in–

–and then he was flying, his ribs burning from the blow he'd not seen coming and hey that was a _long_ way down–

–and right now Blaise was so very grateful that he was a Rain, because yes it was in fact possible to Tranquilise air to the point you could stand on it, so long as there were relatively solid things in your general vicinity for you to anchor yourself on. Such as stone cliffs. So here he was, standing on apparently-nothing-but-Flames and trying to breathe past bruised ribs.

The roiling cloud of noxious gasses was quite a distance away now but it was dissipating, the fading plumes of white and yellow lit by flashing spellfire. Oh. He'd abandoned poor Dee to face Barty and Dorea by herself. Blaise winced, considered the distance and started calling up an Elemental large enough to actually ride.

Despite the summoning taking barely six seconds, he was already too late.

* * *

"You turned into a _dragon_." Xanxus had seen it but he _still_ couldn't believe it.

"Wyvern," Dorea corrected him, impish smile still firmly in place. "Dragons have three pairs of limbs, one upper pair of which are wings; wyverns have only two pairs of limbs, the upper pair of which are wings. Oh, and wyverns only breathe fire by accident, when the gas cocktail they expel reacts with the air."

"You turned into a fucking thirty-metre _flying lizard_," Xanxus stressed, "and you fucking _flew_." Straight up the crevasse with Barty perched between her shoulder-blades and hanging on to her horns; that was definitely something they'd practiced. Barty hadn't hesitated to climb on after all and he hadn't fallen off either.

Dorea's smile widened slightly. "I did," she agreed.

"Can you turn into anything else?" This was looking suspiciously like Greek mythology again and Xanxus wanted to be prepared. Magic featured in all manner of myths and stories he was already familiar with, built into their world, so shape-changing was very 'in-character' from that point of view.

His wife's smile widened further, glee dancing across the marriage bond. That was an answer in itself.

"I hate you," Blaise gritted out, stumbling up to them and glaring at Dorea. "I hate the mockery you have made of modern transfiguration theory and that you insist on being _right_ all the time!"

"I did offer you the books, Zee," Dorea said ever so mildly, eyelashes fluttering innocently.

"I hate self-transfiguration and I'm crap at it," the Rain said bluntly. "The books on herbology, ambient magic and the effects of celestial bodies on ritual magic were far more interesting."

"Well, if you don't _want_ to learn," Xanxus' wife pointed out leadingly.

Blaise snorted. "I know better than to think I could be as good as you are at _that_," he said witheringly. "But now I know you can _do_ that, I can plan around it." He sighed plaintively. "But why _wyverns_, sister?"

"I like wyverns," Dorea said innocently. "They don't mind me getting close enough to take a good long look at how their anatomy works."

"I thought you were avoiding the wyverns," Xanxus pointed out dryly. She _had_ said as much shortly after he woke up, after all. Something she was doing to not worry her Zabini in-laws. His relatives. Maybe he'd stop thinking of them as her in-laws once he adjusted to the idea of _having_ relatives and got to know them better.

"I am _now_," his wife agreed, "but back when we were first building the house I had to negotiate with them, which involved a lot of close contact. Did you know that wyverns purr when you scratch them behind the horns?"

Blaise threw up his arms and promptly winced, lowering them again. "Sister, I despair of you," he said dramatically. "Brother-in-law, you have my commiserations." He stalked off to where the newly-arrived Matron was looking over Steward, who had made a very good showing for somebody who had been gassed, outnumbered and overwhelmed in under a minute.

Setting up the sparring matches had clearly been an excellent idea and Xanxus was rather looking forward to seeing what else his wife was capable of. In the meantime however he had his next match coming up and he needed to prove to his wife that he was no less capable than she was, even if he couldn't turn into an actual dragon.

Yet.


	163. Chapter 163

Beta'd by the devious Insane Scriptist.

So it turns out the chapter I thought was next isn't, because Muse wants a different chapter to happen first. I am still working on that chapter with the aid of my overworked and longsuffering beta, the magnificant Insane Scriptist, so tomorrow's chapter may be up late. Or on Sunday. But at least this means I have a head start on the next set of updates!

* * *

**Of dates and dependants **

Xanxus had done a preliminary read-through of the Zabini material on Sunday evening, followed by a second, slower and more considered perusal on Monday afternoon. He'd _planned_ on doing his second read-through late on Monday morning, after sparring and before lunch, except that the last spar of the morning had been Dorea against Barty and after watching twenty minutes of his wife casually evading dismemberment by a hair's-breadth and throwing Flames and magic around with flare, precision and homicidal delight, Xanxus had not been able to keep his hands off her come the end of the fight. Dorea hadn't minded at all and they'd ended up being so late for lunch they wound up eating privately. Xanxus regretted nothing; totally worth throwing off their schedules for. His wife hadn't complained either.

So the first half of what was left of Monday afternoon had been spent lounging on his very comfortable sofa, his wife's legs across his lap, reading through the military summaries out loud and taking notes of points he wanted to raise, along with questions he wanted to ask. He did the reading aloud partly so Dorea could comment –she had been running the country for him after all and likely knew a lot of this already– but also so she could help him out with the unfamiliar words; the summary was in _Sabine_, not Italian, there was lots of specialised terminology and he was a long way from fluent still. Then, once that was out of the way, they'd moved to one of the music rooms so Dorea could play the piano while Xanxus got stuck into the Zabini herbal and took _more_ notes. Poet had shown up before Dorea even sat down at the piano, so the music had ended up being mainly piano-and-guitar duets. Xanxus had in fact recognised a lot of popular songs from the seventies and eighties, which meant the unfamiliar tunes were probably more recent rock and pop music. Some of them had certainly sounded very poppy and bland, which the vocals might have made up for except that nobody was singing.

His wife had hummed along to a few tunes, but Poet hadn't uttered a single word; Xanxus assumed the Mist was taking full advantage of no longer _having_ to talk in order to maintain his cover and finding reassurance and control in his own silence. With how closely his wife and her Guardian were resonating as they played it was also entirely possible that Poet _was_ singing along to the music… in his and his Sky's heads. If so, whatever; Theo was a pleasantly respectful Mist despite being still mired in the midst of an emotional breakdown and if this helped, great. It wasn't like Xanxus was at all familiar with the psychological after-effects of being in deep cover as the Varia didn't bother with such, for all that they were saboteurs as much as they were assassins. There hadn't been a sabotage request in years, possibly not since before Tyrant retired.

It was unexpectedly restful, despite all the surprises and questions the herbal inspired. Sure, he knew that diet played a large part in health –see his own improved disposition and condition– but also important to continued good health was avoiding ingesting anything lethal. In the herbal there was all sorts of dosage information from the magical equivalent of effective and lethal doses, but there was a distinct lack of why or how in understanding how this caused that effect. Which meant while informative, it didn't mention the various metabolic pathways and non-human neurochemistry that had to be at work in order to metabolise what to humans was poison but wasn't to siren people. The exceptions were the heavy metals and several specific toxins, for all that the toxins were listed by the species they were obtained from rather than the specific enzymes and catalysts they affected._ Definitely_ going to get an extra copy for Varia Medical come Quiet Week…although he didn't want to volunteer for any experimentation. Surely a Mist could find out the exact information without doing anything too invasive if they wanted it?

* * *

Tuesday morning had Xanxus feeling nervous as he stood in the shower, which was just Dumb because all their 'date' involved was doing more of the same things that he was _already_ doing with his wife to get to know her better, just out of her house. Out of the house, in Sabina, which he was Heir to.

Fuck, this was an expectations thing, wasn't it? He was freaking out about being the _actual head_ of a Family he'd never met or even heard of until recently, because of those fucking _adequacy issues_ the old fart had dumped on him. His best had never been good enough for the old fart. Actually… considering the old fart had known he could never be Don Vongola right from day one, had all those Stupid standards he'd failed to meet ever been anything other than an attempt to get him to stop showing up the actual heirs?

Well, the old fart could go screw himself; Xanxus didn't give a shit about 'expectations' or 'behaviour appropriate for a prospective Boss'. He was going on a date with his wife so he was going to be himself and everybody else could suck up and deal. If they didn't like it, tough.

Feeling much better already, Xanxus stepped out of the shower and started drying off; he'd already decided that today he was going to wear one of the formal military uniforms –specifically the one that marked him as Commander of the Royal Guard– since he was visiting the walls and would be meeting some of said military.

Of course, since the Sabine military still used a lot of Latin terminology, his actual proper _title_ used by the Royal Guard wasn't actually 'commander' but 'imperator'. Which was legitimately hilarious and utterly surreal, but eh, whatever. He could deal. It was better than 'your highness' or 'your majesty', both of which reminded him far too much of Bel. _More_ hilarious was that the Royal Guard calling him that was actually a mark of familiarity, a privilege accorded them for being technically his _personal_ Guard, for all that they thankfully weren't trying to follow him around. The rest of the military called him 'princeps', short for _princeps mīlitum, _acknowledging him as the highest ranking military officer in Sabina.

It was actually a very nice uniform despite being bright white with lots of gold trim; he could even do a full Varia exercise routine in it without anything digging in or constricting. He'd checked. It wasn't nerves exactly, except that it also _was_ and that annoyed him more than having to repeat the damned pep-talk to himself. He wasn't a Boss here but a Prince, _the_ Prince, occupying an inherited position that did not expect him to make inoffensive first impressions or be _nice_ to spineless weasels who were nominal allies. Even just visiting the walls and meeting some of the Royal Guard would make a far better impression than his actual father had left in his decades of absence.

He was also going to wear the newer pair of boots which were identical to his comfortable boots, because they worked with the trousers and if he was going to dress up he may as well do it properly. He wasn't giving up his feathers though.

* * *

Dorea was actually slightly late to breakfast, but when she arrived Xanxus was struck dumb by what she was wearing and had to remind himself that it would be inconsiderate of him to cancel the date just because he really wanted to peel her _out_ of what she was wearing. He did want to take her out and do fun things with her in public. Honestly. He _did_.

But what _was_ it about that dress that was so utterly lethal to his composure? Was it the bustle? The multitude of pale pink silk frills making up the skirt which covered the bustle and draped almost to the ground, swaying with her every move? The soft, muted green of the jacket that was fitted in such a way that it made her waist look smaller and was longer at the front that at the back? The high double-breasted front of the jacket, the rows of buttons arranged in a vee shape to accentuate her bust? The pink frills at the jacket cuffs, half-hiding her hands? The way the colours of the outfit softened the paleness of her complexion, bringing out the faint golden tint of her skin?

Or maybe it wasn't the dress. Maybe it was the flower hair-piece she was wearing across the back of her hairdo, the one with the vine, peach blossom and chervil which _perfectly_ matched the colours of her dress. The flowers he had given her which meant 'I am truly your intoxicated captive' and that she was going to wear _out of the house_.

Xanxus had not until today really considered the possibility that his wife when dressed modestly from neck to ankle could test his self control more than when she was wearing a gauzy nightgown. It was definitely the hairpins making it worse, he decided hazily, trying to concentrate on his breakfast. The hairpins and his increasing familiarity with what his wife wore _under_ those kinds of dresses, because part of his brain was currently picturing Dorea in layered lacy petticoats that covered everything and hid nothing, those flowers still in her hair as she smiled, eyes sparkling from under lowered lashes.

Date. He was taking his wife out to visit Sabina, which she hadn't seen yet either. It had originally been going to be just the afternoon but there was a lot of the city walls to see, so they'd decided to make an entire day of it with a long break for dinner between the walls and the show. A long _private_ break.

His treacherous brain promptly supplied images of what he could do to and with his wife in a long private break.

Xanxus resisted the urge to bang his forehead on the breakfast table. It would not help. His wife was a wicked, teasing temptress and he'd be better at resisting her if she wasn't also completely and utterly _sincere_ in everything she did. She wasn't wearing those flowers because she thought it would be funny to tease him with them, she was wearing the flowers because she wanted to wear _these_ flowers while out on her date with him. Wanted people to _see_ _her_ wearing them.

Because she meant what they meant too; it wasn't just him.

Oh.

Crying was also _not_ something he should be doing over breakfast, even if they _were_ happy tears; terribly sappy and probably alarming to his kids if they saw them. He could cry on Dorea _later_, possibly while stripping her out of that dress and kissing every inch of skin as it was revealed. Well hopefully he wouldn't _actually_ cry on her, as that would be counterproductive to getting his wife out of that dress, but he could certainly let his emotions loose a little. That was a dress for walking around outdoors, so she was going to change for dinner anyway, right? He was sure she wouldn't mind him helping her.

Compartmentalising as firmly as he could manage, Xanxus diverted his attention back to his breakfast and his children.

* * *

Dorea's primary pleasure on the first half of their date was _not_ being the centre of attention. It was something she didn't get much of; at home her Guardians and Shadows were always aware of her on some level or other and when out in public in Britain –or on those various occasions she'd been involved in foreign relations during her dictatorship– she had always been closely scrutinised. But here in Sabina, surrounded by the Royal Guard, everybody was watching her husband, not her. Oh she was getting looked at –some of the glances were very admiring and appreciative– but she wasn't the person they were primarily interested in.

Xanxus was taking the scrutiny very well; better than she had at sixteen, to be honest. Admittedly at sixteen Dorea had been juggling newborn twins, recent bereavement and a barely-functional government, but Xanxus was not in so vastly different a position: he'd just learned of a number of deaths, was trying to adjust to fatherhood and deal with both his previous command _and_ his family responsibilities. There were some similarities, but just as many differences.

Still it was very nice to be able to hang onto her husband's arm, watch him listen to the captain showing them the section of the walls he was responsible for, enjoy the view and smile at the soldiers manning their posts at regular intervals and doing their best to ignore the royal party walking past them. Or at least trying to _look_ like they were ignoring the royal party, which some of the younger guardsmen were struggling with.

It was a sunny day, there was a cool breeze, the views of both the city and its environs were stunning and her husband had set a comfortably brisk pace which neither she nor Captain Vitellisà were having any trouble with. Dorea could cheerfully do this for _hours_.

Sensing a twinge of dissonance from Xanxus at something the captain had said –something to do with conscription ages– Dorea slid briefly closer to her husband so that their shoulders touched. Xanxus didn't look at her or pause at all in his discussion, but his right hand reached across and stroked the top of her own gloved hand nestled in the crook of his left elbow.

Reassured that her husband knew he had her support no matter what the problem, Dorea drifted half a step away again and went back to admiring the view. Soon the captain would leave them to their own devices, just as the previous captain had, and she and her husband would have half an hour to themselves to talk in as they walked towards the next watchtower.

* * *

Sabina's military had a rather interesting set-up. There were several full-time branches –the Royal Guard, the City Guard who were technically the police but counted as military because they answered to him and were armed, and a few others– but the rest operated on a rotating part-time schedule. In that a person who signed up to join the military aged anywhere between seventeen and thirty would get assigned to a unit, go through six months of training then spend eighteen months 'on duty' followed by two years as a reserve, doing a civilian job but attending regular training days to stay fit and up to speed, then yet another year on duty followed by two years in reserve. This continued until the person had completed their twenty years of service –unless of course there was a military campaign and they all got called up– after which they were no longer required to attend training days or perform active service, but could still get called in to supervise training days and lead specialist sessions for the younger members of their unit throughout the next five years. After twenty-five years a soldier was retired and could accept either a regular pension or a lump sum upon retiring. A retired soldier could reenlist if they were younger than forty-five, but only for specialist positions. Reenlistment also meant no longer getting a pension.

Those in the full-time branches of the military only served for sixteen years, as opposed to the twenty-five years in the part-time branches. They were therefore far more likely to sign on again, sometimes without ever actually retiring. Due to the shorter service period veterans in their second term of service were not limited to specialist positions; however anybody trying for a _third_ term of service _was_.

If a regular part-time soldier had done well enough during their years of service to get promoted to officer then there was a good chance that before the end of their twenty years they'd get offered a full-time job _leading_ their unit at some level. High-ranking officers did not have to re-enlist after their twenty-five year stint ended, since becoming a commissioned officer involved a year's extra training and a whole new contract which made the original 'serve for twenty-five years' one moot: once you were a commissioned officer you remained one until you either retired –which you could at any time– died in service, were retired due to injury or got kicked out by your own senior officers for whatever reason. 'Whatever reason' included things like 'exploiting subordinates', 'taking bribes' and also 'royal decree', which was basically 'because the Principe says so'.

Xanxus rather liked the fact that he could fire _anybody_ in the military chain of command without having to make up some silly excuse, because changes in regime meant some people who were perfectly capable and reasonable individuals just _did not work_ in their position anymore due to personality clashes. That he could just order people to retire made it all _so_ much easier; it meant he could get rid of aging and rigid generals or advisors without having to dig up or fabricate some scandal or other. He wasn't yet familiar enough with Sabina's culture to know what would count as a retirement-worthy scandal, much less which scandal would be most believable for which person, as different people had different vices and he didn't even know the _names_ for all the various military officials working for him, some of whom had probably been in their current position before he was even conceived.

Considering his pathetic father hadn't done any actual hands-on governance in almost _forty years_, Xanxus was probably going to have to do a good clear-out of the upper military levels so the younger up-and-coming officers could have a chance to show their mettle. That as Prince he was allowed –expected even– to just tell people to retire on a personal whim made it so much simpler, as there'd be fewer grudges and less backlash from the people getting told to retire. All retired military personnel got a decent pension and getting kicked out by royal decree counted as 'retirement' not 'dishonourable discharge' unless the monarch specifically said otherwise –and it was preferred that there be proof and an eventual charge in the law courts– so there wasn't any stigma attached. He could be diplomatic about his clean-up there and intended to do it slowly: there was no reason to antagonise somebody who had performed years of service without him having a significant motive, personal or otherwise. Plus he'd much rather get rid of the worst of the lot _first_, which meant he had to take the time to figure out which ones those were.

None of that was giving Xanxus any trouble; his issue was with the conscription laws. Specifically the bit where 'any person over fourteen years of age and younger than forty, who has been caught committing petty crimes four times within a two week period, will be conscripted into the military'. Conscripted soldiers were full-time soldiers, although they only had to serve for six years at the most, and the ones who were minors automatically became wards of the crown upon conscription. The law applied both to wizards and people who couldn't use magic, as the army recruited more or less equally regardless of a person's ability to wield a wand.

While Xanxus was dead certain that quite a few minors _deliberately_ got caught committing petty crimes so as to get away from difficult family situations and earn a steady wage, he _still_ didn't like the fact that this meant he had barely-trained teenagers working for him. The Varia was different: you had to be Quality to get into the Varia and any teenager who had Quality was very definitely _not_ wet behind the ears. Hell, Bel had joined aged _eight_ but he'd still killed off Triton, Tyr's Storm Officer, on his first _day_ which had definitely been a show of Quality. Of course Quality wasn't everything, which was why Xanxus had assigned Tyrant to teaching Bel all the _other_ things a Varia Officer –and more pragmatically any member of the Vongola Family– needed to know, but his Storm was no less Quality for that. Some of the teenagers he'd seen today on the other hand… not Quality. Not even skilled enough to qualify as Apprentices. Just petty criminals, tossed into the military because they got caught.

It worked. It very clearly also worked to keep the homeless population down –they weren't homeless for so much as a month and got guaranteed work for six years as well as training suitable for other jobs for once their stint was up– and seriously discouraged idiots from committing crimes for the hell of it. Conscription was even a sentence the courts could hand out, one which they were apparently fond of for Stupid young men who thought the rules didn't apply to them. Quite a few heirs to well-off families likely found themselves working their way up from the bottom of the military hierarchy every year, which was probably educational and ensured they were surrounded by people happy to demonstrate the power of consequences at every possible opportunity.

Xanxus still didn't like it much, which was probably cultural and something he would have to unravel for himself at a later date. He just didn't like the idea of conscription, even though the paperwork made it clear that in _practice_, the people who were obviously unsuited to actual field combat and heavy exercise were quickly shunted into specialist positions or desk-work. It worked, but it bothered him. He didn't know why it did.

Definitely something to examine in greater detail later; in the meantime they'd seen a decent section of the walls, there was dinner coming up and he needed to find out if his wife was willing to let him help her change out of her current outfit.

* * *

"Wife."

"Mm?" Dorea glanced across at her husband, who had just let Theo take his cloak. Another Theo was relieving her of her hat and gloves; she hadn't brought any ladies-in-waiting with her on the basis that magic made it perfectly possible for her to dress herself, even in fussy gowns with hooks down the back and difficult corsetry. In fact Theo was the only person who'd come along on the date with her and Xanxus; he could provide musical accompaniment for the meal, didn't mind kicking about on his own in the very quiet and isolated little villa they were eating in and was excellent last-ditch security all by himself, being a capable wizard and a Mist besides.

"I'd like to help you change," her husband said in Italian, his eyes darting across her dress, up at her face then over at the wall. Both Theos promptly made themselves scarce; Dorea paused.

Her husband wanted to 'help her change'; read, wanted to undress her completely then dress her again, possibly with a break in between for sex. Actually, make that _definitely_ with a break in the middle for sex; she could feel that much through the marriage bond, even with Xanxus trying to manage his emotions in an attempt not to pressure her. Her husband was so sweet sometimes that it almost hurt.

Letting someone undress you was a very different kind of intimacy to having sex with them, and in some ways Dorea felt more vulnerable when being undressed than when wearing a lacy nightgown; something she'd learned from having ladies-in-waiting. The nightgown was a choice, but being undressed was being _between_ choices.

Which reminded Dorea that her husband hadn't actually seen her naked since their wedding night. He'd seen her in sheer and lacy nightgowns, had shoved up skirts and loosened bodices for better access to her skin but had not actually seen her entirely unadorned.

Right now, the idea of showing her husband how to undress her and being stripped naked by him filled her with a thrill that held an edge of anticipatory uncertainty. She wanted to watch his face as he undid every hook and button, wanted to feel his hands on her and his reactions to seeing her shedding layers until she was in nothing but her own skin.

Xanxus wasn't looking at the wall anymore; he was looking her right in the eye from across the small atrium, his hands fiddling with the short and decidedly _not_ ornamental sword he'd been wearing as part of his uniform. The pristine white uniform with its gold ornamentation that made his skin seem darker, his eyes redder and looked far too good for her peace of mind; even just the way the jacket shifted slightly across his shoulders as he walked was tempting. The idea of him undressing her and looking like _that_… mm. Yes.

"Do you want me to teach you the spells for undoing clothing as well?" She asked, keeping to Italian. The slight cording in her husband's neck as he let go of the sword and crossed the atrium to take both her hands in his told her just as much as the almost painfully intense surge of raw emotion that flashed across the marriage bond.

"Maybe another time," Xanxus murmured little thickly, touching his forehead to hers and gently pushing her backwards towards –and through– the side door leading to the room where she'd put the various outfits she intended to wear today.

"Another time," Dorea agreed, tilting her face up for a kiss as her husband closed the door firmly behind them with his booted foot.

* * *

Translations

Princeps mīlitum = 'first of the soldiers'; head of the army (Latin)

Triton = newt (French)


End file.
